Harvard Catalyst Profiles is powered by the free, open source Profiles Research
Networking Software (RNS). It is used in numerous institutions around the world, including
academic research centers, pharmaceutical companies, physician networks, and Federal agencies.
If you would like to learn more about Profiles RNS or download the free source code, please visit the
Profiles RNS website.
The functionality you see on the Harvard Catalyst Profiles website is just a small
part of what the full open source Profiles RNS can do:
Pre-Populated Researcher Profiles
Data is integrated from existing public and private source systems, eliminating
redundant administrative effort on behalf of end users. Automated MEDLINE/PubMed
author disambiguation discovers publications for your researchers, including articles
they wrote at other institutions. Users (or their proxies) can manually add or correct
the information in their profiles.
Automatic Creation of Social Networks
Connections are formed when individuals share common traits such as co-authoring
a publication, researching similar topics, being in the same department, or working
in the same building.
Social Network Analysis
Multiple data visualization methods are available to explore the networks of both individuals
and groups of researchers. Common measures of "centrality", such as "degree" and
"betweenness", are calculated automatically by the software.
Authoritative Data Source
Web services allow information stored within the Profiles RNS
database to be used by other applications, such as departmental websites, faculty
activity reports, or publication repositories, thereby creating a single consolidated
authoritative data source that eliminates duplication within your institution.
Profiles RNS is freely available through an
open source BSD license,
leveraging the benefit
of enhancements and contributions from the open source community. The BSD license
allows you to modify the code for your institution and redistribute or commercialize
any changes you make.
Although not required, some institutions would prefer commercial support with installation, integration, configuration,
and on-going support of locally-hosted or cloud-based instances of Profiles RNS. Harvard University has selected
Symplectic
as an Authorized Service Provider for Profiles RNS. Please note that Harvard University does
not receive any revenue from services offered by Symplectic, and the code obtained through Symplectic is the same as that
offered directly from Harvard University through the Profiles RNS website. Symplectic is a software
company founded in London which specializes in developing, implementing and integrating research information systems for
universities and research institutions around the world.