GUELPH, CANADA
University of Guelph
http://www.MaizeLink.org: A Searchable Database Linking
Maize Experts from Around the World.
-Makhijani, R.,
Wight, C., Radford, D., Kajenthira, A., Papineau, E., Raizada, M.N.
We have
developed a searchable database, online at www.MaizeLink.org, linking maize experts
with their colleagues from around the world. Developed at the University of
Guelph, the aim of MaizeLink.org is to provide an online environment where
researchers can share their challenges, questions and resources with other
researchers across sub-disciplines.
MaizeLink.org
provides a very easy to use searchable interface to access researcher
information from 80 sub-disciplines, including molecular genomics, abiotic
stress, agronomy, breeding, ecology, food safety, nutrition, plant disease,
agribusiness and social issues. Users have the ability to search by name,
institution, country, research keyword or area of technical expertise.
Alternatively, users may browse by research subject area. Query results consist
of a researcher list linking to individual profile pages. A profile page
contains the following customized information, some of which is entered into
the database by researchers at the time of registration:
„researcher
contact details
„a summary of a
researcher's key challenges
„a summary of
the researcher's interests
„links to the
best introductory publications or URLs in the researcher's area of interest or
technical expertise
„links to a
researcher's favorite URLs
„links to useful
technical protocols
In addition, a
query auto-generates the following information:
„links to
researcher publications in popular databases (e.g. PubMed, Agricola, MaizeGDB)
„links
researcher patents (e.g. U.S., European, Japanese and Worldwide patent
databases)
„researcher
grant abstracts from around the world
MaizeLink.org
integrates a bulletin board, a forum to post messages or questions and exchange
information online. The bulletin board is completely searchable. Our objective
is to make the MaizeLink bulletin board the central communication portal for
the world's maize research community by pooling expertise from diverse
subdisciplines.
MaizeLink also
includes LifeSciLink, a function that provides access to publications, patents
and grant abstracts for all researchers in the life sciences, not only those
registered in MaizeLink. A user simply enters a researcher's name, and the
system automatically searches a collection of public databases from around the
world, returning results on a single page. This functionality is also available
separately at http://www.LifeSciLink.org.
In addition,
MaizeLink incorporates EquipmentLink, a place for researchers to donate and
seek equipment and materials to/from other researchers and educators around the
world. The infrastructure required to perform research can be expensive,
especially for researchers in developing nations. We hope that EquipmentLink
will help to meet this challenge.
Over the coming
months, MaizeLink.org will grow to include at least 20 major crops and research
model systems, part of the CropLink Global Initiative. Our goal is to make
CropLink into the world's most comprehensive online researcher-to-researcher
portal for plant science and agriculture.
All of these
databases are publicly accessible, and registration is not required to conduct
searches. An effort has been made to include Open Source journal databases.
Having a customized profile page does require registration, but is open to all
graduate students, research fellows and associates, faculty, and private sector
scientists with a shared interest in maize. Because many researchers,
particularly in the Developing World, do not have a webpage/lab page, the
profile page is an attempt to provide a basic, free website for all of the
world's agricultural researchers. All of our databases are secure and designed
to prevent third-party users from sending batch Spam emails. MaizeLink.org is a
nonprofit initiative intended solely for research purposes.
We must feed more people in the next 40 years than we have in the last 10,000 years combined. This great challenge will require more extensive collaboration between researchers across diverse crops, subdisciplines and nations. It is our hope that MaizeLink, CropLink, LifeSciLink and EquipmentLink will be useful tools in this endeavor.