SGCODEJAM24 2011

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What's a CodeJam?

The CodeJam is an event where programmers meet to do collaborative computer programming. Developers work closely together to create prototypes to demonstrate the value of their ideas. Often a Code Jam takes place in the form of a contest. These events are typically between several days and a week in length. Read more »

What's a Mashup?

In web development, a mashup is a web application using JavaScript for instance that uses and combines data, presentation or functionality from two or more different sources to create new services. The term implies easy, fast integration, frequently using open APIs (an interface implemented by a software program that enables it to interact with other software) and open data sources to produce enriched results that were not necessarily the original reason for producing the original source data. Read more »

What is SciVerse?

Elsevier has launched a new product and a platform to bring together all of their scientific information into one place and made it available to web based applications: SciVerse (http://www.info.sciverse.com).

Part of SciVerse includes SciVerse Applications. SciVerse Applications allows academic and professional developers to collaborate with researchers, librarians and students to build applications to enhance the search and discovery of scientific data. Elsevier has opened their scientific content via REST API’s and is looking for developers, researchers and librarians to create applications against this data and third party data. Some possibilities include:

Semantic search
Data and text mining
Visualization of data structure, relations, geo-location and values
Recommendation systems
Search result extension using open API and open data
Extend search platform with research workflow solutions

Check out the SciVerse Developer Network and the SciVerse Applications Market Place.

And who is Elsevier?

Elsevier is a Dutch publishing company which publishes Scientific, Technical & Medical (STM) literature (journals, books, databases, etc.). Elsevier's content includes 25% of the world's STM publications and the world's largest abstract and citation database.

NUS, NTU and SMU have long been partners with Elsevier. Each school's library system provides access to much of Elsevier's information through the ScienceDirect and Scopus databases.

"This contest was completed successfully, with 15 teams and over 40 participants coding for 24 hours straight. A big congratulations to teams Normanton, Kota, SML and Professionals for their prize winning applications, and to all of our participants in helping to further scientific dissemination and knowledge gathering! Stay tuned for details for the next contest."

Knowledge is king. And while most knowledge these days is born in the form of digital information, and captured in digital libraries, there's still a lot of room for improvement and connect and manage the many bits of scattered knowledge that exist in modern digital libraries.

The growth of digital information, open data and distributed services like open APIs and Web Services has created a so-called Big Data problem. Application based solutions will be critical to solve this Big Data problem and manage information flows in the 21st century library.

The inaugural Elsevier/NUS SgCodeJam24 - a 24-hour programming contest which aims to tackle this information problem. Elsevier's application based content platform allows access to over 10 million full-text scientific articles, 2600 journals, and more than 41 million abstracts, as well as scientific web search results via Open APIs. Registered teams will have 24 hours to create a SciVerse application to benefit scientists, librarians and students and further enhance search and discovery of scientific knowledge and information systems.

The contest is open to all tertiary level students, faculty and staff members to compete in teams of one to four contestants to code the best applications and prototypes that demonstrate how applications can help research and library workflow.

The #SgCodeJam24 event will be held from Friday August 12 to August 13 at the NUS School of Computing, in the school's level 2 open space and seminar room 1. There will be food and drink for all participants and on-site technical support round the clock during the #SgCodeJam24.

Past applications and prototypes that were developed during hackathons included:

An iPad user interface for ScienceDirect, Elsevier's digital library.
displaying the geographic locations of samples taken from location data in articles.
Mashing up Hazardous Material chemical facts/figures from chemical information found in articles.
Export/Import data from third party note-taking services like Evernote.
Integrating information from Wikipedia on key topics in a scientific article.
View a visual network of an author's co-authors including strength of connection.
The Genome Viewer provides functionality for viewing and analyzing sequence data of genes mentioned in articles.
View search results from your local library's VuFind online catalog in parallel with SciVerse Hub and view relevant results side by side.

To browse all applications currently available on SciVerse go to http://www.applications.sciverse.com.

Register and take part in the #SgCodeJam24 programming contest, to participate in the unique experience and spirit of a 24-hour code jam, learn a hot new technology in scientific search, network with other developers and stand to win the following prizes:

USD $1500
USD $1000
USD $500

We are happy to announce a new addition to the prize list:
Audience Choice award.
The winning team for the audience choice will be chosen by the participants and will receive $500USD. The voting will take place during the team presentations on Saturday.

Registration is limited to 40 teams (due to space constraints), so form your team and register now! Not bad for a day's worth of work!