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Christopher Dawson

Scitable is bringing rich resources to the mobile web

By Christopher Dawson | March 29, 2010, 8:54pm PDT

I had a chance to catch up today with Vikram Savkar, Senior Vice President and Publishing Director with the Nature Publishing Group (NPG). We’ve spoken before about Scitable, their online effort to bring high-quality scientific content to educators and students via the social web. Now that the site is well-established and beginning to expand beyond its initial offerings in genetics, NPG is looking to put the rich resources contained in Scitable into the hands of young people in developing countries, where cell phones have far greater penetration than computer-based Internet access.

Scitable is currently working on developing a mobile version of the site, optimized for viewing in a browser on a low-end mobile phone. They hope to have the site functional by mid-summer, targeting a fall release. While smartphones are exploding in developed nations, many parts of Africa and South America rely on inexpensive phones for both communication and web access (and, in fact, have 4-5 times the penetration of computer-based Internet access). Thus, a site that remains rich and useful even on a small screen or without the latest 4G connectivity would prove to be a “great leveller” in terms of access to a powerful core of scientific information.

Vikram expects “sexier” apps will follow for more advanced mobile devices, but the goal for now is to create a framework by which the majority of content that reaches the main site will be simultaneously available on the mobile site. Obviously, the more complex animations and high-resolution images won’t translate well to many mobile devices common to sub-Saharan Africa. Similarly, the social components of the browser-based site will need to be set aside. However, the ability to examine a topic with a fair amount of depth and search for relevant content (both hallmarks of the current Scitable web interface) will be key to the mobile experience as well.

For example, while Scitable contains some very deep reading on particular topics, often written at the undergraduate level, most people don’t want to read several pages of scientific text on their mobile phones (especially a Nokia 2760). Yet the glossaries, dictionaries, and papers covering core concepts will work quite well on the mobiles. Scitable has also already had luck moving many of the swf animation files from the website to small mobiles, albeit at lower resolution.

Vikram also noted that, while the social components that enable rich interactions between students/instructors/classes on the website won’t be in “Version 1″ of the mobile site, adding social components and leveraging the communication potential of the phone is certainly a longer-term goal.

Interestingly, Vikram told me that a significant portion of US visits to the full Scitable website were actually through mobile phones already. Increasingly, devices like the iPhone and Moby Tablet will be the primary means by which students access the web. Scitable looks to be ahead of the curve, both as they begin delivering content in developing countries and as developed countries consume more of their content on highly portable devices.

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Web, Phone, Mobile, Cell Phone, Scitable, Vikram, Christopher Dawson

Chris Dawson is a freelance writer and consultant with years of experience in educational technology and web-based systems. In 2011, he became the Vice President of Marketing for WizIQ, Inc., a virtual classroom and learning network SaaS provider.

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Christopher Dawson

Christopher Dawson is the Vice President of Marketing for WizIQ, Inc., by day and a freelance writer and educational technology consultant by night. Well, most of his colleagues at WizIQ are based in India, so really he's working with them whenever he can stay awake. He has worked for his local school district as a teacher and technology director, for the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, and for Biogen, Inc. (now Biogen-IDEC, Inc.). He has also consulted with STATNet and Cytyc Corporation and retains close ties with X2 Development Corporation (now owned by Follett Software, the supplier of the student information system he administered for several years). Follett is paying him a monthly honorarium to act as a presenter for their "SIS Voices for Student Achievement" community (he produces occasional blog posts and hosts a monthly webinar on the use of student information systems to inform data-driven instruction and school-wide change. He regularly purchases and/or recommends Dell hardware. This is because Dell makes good hardware and has truly committed itself to education in innovative ways, particularly with their "Connected Classroom" initiative. It isn't because he has dealings with the company through his role at WizIQ (which he does) or because they have provided him with long-term loans of a variety of equipment for in-depth testing (which they have). Intel (reference designer for the Classmate PCs he has implemented in his local schools) has provided him with long-term loans of Classmate PCs for testing, as have Dell and Lenovo with their educational offerings. He may report on any of these companies as his experiences with them have direct bearing on educational technology; positive reports are not necessarily an endorsement and he receives no direct financial compensation from these companies or any others. Intel paid all expenses for his attendance at the 2009 Intel Classmate PC Ecosystem Summit which he attended as the sole representative of the technology press. He was invited to attend in 2010 but his wife would have killed him if he spent 3 days in Vegas geeking out and left her home alone with a new baby. Acer provided him with a 50% discount on an Aspire One netbook in early 2009 after he tested it for 30 days through their educational seed program. He liked the netbook at the time but it has since broken and sits unused in his office. Canonical sent him Ubuntu lanyards, t-shirts, and mousepads for his kids. He stole one of the lanyards and proudly hangs his keys from it and occasionally features his 8-year old wearing an oversized Ubuntu t-shirt on his Facebook profile. Gunnar Optiks sent him a pair of computer glasses to evaluate for a holiday gift guide. He is wearing them now as he types this because they never asked for them back and they rock out loud. Seriously - they work brilliantly and make it much easier to spend 20 hours a day staring at an LCD. If they ever asked for them back, he would fork over the $99 and buy a pair. Microsoft gave him 2 free copies of Office 2010 professional, a desktop clock, and a useless book on Office 2010 when he attended the launch of Office/Sharepoint 2010. He occasionally uses the SharePoint lanyard they gave him instead of the Ubuntu lanyard for his keys, but feels dirty afterwards. Adobe provided him with a pre-release version of the CS5 Master Collection for evaluation and ultimately provided a full, licensed copy for ongoing testing of educational applications of this admittedly expensive software. Like the Gunnars, if the license expires or they come out with CS6, he'd actually go out and buy it himself. Which is saying something, because he's actually pretty cheap. Any other companies wishing to send him cool things to evaluate, wear, or otherwise adorn his kids are more than welcome to; he promises to disclose it here if he keeps any of the stuff. Finally, because WizIQ is a virtual classroom and learning network provider, Chris, as VP of Marketing, frequently interacts with, seeks out deals with, and directly or indirectly competes with a whole lot of LMS, SIS, and other Education 2.0 companies. In general, he'll limit his reporting about these companies to news that does not impact his relationship with them or with WizIQ. If he reports on them, it's because what they are doing is newsworthy or worth the attention of his readers and not because he's trying to broker some deal, damage competition, or otherwise advance his position in his day job. LMS and SIS companies, along with other online learning communities, are a pretty important part of Ed Tech. If he stops reporting on them completely, there won't be a whole lot left. He'll be sure to call out any overt conflicts of interest if they are unavoidable. Finally, Follett Software Company pays him a little tiny honorarium every month to present on their SIS Voices webinars and to write the occasional blog or discussion thread for them. Since Follett recently bought X2 (maker of an awesome web-based SIS that Chris just happened to have used, served in advisory groups for, and frequently reported on), this is probably also worth disclosing.