The COVID-19 pandemic has caused dramatic upheaval in the world of professional conferences. Most conferences have either been postponed to a later date or canceled for the year, leaving scholars with posters and presentations that can't be shared with their peers until late 2020 or 2021 at the earliest. Fortunately, the Himmelfarb Library has an excellent resource available that allows for asynchronous virtual conferencing. With the Health Sciences Research Commons, (HSRC), members of the George Washington University Medical, Health Sciences, Public Health and Nursing communities have the ability to archive and present their research to scholars around the globe.
With Health Sciences Research Commons, it is possible to archive presentation materials such as poster PDFs or videos via native streaming or a 3rd party platform (i.e. YouTube). If you have content that you would like to share, simply send an email to hsrc@gwu.edu and we will be happy to find an appropriate collection, create the necessary metadata, and send you a link to your archived projects. Have questions related to archiving and potential future publications? We are happy to answer those questions as well.
Using the HSRC as a presentation platform is an asynchronous experience which is different from than the in-person conference. But archiving your project in HSRC has unique benefits such as the ability to generate usage statistics using PlumX metrics and Altmetircs located on the right hand side of an entry.
As we adapt to a life and workflow that is reliant on virtual workspaces, it is important that we continue to collaborate and share current research with the larger medical community. The HSRC is a wonderful space for archiving and presenting research. If you have any additional questions on using the repository, feel free to reach out to Sara Hoover, Metadata and Scholarly Publishing Librarian at shoover@gwu.edu.
Please note: This blog post was updated on May 18, 2020 to better reflect the process for submitting to the HSRC.
