Introducing . . . The Digital Scientist

Months ago, we played the Name Game, seeking a new name for International Science Grid This Week. Today we are pleased to announce the new name: The Digital Scientist.

The Digital Scientist is not just a pretty new name. It comes along with a brand new website boasting features carefully chosen to enhance your reading experience, as part of a complete relaunch.

A solid foundation

iSGTW has always been the go-to place for news about distributed computing and the research it supports. That isn’t going to change. We will still be delivering top-notch stories on a regular basis via our front page, email, and RSS. With The Digital Scientist, we’ve simply built upon solid foundations to give you more.

Some of those changes will introduce common features you’ve seen on other websites, such as the ability to rate an article or comment on it. Other features are more exciting. A few highlights:

Become a digital scientist

Readers will be able to register and create a profile. Research groups, laboratories, and institutions will also have profiles.

You will be able to follow other readers’ updates, mark them as colleagues if you’ve met or  collaborated; and list yourself as a member of a research group.

For example, if you are a researcher, then tagging your profile according to your research interests, you also make it possible for potential collaborators to find you, just as you will be able to search profiles for researchers and research groups with similar interests.

Of course, we’re not restricted to researchers alone. Journalists, the public, and anyone who’s interested in cool science involving computing can register.

Have your say

With over 6800 subscribers, The Digital Scientist has the critical mass to foster productive discussions between you and your colleagues. On the new website, you can start a new blog or host an existing one. In fact, we’re so excited to read what you have to say that we’re hoping to promote the best blog posts to the website’s front page.

Collaborate, learn, share, and teach

There are a wide variety of educational resources on topics such as grid, cloud, super and volunteer computing. But few if any websites provide a single place where someone can learn about all the forms of computing. Nor are most resources created and developed in a collaborative framework.

Coming soon

These are just some of the new features that will be on the new site. We will launch in the new year; in the meantime, you can keep up to date on the latest news about The Digital Scientist at www.thedigitalscientist.org.