Cell biology journal conceptualizes science papers’ content with multimedia for a combined print and online experience

Strictly speaking this isn’t visualizing data and scientific information (which I’ve mentioned before)  so much as it is augmenting it. The biology journal Cell  is now including online multimedia components that can be accessed only by a QR code in the journal’s  hardcopy version. From the May 26, 2011 news item on physorg.com,

On May 27th the top cell biology journal, Cell, will publish its latest issue with multimedia components directly attached to the print version. The issue uses QR code technology to connect readers to the journal’s multimedia formats online thereby improving the conceptualization of a paper’s scientific content and enhancing the reader’s overall experience.

Readers of the hardcopy issue who take advantage of the code will experience an author-narrated walk through a paper’s figures. In all, the issue will use QR codes to include seventeen “hidden treasures” for readers to discover. Readers can simply scan the QR codes with a smart phone or tablet to uncover animated figures, interviews, videos, and more. The multimedia formats offered by Cell include: Podcasts, Paperclips, PaperFlicks, and Enhanced Snapshots. Even the journal’s cover shows a simple QR code which allows readers of the hardcopy issue to see an animated cover.

Here’s the animated cover, which is titled, Malaria Channels Host Nutrients,

I find this development interesting in light of moves to provide information via graphical abstracts and/or video abstracts. For example, the publisher Elsevier offers authors of papers for their various science journals instructions on preparing graphical abstracts (from Elsevier’s authors’ graphical abstracts webpage),

A Graphical Abstract should allow readers to quickly gain an understanding of the main take-home message of the paper and is intended to encourage browsing, promote interdisciplinary scholarship, and help readers identify more quickly which papers are most relevant to their research interests.

Authors must provide an image that clearly represents the work described in the paper. A key figure from the original paper, summarising the content can also be submitted as a graphical abstract.

Elsevier provides examples of good graphical abstracts such as this one,

Journal of Controlled Release, Volume 140, Issue 3, 16 December 2009, Pages 210-217. Hydrotropic oligomer-conjugated glycol chitosan as a carrier of paclitaxel: Synthesis, characterization, and in vivo biodistribution. G. Saravanakumar, Kyung Hyun Min, et.al., doi:10.1016/j.jconrel.2009.06.015

For an example of a video abstract, I’m going back to Cell which offers this one from Hebrew University of Jerusalem researchers discussing their work on octopus arm movements and visual control,

http://www.youtube.com/user/cellvideoabstracts?blend=21&ob=5

I have a suspicion that the trend to presenting science to the general public and other experts using graphical and video abstracts and other primarily ‘visual’ media could  have quite an impact on the sciences and how they are practiced. I haven’t quite figured out what any of those impacts might be but if someone would like to  comment on that, I’d be more than happy to hear from you.

Meanwhile, it seems to be a Cell kind of day so I’ve decided to embed the Lady Gaga Bad Project parody by the Hui Zheng Laboratory at Baylor Medical College in Texas for a second time,

Happy Weekend!

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