Social Networking Analysis: MIDAS helps solve data completeness

It is very much possible to use social networking tools to connect, map and characterize scientific and research communities. Research personnel and scientists publish papers and articles; they also move from one institution to another. For example a person can be an author on an article; or two people can be co-authors on an article. In either case, the same author must be identified correctly on multiple articles. In short we must answer the question: “Is J.Smith on article one the same J.Smith on article two?”

The ability to identify the “same” person that has had a name change (e.g. maiden name vs. married name) is impossible automatically, but as a person’s master record is built, the goal is to retain a list of all possible names for a particular person, in order to successfully match future additional records for the same person