Product Overview of Lens.org
Lens.org, a flagship project of the social enterprise Cambia, is a comprehensive and open platform designed to aggregate, manage, and analyze vast amounts of scholarly works, patents, and biological sequences. Here’s a detailed look at what Lens.org does and its key features:
Core Functionality
Lens.org is built around four primary functions: discover, analyze, manage, and share knowledge. It achieves this by combining unique content sets, including scholarly works, patents, and biological sequences, with advanced management tools. This platform is free and open, allowing anyone in the world to access and utilize its resources without the need for an individual account, although registered users can enjoy additional privileges.
Data Coverage
- Scholarly Works: Lens.org hosts over 200 million scholarly records, compiled and harmonized from sources such as Microsoft Academic, PubMed, and Crossref. These records are enhanced with open access information from UnPaywall and other sources.
- Patents: The platform provides access to over 155 million global patent records, including data from more than 100 countries. It also includes more than 495 million patent sequences.
- Biological Sequences: The PatSeq tool allows users to search and analyze biological sequences disclosed in patents.
Search and Analytics Tools
- Advanced Search Capabilities: Lens.org offers advanced boolean functions, structured search options, and filtering and sorting capabilities for both scholarly works and patents. Users can perform searches using a simple search bar or the more refined Structured Search tool, which allows filtering by date range, identifier type, publication type, and other attributes.
- Citation Indexing: The platform includes citation indexing for both patent and scholarly literature, enabling users to link patent search results to cited scholarly works and vice versa.
- Faceted Filters: Users can refine their search results using faceted filters, which appear on the left-hand side of the screen and can be used to narrow down results based on various attributes such as open access status, presence of an abstract, funding information, and more.
Integration and Collaboration
- ORCID Integration: Lens.org supports ORCID linked services, allowing users to claim and sync their works with their ORCID records. This enhances author and inventor profiles with aggregated data from various sources.
- Crossref and Other Partnerships: The platform deposits patent citation event data into CrossRef and supports initiatives like the Initiative for Open Abstracts (I4OA) and the Research Organization Registry (ROR).
- APIs and Bulk Data Access: Lens.org provides APIs for scholarly works and patents, as well as options for bulk data downloads. This includes genetic sequences in patents and the corpus of scholarly works and patents, which can be accessed through institutional licenses or personal commercial accounts.
User Profiles and Management Tools
- Professional Profiles: Lens Profiles are composite author/inventor profiles based on ORCID records and enhanced with aggregated data. Users can share their work output, including employment, education, co-authors, mentions, and links.
- Collection Management: Registered users can manage collections of works or patents, dynamically tracking, monitoring, and analyzing these collections.
Accessibility and Licensing
- Free Access: The platform is open and freely accessible to all users, with the option to export data anonymously. Registered users, particularly scholars and academic researchers, can enjoy additional privileges such as saved history, recurring queries, and collection management.
- Institutional Licenses: For business, government, and other sectors, institutional licenses are available, providing access to advanced features and bulk data downloads.
In summary, Lens.org is a powerful tool for discovering, analyzing, managing, and sharing knowledge across scholarly works, patents, and biological sequences. Its open and equitable access model, combined with advanced search and analytics tools, makes it an invaluable resource for researchers, innovators, and institutions worldwide.