Welcome to getCITED!

"...this could be one of the most exciting intellectual uses of and adventures with the World Wide Web since it came into existence."
-- Jeremy Shapiro, Ph.D.

"Wow. This is one of these services that could become huge in time. [...] This is a major development which, if it takes off, could have a significant impact on the future of academic life."
-- Stephen's Web

"This site is an ambitious project to facilitate searches for book chapters, working papers, conference papers, and other types of publications and academic research not commonly indexed. [...] A free database created solely by and for researchers and scholars is an attractive idea and deserves support."

-- The Scout Report

Imagine a single academic database with which we could search for all of the available research on a given topic. Not just journal articles, not just books, but "publications" of all types, including individual chapters in edited volumes, papers from conferences and in proceedings, working papers and reports, even conference presentations. Now imagine being able to click on a particularly interesting publication and having its bibliography available for inspection, with each item in that bibliography providing the possibility of clicking on it and viewing its details. Or alternatively, imagine being able to click on the authors' names and bring up their CVs in their entirety. And to find out who their colleagues are, being able to simply click on the faculty or department name to get a list of all its members. Finally, imagine that the contents of this database are controlled by us rather than corporations and you'll have some idea of what is possible with getCITED.

If this vision is to come into being, it will require the cooperation of the entire academic community. It will require that each of us take the time to enter our publications and presentations into the database, and then to link these publications to the publications from which they benefitted. If we do this, we can create an incredibly powerful research tool, one that will be accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world. So if you'd like to help build the getCITED database, read the information provided below and then take a couple of minutes join getCITED. After that you can enter and link your publications anytime you have a few minutes to spare.

Features and functions

getCITED is a site that exists to facilitate the dissemination and discussion of academic research. It has numerous features, but at its core, it consists of two things: a database and a discussion forum. What makes getCITED's database truly unique is that it lets scholars and researchers decide what its content should be. What makes its discussion forum truly unique is the fact that, within the comments posted, you can create LINKS to PUBLICATIONS and IDENTITIES within the getCITED database. Other things that make this site particularly useful to the academic community include the ability to:

Enter in CITATION details and SEARCH for all publication types, including book chapters, conference papers, dissertations, and unpublished manuscripts such as working papers.
Create BOOKSTACKS (i.e., bibliographies) in conjunction with other members of getCITED as well as search for BOOKSTACKS that others may have previously created (e.g., Murphy's bibliography on Artifical Life).
Create LINKS between publications and the publications listed in their bibliographies (i.e., REFERENCES) or to those in whose bibliography they appear (i.e., CITATIONS).
Generate and view detailed STATISTICS about works in the database, including the number of PAGEVIEWS, COMMENTS, and CITATIONS in other works.
Create, contribute to and subscribe to DGROUPS (i.e., threaded discussion groups) on any topic of interest.

Links: The source of getCITED's power

One of getCITED's most powerful features is the ability to link the publications in its database with their CONTRIBUTORS, PUBLISHERS, PARENTS, REFERENCES, and the publications that cite them. However, these LINKS only come into being through the efforts of getCITED's members; i.e., you! So whenever you have a few free moments, please take the time to create some LINKS. And if you really want to do a good deed, make a few LINKS for the scholars who may no longer be with us but upon whose shoulders we stand.

LINKS are created by clicking on the linking icon that appears at several locations when a publication's details are displayed. Links for any publication can be created and edited by any getCITED member and, at any time, who has made the links can be viewed in the AUDIT TRAIL.

getCITED is only for researchers and writers

getCITED is built on the principle that the ultimate database can only be built with the efforts of the entire academic community and, for that reason, allows any registered member to make changes to any item in its database. Needless to say, this leaves it vulnerable to abuse and sabotage. This is addressed, in part, by relying on members' reports and the use of an audit trail to record who has made changes to a record. However, the likelihood of this proving to be insufficient will only increase as more and more people visit the site who are not members of the academic community. So if you like what you find here at getCITED, it would be great if you could tell your colleagues about it.