The MIDAS Discover Visualization
About
MIDAS Discover is a graphical search interface for exploring the world of the MIDAS network. You can use MIDAS Discover to find information about researchers working on topics of interest, understand networks of collaborations, learn about their papers and grants, and understand the breadth and depth of research in the MIDAS network.
Use the interface to find researchers or papers related to a topic of interest. For example: Who is working on mpox or malaria? Where can I find contact information for a researcher working on malaria? Which papers address disease-control strategies, and who authored them?
The MIDAS Discover visualization is based on the MIDAS Members Database. Publications and grants associated with infectious disease modeling are collected for each member, and publication titles, abstracts, and keywords are extracted. Members can also provide additional information during registration or by requesting a profile update.
The interface consists of two parts: the Network View, and the Filter View.
About The Interface
Network View
The Network View displays a network visualization using a force-directed graph. Each node represents a MIDAS Member, with the strength of the connection between each member determined by the number of papers that they have co-authored. Thus, two authors who have collaborated on many papers will have a very strong link, while others with less-frequent collaborations will have a weaker link.
Displaying Member Information
Clicking on a node will display information associated with the selected member. A panel will appear in the upper-right corner of the visualization containing detailed information about the member: Name, Photo, affiliation, links to email, GitHub, LinkedIn, ORCID, and other details shared by the member. Collaborators, papers, and grants are also available. Collaborator information is extracted from the selected member's co-authored papers.
Co-authors are represented by links from the selected member's node to the nodes of collaborating members, based on publication data.
Selecting a node automatically zooms and pans the visualization to the member and their network.
Zooming & Panning
The visualization supports zooming. To zoom in, double-click the white space on the graph or use the appropriate mouse or trackpad gesture.
To scroll/pan, click on any whitespace in the visualization and drag the pointer in the desired direction.
Filter View
The Filter provides a set of multiple dropdown filters to simplify the navigation of the MIDAS Discover visualization. The filter can specify that only specific people, papers, grants, organizations and paper keywords can pass through the filter.
Selecting a value in any dropdown filters out members who do not match it and displays the results in the right panel of the Filter View.
For example, selecting a specific organization in the "Person's Current Organization:" filter will select and display all people, grants, and papers linked with that organization.
Definition
- Person(s): MIDAS Members
- Keyword(s): PubMed Keywords extracted from the papers that appear in the Papers category
- Person's Current Organization: Primary organizations/institutions of MIDAS members
- Paper(s): MIDAS-related papers written by MIDAS Members
- Grant: MIDAS-related grants that fund, or have funded, MIDAS Members
Using the Filter
To use any filter, click on it and a dropdown will appear with a search box on top. The dropdown contains all the possible values associated with that filter. It is possible to either scroll or use the search box to select the value of interest.
To clear an active filter, click on the "X" on the right side of the filter.
The filtering results are updated each time a new filter is applied. The interface displays three panels: People, Grants, and Papers. Only results matching every active filter are shown. Each column in the results panel can be sorted, and results may span multiple pages.
The People panel displays the Name, Organization and Contact/Information Links (ORCID, GitHub, ResearchGate, etc.) of the filtered MIDAS members. Selecting a person's name focuses the associated nodes in the Network View and displays that member's information. Organization and profile links open their destinations in a new tab.
The Grants panel returns the Grant Number, Title, Start and End Date associated with the selection.
The Papers panel will display the Title and Publication Date of the associated papers. It is possible to click on the paper title to open a new tab to the associated MIDAS paper information page.
The Filter can be hidden by clicking on the "Hide filter results" button on the top right on the Filter.
Multi-Filtering
Multi-Criteria
You can select multiple choices in the same filter, such as multiple people. In this case, the results include MIDAS members who collaborated with all selected people.
Multiple Filters
Multiple filters can be used at the same time, for example a specific person and a specific paper. This filtering returns MIDAS members who have worked with this person and on this paper.
When one filter is applied, the other filter dropdowns update to show combinations that can still return results.
Contact
If you have any questions about the MIDAS Discover visualization, please feel free to contact us at: questions@midasnetwork.us