ticTOCs delivers (Table of) Content
Imagine a service that sends out RSS feeds about RSS feeds that focuses on the Table of Contents (TOCs)of academic journals. The service is called the ticTOCs project and it is an endeavor of the UK-based Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC).
The project’s goal is to make available a current awareness program - focused on academic journals - to a wide array of users. This is the short explanation. Now, below is the longer explanation.
The aim of the ticTOCs project is to develop a service which will transform journal current awareness by making it easy for academics and researchers to find, display, store, combine and reuse tables of contents from multiple publishers in a personisable web based environment. [Source]
Why Table of Contents?
My guess is that this is the one of the free ways this service can update its readers. To provide actual text or even abstracts will cost money. Using Table of Contents cost will not much or none at all and the publishers will be more than willing to provide the RSS of the TOCs because it is a form of promoting and marketing their product.
Meanwhile, What do you know about RSS Spam? Read this interesting post from newsniche called well … RSS Spam.
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3 opinions for ticTOCs delivers (Table of) Content
Roddy MacLeod
Oct 15, 2007 at 10:55 am
Thanks for mentioning ticTOCs. I’m not sure that your description is completely accurate, though.
ticTOCs will not send out RSS feeds about RSS feeds. Rather, ticTOCs will aggregate the Table of Contents RSS feeds of publishers (plus various other things, of course).
Commercial and open access journal publishers are increasingly producing RSS feeds for their journal TOCs. ticTOCs will make it easy for people to find, display, and reuse those feeds.
WRT the full text of articles included in TOCs - in the case of commercially published journals, if someone (or their institution) subscribes to the journal, then they should be able to get access to the full text. In the case of open access journals, then the full text should be freely available to everyone.
TOC RSS feeds are made freely available by most publishers. ticTOCs will facilitate current awareness, in other words.
Hope this helps.
More information is available at the ticTOCs website and at the ticTOCs blog.
Juned
Oct 15, 2007 at 6:56 pm
Hi Roddy, Thanks for the clarification and additional information.
Cheers,
Juned
The Gold Dust Project
Jan 9, 2008 at 9:05 pm
[…] what a lethal combination. Roderick MacLeod sent me an email about a research project that will use ticTOCS usage data to creat Personal Interest Profiles (PIPs). The research project is called Gold Dust. […]
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