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3. VIDWAN: Expert Database National Researcher’s Network(http://vidwan.inflibnet.ac.in)

Kannan P, Scientist C (LS)
Abhishek Kumar, Scientist C (CS)

Asha Vaghela, Project Associate (CS)
Dipika Makwana, Project Associate (LS)
Kalgi Gandhi, Project Assistant (LS)

VIDWAN: Expert Database and National Researcher’s Network is the premier database of profiles of

scientists and faculty members working in leading academic institutions and other R & D organisations
in India and abroad. The database provides important information about faculty and scientist such as
background information, area of expertise, publications, research activities and academic
accomplishments, etc. The major objectives of this database are i) quickly provide information about

experts to peers, prospective collaborators, funding agencies, policy makers and research scholars in
the country; ii) to establish communication between subject experts and research scholars; iii) to
identify peer reviewers for review of articles and research proposals; iv) to create information exchanges
and networking opportunities among scientists; and v) to discover prospective collaborators for on-
going research projects.

A new responsive and feature-rich web interface has been developed for editing and updating profile of

experts. A persistent URL, username and password was issued to each expert to edit and update their
profile information. A web interface for nodal officer was developed and username and password was
issued to them to update the profile information from their respective institution. The Solr based
faceted search interface was incorporated to search the database on various parameters such as name,
designation, area of expertise, organization, organization type, state, etc. with filter to narrow down the

search. The profiles of expert can also be browsed by Web of Science Subject categories and
organisation categories. As on 31 March, 2017, the database contained 22,716 profiles from more than
st
2,640 institutions including leading academic and R&D Organisations in India and abroad. Figure 9
depicts screenshot of VIDWAN: Expert Profile with Co-author Network.

Fig. 9: VIDWAN: Expert Profile with Co-author Network

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