1. Academica: Maryland’s iSchool
faculty network
Scott Abromowitz

2. Academica seeks to ease the process of identifying potential
doctorial/master’s advisors for prospective students
Also, aids academics/researchers in collaborative research
With a magnitude of information available online and no easy
way to curtail relevant from irrelevant information related to
professors
Create easily digestible biographies that overcome usability
issues of a professor’s website
Many are outdated or poorly designed
Focus on visualization - Quickly spot and see where funding is
going and what resources the funding is achieved from
What is Academica

3. Similar Products

4. VIVO is the most similar to the functionality of
Academica, as it strives to create an interface for
academic collaboration.
Limited use – People must setup their own profile for
optimal use (citations/bibliographic data)
Difference: Does not focus on funding or citation
count
VIVO

5. Offers a basic bio, yet not automatically generated
and users can pick and chose what is visible.
The system is lacking in graphic visualization – only
shows funding amounts as numbers and not visual
(only textual)
Mendeley

6. Limited to searching and seeing citation count and co-
investigators
Must create custom profiles on Google if desire for
more personalization
Microsoft automatically generates a profile – but
lacks funding information
Microsoft Academic Search & Google
Scholar

7. Visualization of data
Focus on funding  Visualization
This is difficult to find – Though I purpose a future
system that crawls websites for available data
Not one-size fits all approach: It utilizes/incorporates
numerous data sources
Why Different?

8. The Home Screen
Search
box
Basic information
explaining the purpose of
Academica

9. In designing the home screen, I strive to create an
experience that is quick and to the point (no
distractions pointing users to different services)
The basic functionality are explained to the user as
various points.
I would desire a link that connects users to more
information for better clarification in a future iteration.
I chose to place trees in the back of the search button
to create an artistic and personal feeling
Friendly and Welcoming

10. iSchool Faculty Page

11. Traditional – Alphabetical order
BIG pictures – for an easy representation of the
faculty member
List of interest
iSchool Faculty Page

12. iSchool Faculty Page

13. Faculty Bio Page
Word cloud –
automatically generated
based on relevant topics
in the professor’s
research (papers, articles,
books, et.)
Photograph generated
from content services
such as Microsoft
Academic Search
Citation –
Generated from
Microsoft
Academic Search

14. Funding & Grants Page
Graphic depiction of
data

15. Publication Page

16. Help students better analyze potential advisor’s to see
his/her funding and if there is a research fit
A student may see the historical view of the professor, yet
over time this perspective/research focus might change
Data is automatically generated – No interaction by the
professors (since little incentive to incorporate data)
Focus, focus, focus on visualization – Better understand
funding and where it comes from – try to see influence of
such funding on professors or their research
Why use Academica?

17. Please visit: http://abromo.com/blog
DEMO