Healthc Inform Res.  2013 Dec;19(4):243-249. 10.4258/hir.2013.19.4.243.

Developing a Biomedical Expert Finding System Using Medical Subject Headings

• Singh H
• Singh R
• Malhotra A
• Kaur M

• KMID: 2229499
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.4258/hir.2013.19.4.243

Abstract

OBJECTIVES
Efficient identification of subject experts or expert communities is vital for the growth of any organization. Most of the available expert finding systems are based on self-nomination, which can be biased, and are unable to rank experts. Thus, the objective of this work was to develop a robust and unbiased expert finding system which can quantitatively measure expertise.
METHODS
Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) is a controlled vocabulary developed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) for indexing research publications, articles and books. Using the MeSH terms associated with peer-reviewed articles published from India and indexed in PubMed, we developed a Web-based program which can be used to identify subject experts and subjects associated with an expert.
RESULTS
We have extensively tested our system to identify experts from India in various subjects. The system provides a ranked list of experts where known experts rank at the top of the list. The system is general; since it uses information available with the PubMed, it can be implemented for any country.
CONCLUSIONS
The expert finding system is able to successfully identify subject experts in India. Our system is unique because it allows the quantification of subject expertise, thus enabling the ranking of experts. Our system is based on peer-reviewed information. Use of MeSH terms as subjects has standardized the subject terminology. The system matches requirements of an ideal expert finding system.

Keyword

Medical Subject Headings; Data Mining; Online Systems; Expert Systems; Professional Competence

MeSH Terms

Abstracting and Indexing as Topic
Bias (Epidemiology)
Data Mining
Expert Systems
India
Medical Subject Headings*
National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
Online Systems
Professional Competence
Vocabulary, Controlled

Figure

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  Figure 1 Contingency table used to calculate statistical significance of association between given subject and expert.

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  Figure 2 Home page of Expert Finding System available at (http://bmi.icmr.org.in/expert; http://202.141.106.122/expert).

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  Figure 3 Finding subject experts: enter complete or partial subject.

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  Figure 4 Selecting from list of Medical Subject Headings subjects related to entered text.

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  Figure 5 List of subject experts in 'microbiology'.

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  Figure 6 Searching subjects associated with an expert.

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