How 'geotags' could track developing world science

A December 2011 opinion piece on SciDev.net.

"As old card catalogues are replaced by lightning-fast digital reference tools, researchers have an increasingly clear view of which questions have been addressed, and when, why, how and by whom.

But there is something missing from that list. Online databases and reference tools still do a very poor job of telling us where science is being carried out.

Which country's rivers have been studied more intensively by ichthyologists (fish scientists)? What proportion of scientific publications about the developing world has been written by researchers actually based there? What's the best-studied field site in the Amazon?

Quick and rigorous answers to questions like these remain beyond the reach of today's database tools. But there is a simple way to solve the problem — assign a 'geotag' to every article, book and thesis in the scientific literature...."

Read the full article here.