QUOSA is a literature management tool for life science professionals which allows team members inside a life sciences company to accomplish several research and discovery tasks, most importantly centralizing the search of and collection of scientific literature. Soon, QUOSA will no longer be available, leaving many in the life sciences field wondering how they can centralize, retrieve, and connect with relevant literature – both from the industry and within the organization itself.
“Modularity” in research platforms has gained popularity in academic libraries and is starting to gain traction in the corporate research world. Modular platforms combine several different systems or functionalities which allow for a customized and comprehensive research experience for an enterprise. In addition, a modular approach creates scalability, allowing systems, content, and platforms to grow with your research needs. When evaluating a research platform as a replacement for QUOSA, look for key modular elements such as search technologies, like full text and subject indexing, integration of multiple valued databases such as Embase, MEDLINE and PubMed and options for integrations.
Quality, Depth & Breadth of the Data Being Searched
Full-text article access is of vital importance to the life sciences sector. When shopping for a replacement for QUOSA, start by looking for a literature research platform that offers comprehensive full text searching of journals and books from major for-profit publishers, scholarly societies, and university presses, as well as research databases such as MEDLINE and PubMed. From there, you want to be able to understand the key differences, including how platforms utilize subject indexing. While the full text is important, a literature research platform that leverages enhanced subject indexing will deliver more precise results.
A modular approach creates scalability allowing systems, content, and platforms to grow with your research needs.
A modular approach creates scalability allowing systems, content, and platforms to grow with your research needs.
Single Experience
To help researchers save time in accessing literature, a single, streamlined, search experience is key. You should have the ability to configure your platform’s search technology to search all your content – from paid to internal repositories – and offer an intuitive user interface to complete the search experience.
Authentication
Many life sciences company libraries offer access to different platforms (e.g., EBSCOhost, JSTOR, ScienceDirect, etc.) with varying requirements for authentication. The right literature research platform can integrate with several authentication methods and in doing so, will provide seamless access. Seamless linking to full text is another huge consideration when looking at options compared to QUOSA — look for a platform that has direct PDF links to top publishers including Elsevier.
Plug and Play Integrations
Despite sharing the commonality of being in the life sciences industry, all research workflows will vary based on the team and their platforms. You will want a literature research solution that can integrate with your chosen cloud storage provider or even the company’s Intranet platform. The wider the integrations, the better the research workflow will be.
The above are some key points to consider when looking at options for replacing QUOSA. EBSCO offers several research technologies, bringing together the best in content and user experience to transform the process of life science research.
