AuthorAID make website improvements for speed, member activity and collaboration

The AuthorAID team recently made improvements to the website to improve the experience of members:

Homepage load time

The AuthorAID homepage should now load much quicker for all users.

User response times

Sometimes it helps to know how quickly a mentor or mentee is likely to respond to your requests. The website will now automatically calculate, and publically show how quickly members respond to the first message in a discussion. This will be either:

• Within 48 hours
• Within a week
• Within 2 weeks
• Within a month
• No value - this means that the member either responds slower than a month, or has not yet received a message via the website in the last 2 years.

Take a look at Theodore Wachs' profile to see an example of a responsive mentor http://www.authoraid.info/en/mentoring/contact/2321/

The quickest responders also get priority in the ‘featured researchers’ section on the homepage

Last login within 6 months

When looking for a mentor, mentee or collaborator, you can now filter only by members who have been active on the website in the last 6 months. Simply go to the 'Find a researcher'  page and look down the left-hand side navigation and select 'within 6 months' in the 'Last login' section.

'Open to collaboration'

We've now made it easier to find other researchers to collaborate with. You can select 'open to collaboration' on your profile to show that you are willing to work with other researchers. There is also a free text field for you to describe what you would like to work on. This will help other researchers find you and also increase your chances of finding collaborators.

You can update this information on your own profile by logging into the AuthorAID website and choosing ‘Yes’ to the question “Would you like to collaborate with other researchers?” in the ‘You and AuthorAID’ section. You can then type your “Collaboration interests” in the box at the bottom of the section.

Many researchers have already updated their profiles – why not take a look at who is open to collaboration.

Any feedback?

Do you have any feedback on these changes? Or perhaps you have other thoughts or ideas you have about the AuthorAID website. Please post below, or email us at authoraid@inasp.info