Roadmap

[RobSullivan]

Roadmap

Check which references of an are free to read in PubMed Central.

Project mission and summary

Before paying for a research article it might be good to know which references of the article are free to access. Sort of like buy one get fifty* free. You can now check this with the PMC-REF API.

PubMed is a repository of biomedical literature and PubMed Central is a free full text archive of 3.8 million articles. Currently PMC-REF checks a static database of ~120k articles and their references. The aim of this project is to make the lookup dynamic so any article in PubMed or PubMed Central can be checked.

How to get involved

The basic functionality and limited database is there but there is lots of room for improvement.

Read the CONTRIBUTING.md to get an idea of what's needed and then either jump straight in on the issues below or get in touch via email if you have more questions or suggestions:
#1 Validate doi format before requesting data
#2 Implement an endpoint for citations data
#3 Refactor data collection code into a module

Timeline

Short term

1. Improve code for readability and to encourage new contributors
2. Make a nice homepage

Medium term

1. 🎆 🎉 🎈 Get API to MVP state ready for launch after Mozilla Science Lab Global Sprint in early June 2016
2. Migrate data from document datastore to rmdbs
3. Encourage one or two more experienced developers to contribute to the project

Long term

1. Attract users in institutions
2. Integrate with other third parties working with PubMed data.