Case Study: GSW

GeoScienceWorld.org

GeoScienceWorld (GSW) hosts a domain-leading collection of earth science research built on 46 leading geoscience journals and a rapidly growing list of over 2,000 ebooks from 28 premier publishers in the geosciences, enhanced by deep integration with nearly four million records in the GeoRef database.

GeoScienceWorld sought a platform that would enable the expansion of their aggregator model, the Society Services Program, which offers a cost-effective, shared infrastructure for hosting independent society sites on the platform, providing a scalable and efficient global presence for publishers, authors, and members.

GSW’s new site provides scholars and professionals with a comprehensive and consolidated research experience and offers innovative tools optimized for use by academic researchers and professional geoscientists. Distinctive features of the site include: split screen display that allows users to scroll the journal article and its figures simultaneously; an integrated map-based search experience using GeoRef bounding coordinate data to discover content globally and narrow results to specific regions or locations; search results that include figures and extract views; and a re-conceptualized treatment of GeoRef Thesaurus keywords for better surfacing of related content.

The January 2020 edition of Learned Publishing featured a case study on GSW’s success, noting:

“On the Silverchair Platform, GSW was able to introduce a Society Services program, which began with cost‐effective hosting opportunities based on a common technology base. We now provide a full suite of cost‐effective and scalable services, including hosting, project management, collaborative roadmap development, customer service, and sales, marketing, and fulfillment services. . . . In content hosting and dissemination, we have increased site traffic and discovery by delivering traffic to a sizable, globally recognized, and domain‐focused ‘version of record’ site.”