RSC Advances: using a topic modelling text mining tool to improve discoverability

RSC Advances has been shortlisted for the ALPSP Award for Best New Journal 2013. Here in a guest post the publisher, Emma Wilson, explains how they developed the journal to find a home for research that does not fit in within the existing Royal Society of Chemistry journals programme.

"Over the last 5 years there has been a significant shift in both the global output of scientific research and in the growth of funding levels, through which we identified several emerging markets. From discussions with key scientists working in these areas we received feedback that the Royal Society of Chemistry is seen as a fair, inclusive, well respected, and high quality society publisher. However, it also highlighted that some authors felt they did not have a “society home” for their work, due to their research not fitting within the journals published by the RSC.

This community feedback led us to shape the idea and strategy for RSC Advances. The Journal’s vision is to provide a high quality society publishing option for all sections of the community, including emerging research areas and markets. The Journal is aligned to the Royal Society of Chemistry’s charter objective of ‘advancing the chemical sciences’, including the specific mission “to foster the chemical sciences by the dissemination of chemical knowledge”.

Topic modelling to improve discoverability

The ethos of the Journal is to be innovative and inclusive, providing exceptional levels of author service and support during the publication process, thereby facilitating the publication process and dissemination of the authors work. 


The Journal is supported by an international Editorial and Advisory Board led by Professor Mike Ward from the University of Sheffield, UK.

An innovative topic modelling tool was developed for RSC Advances. A sophisticated, behind the scene, text mining tool (developed in-house) classifies all the published papers into one or more of twelve main subject categories in the chemical sciences. The online functionality improves discoverability of authors’ research, ensuring readers go directly to the content of interest to them.

The success of the Journal has exceeded our high expectations. In just over a year after the publication of the first issue we celebrated publishing our 2000th article, and have moved to weekly publication. The Journal has also attracted many new authors to the Royal Society of Chemistry. The acceptance of the Journal by the community has also been further demonstrated by the release of its first (partial) impact factor of 2.56, placing it above the median impact factor for chemistry journals.

At the RSC we are constantly looking to improve the author and reader experience and RSC Advances, as an innovative online Journal, is pushing these boundaries."

RSC Advances was launched in 2011 by the Royal Society of Chemistry. It is an online Journal publishing well conducted research that furthers the field from across all the chemical sciences, with a particular focus on interdisciplinary and emerging areas.

Emma Wilson is Publisher for RSC Advances and has worked at the Royal Society of Chemistry as a journal publisher since 2006. She has strategic oversight and responsibility for 16 titles in the General Chemistry, Organic, Environment Science and Biological portfolios. Prior to working at the Royal Society of Chemistry Emma worked in a variety of roles in Elsevier’s Life Science Division.

The ALPSP Awards finalists will be given the opportunity to showcase their journal or innovation in a rapid fire session at the ALPSP International Conference on Wednesday 11 September.

The winners will be announced at the Conference Awards Dinner on 12 September. Book now to secure your place.

ALPSP Conference Day 2: Apportunity Knocks - Will Russell with the RSC Publishing view

Will Russell showcases ChemGoggles

In Wednesday’s parallel session Apportunity Knocks, Will Russell, Manager of Innovation and Technical Development at RSC Publishing provided an overview of their approach to develop mobile apps for their members. They started their mobile timeline in 2010 with Chemistry World (mark 1) following in the same year with Publishing Platform and ChemSpider mobile sites. In 2011 they launched RSCMobile, ChemSpider and Chemistry World (mark 2) mobile apps.

They believe the future is multi-device so their aim is to be device independent. The mobile market is large and still growing with app usage time exceeding mobile website usage. In this landscape, browser-less discovery is key.

They aim to keep customer needs at the heart of what they do.
Chemistry World now has a full mobile app to respond to reader demand. They have optimised content for smaller handsets, but it is more like reading the magazine on a tablet. ChemSpider 2010 had a mobile optimised website but has now moved to the ChemSpider Mobile App. Why? Because of the mobility of scientists. Whether in a lab or at a seminar - you can put content in their hands. They have received great anecdotal feedback at conference: people speaking positively about ChemSpider because of the app.

They keep the strategy and products under constant review. Developments to consider include APIs that will generate the most useful apps with your/our content and the use of information available free of charge to create apps such as UK Government Data.

Russell reflected on some of the challenges they have faced:

• authentication
• number of new devices and variety of functionality set on each one
• testing on devices (availability)
• supporting devices and staff training
• app store approval
• on-going future maintenance - more technologies than just a hosted website.

He concluded with some advice. Make your approach to apps part of your digital strategy - not separate. Think about what it offers over a mobile website. Release on one platform first and limit the initial approach on delivery: wait for customer information to help you prioritise what is being asked for and what works. Keep a close eye on KPIs, ROI and analytics. Understand that separate mobile websites may not be scalable. Think about how many devices and screen sizes are you going to need to support in the future. Other issues to consider include:

• for usage: it’s not as simple as reproducing the website 
• how can you support others to build apps?
• impact of support for app development
• traditional channels still serve the highest usage
• we will never have such a long period with the same interface again - in two years we could be talking glasses in the mainstream.