What is this contest about?

In the #SgCodeJam24 contest, teams will use Elsevier's Hub, SciVerse and Scopus APIs to a SciVerse application and mashups to draw on the wealth of information that are contained in this digital library. To learn more about what teams will undertake, it helps to look at Elsevier's developer site. Prospective teams should also look through the developer community forum, and descriptions of the Sciverse APIs on the developer site.

Why would I want to participate in this contest?

First, creating such applications can help researchers, librarians and students make connections between distributed data that is difficult or infeasible to compile manually. You can contribute solutions to real scientific and library workflow. Secondly, teams have a good shot of winning bragging rights (and it doesn't hurt to mention in your CV. Elsevier is the world's leading scientific publisher). Third, not only can you win cash prizes but the successful application's intellectual property all reside with your team (not Elsevier), so you can leverage what you build for your own work, open source it, or even co-charge libraries and other clients of Elsevier to use your service for a fee.

How to get access to Elsevier content?

For the contest, teams must register at the SgCodeJam24 and also obtain access to Elsevier content by registering at http://applications.sciverse.com (click the upper right hand side Register link). After registering for SgCodeJam24 you will receive a welcome email with further detailed instructions.

I've registered with 2 members. Is it possible to attach 1 more? If yes, how can I do it?

Yes you can do this. Send us the following information of the new team member by email, to SgCodeJam24@comp.nus.edu.sg and we will add the member to your team:

Team name
Title (Mr | Dr | Ms)
Gender (M | F)
Family name
Given name
Email address
Telephone
School
Registration type (Student | Staff | Teacher)
Year of study

Is it considered cheating if we prepare most of the software from home? How do you prevent people from bringing pre-developed code to the event?

We do not consider the use of existing software cheating. Teams are allowed to use existing code libraries, either proprietary or third party code libraries. We encourage the mashup of APIs and code libraries.

How to further develop your applications after #SgCodeJam24?

Elsevier has interest in further sponsoring the development of SciVerse applications. If you have a great idea that offers a great solution for the SciVerse platform, but you need support, please contact Jukka Valimaki or Remko Caprio at Elsevier (details on the Contact Us page).

In NUS SoC, students continue developing their projects as part of the coursework for Semester I.

• For undergraduates, you may consider to extend your app development in CS2103, Software Engineering, taught in Sem I by Dr Damith Rajapakse, or in CS2309, CS Research Methodology, taught in Sem I by A/P Lee Wee Sun.
• For graduate students, you may consider evolving your project further in CS6242, Digital Libraries, taught in Sem I by A/P Kan Min-Yen.

The above courses are SoC sanctioned courses that know of the challenge, but if you enroll in other modules with project work, you are encouraged to approach your lecturers for approval to continue your SgCodeJam24 work.

Are there any instructions/guidelines for trying out the development environment (SciVerse platform/API) prior to the competition? Are we free to register and try it out on our own?

Everyone can register as a developer for the SciVerse platform at http://developer.sciverse.com/requestaccess . This will give you default access, which extends based on the access level available via the network of your school. On the day of the event, we specifically extend your developer account to have unlimited access to Elsevier content.  

Does the application have to be completely on the SciVerse platform? Could part of it be elsewhere (e.g., as a browser plugin)?

The SciVerse gadget allows two ways to include external functionality or data. As an OpenSocial gadget, you can create two types of gadgets: URL type or an HTML type.
(1) When using the URL type gadget you may simply refer to a Server Side Include (SSI) app residing on one of your servers or in the cloud, e.g. a PHP file on the Amazong EC2 server, which then generates a client side app of both HTML and script.
(2) When using the HTML type gadget you can include server side functionality by using regular script functionality with the gadgets.sciverse.makeRequest(url, callback, params); method. For more information see the developer docs at http://developers.sciverse.com/frameworkapi#gadgets.sciverse.makeRequest or the code examples on github at https://github.com/sciversedev/examples .

We are allowed to use other data sources, open APIs, and even our own database, are we allowed to publish our own libraries/APIs as open source and use it during the competition?

Very much so. We encourage both the publication of source code and code libraries, as well as the use of such.

On the day itself, what can we bring into the competition venue and what not?

I can’t immediately think of anything you cannot bring, except for anything that might physically endanger the safety or comfort of yourself or others. If it seems reasonable to bring without disturbing to others, feel free to bring aids. In case of doubt, please ask us in advance.

During the competition, we are supposed to use the SciVerse platform to upload and test our application, is that right?

Yes. You can use other methods to test your application, but this is the recommended way to test your gadget.

I have registered on SciVerse and added a few applications. But when I wanted to try out those applications, the webpage redirected me to Scopus and prompted me to login. But at this point the SciVerse login credentials did not work and I was unable to go further and try out the applications. May I know how I can proceed beyond that point?

I made some changes to your developer account. Please check if you can access the apps now. It might also make a difference if you access the site from within or outside of NUS network. Could you confirm if this is the case, and if it works now?

The FAQ: (Not-so) Frequently Asked Questions

Answer: You can do anything that is useful for scientists to find or integrate scientific content. There will be no specific topic given on the day. The challenge criteria encourage developers to create a gadget on the SciVerse platform and to use the SciVerse APIs. In addition, you can also use other data sources, open APIs, monitoring queries, open source tools, mining the full text article, use your own database in the cloud, use the SciVerse APIs to search for institutions and authors, or mashup Elsevier data with non-Elsevier data. Hope that helps!

Answer: A good way to go about it is to look at the previous competitions that have also used the Elsevier API before. There have been a couple this year around the globe and we are happy to have the event here in our little red dot!

• Elsevier App Contest (@ SIGIR 2010) [Co-winner from Singapore's NUS, Ming Zhaoyan]: http://www.sigir2010.org/doku.php?id=grants:elsevier
• NJIT 2011 Hackathon: http://www.njit.edu/hackathon/
• Apps for Science: http://appsforscience.com/
• SIGIR 2011 Hackathon: http://developer.sciverse.com/sigir2011
• Elsevier/Tetherless World Health and Life Sciences Hackathon (@RPI):
  http://tw.rpi.edu/web/event/TWCElsevierHackathonJune2011/
• NJIT Hackathon: http://www.njit.edu/hackathon/

Answer: We plan to have photos and a (hopefully) live video stream of the event for those who'd like to watch. Please do come by to support your friends who are participating in the SgCodeJam24

Answer: The rules of the contest are still be finalized but here are some guidelines from rules from previous contests:

All eligible entries will be evaluated and ranked by a panel of qualified judges based on but not limited to the following criteria:

• Originality
• How original is the idea of the Gadget? Is the Gadget using existing functionality or creating new functionality? Does the Gadget make use of third party tools? Does the Gadget use externally hosted
• Clarity
• Among other factors, this criterion looks at: simplicity of the code; user-friendliness of design; how easy is it to navigate to Gadget? Is the functionality obvious and intuitive?
• Value Proposition
• Does the Gadget add new functionality to the SciVerse platform? How substantial and complex is the functionality of the Gadget? Does the Gadget add functionality that users are expecting based on their usage of other platforms? Will the Gadget be useful to researchers, librarians and students?
• Quality of Software Development
• Readability of code; is the Gadget free of errors?; Does the Gadget run on different browsers (Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Safari); Does the code run fast or delay the rendering of the page? Can the code be easily reused by other gadgets or on other platforms?

Answer: You and your team owns all of the IP concerning your software and it is totally up to you to decide what to do after the contest. You may decide it's best to make your code open source so that others can use and modify it. Or you can charge to have it used. For any teams that wish to charge users for the use of their application, Elsevier and NUS will work with you to ensure that the licensing agreements are in accord with your wishes.

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