Tag: PubMed Commons

PubMed Commons to be Discontinued

This post was updated on February 27, 2018.

Update: NLM appreciates all of the input we have received in response to our February 1, 2018, announcement that PubMed Commons is being discontinued. Thank you for your thoughtful comments. We are heartened to hear that many of you found it to be a useful service.

As we mentioned in the announcement, comments on articles indexed in PubMed will continue to be visible on PubMed and PubMed Commons through March 2, 2018, after which time they will be available for download from NCBI’s website. NLM again thanks all of you who participated in PubMed Commons for your interest and effort.

PubMed Commons has been a valuable experiment in supporting discussion of published scientific literature. The service was first introduced as a pilot project in the fall of 2013 and was reviewed in 2015. Despite low levels of use at that time, NIH decided to extend the effort for another year or two in hopes that participation would increase. Unfortunately, usage has remained minimal, with comments submitted on only 6,000 of the 28 million articles indexed in PubMed.

While many worthwhile comments were made through the service during its 4 years of operation, NIH has decided that the low level of participation does not warrant continued investment in the project, particularly given the availability of other commenting venues.

The discontinuation plan is as follows:

New comments will be accepted through February 15, 2018.
Comments will continue to be visible on the PubMed and PubMed Commons websites through March 2, 2018.
Users wishing to access the comments after March 2, 2018, will be able to download them from NCBI’s website.

Many thanks to all of you who participated in this experimental effort to enhance the opportunities for interaction about published biomedical literature.

New video on the NCBI YouTube channel: How You and Your Journal Club Can Contribute Using PubMed Commons

The newest video on the NCBI YouTube channel discusses how eligible individuals and journal clubs can join PubMed Commons and contribute comments.

PubMed Commons enables members to post comments about publications, which appear directly below abstracts in PubMed.

Subscribe to the NCBI YouTube channel to watch and receive alerts about new videos ranging from quick tips to full presentations.

July 12th NCBI Minute “Crowdsourcing Post-publication Comments: How You and Your Journal Club Can Contribute Using PubMed Commons”

Join us for the next NCBI Minute, “Crowdsourcing Post-publication Comments”, where you’ll learn how eligible individuals and journal clubs can join PubMed Commons and contribute comments.

Date and time: Wednesday, July 12, 2017 12:00 PM – 12:30 PM EDT

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email with information about attending the webinar. After the live presentation, the webinar will be uploaded to the NCBI YouTube channel. Any related materials will be accessible on the Webinars and Courses page; you can also learn about future webinars on this page.

PubMed Commons enables members to post comments about publications, which appear directly below abstracts in PubMed. Researchers and practitioners regularly assess articles in exchanges with colleagues and in journal clubs. PubMed Commons is one place where you can make key points from those discussions public and discoverable.

Early Developments in the PubMed Commons Pilot

It’s been an exciting and productive time since the PubMed Commons beta launch. We’ve learned a great deal, both here working under the hood and from the conversations in social media and blog posts.

We are working on answers to questions that people are asking, via our Twitter account and by revising and expanding information on the PubMed Commons page soon. And we will try out a Twitter chat: so keep your eye out on @PubMedCommons for the announcement.

There are now about 1,000 people signed up in the Commons. Remember, any author in PubMed can join, from anywhere in the world. Check out our step-by-step guide. Once you are in, you can invite others. So please spread the word!

Continue reading “Early Developments in the PubMed Commons Pilot” →

Joining PubMed Commons: A Step-by-step Guide

In our previous post we wrote about a new service called PubMed Commons that allows researchers to add comments to individual PubMed records. As we described in that post, PubMed Commons is currently a beta pilot release, and requires interested people to join the system before they can view or add comments. This post will describe how to join PubMed Commons.

Continue reading “Joining PubMed Commons: A Step-by-step Guide” →

PubMed Commons: A New Forum for Scientific Discourse

NCBI has released a pilot version of a new service in PubMed that allows researchers to post comments on individual PubMed abstracts. Called PubMed Commons, this service is an initiative of the NIH leadership in response to repeated requests by the scientific community for such a forum to be part of PubMed. We hope that PubMed Commons will leverage the social power of the internet to encourage constructive criticism and high quality discussions of scientific issues that will both enhance understanding and provide new avenues of collaboration within the community.

Continue reading “PubMed Commons: A New Forum for Scientific Discourse” →