Like a lot of modern scientists I now find papers to read to a large extent based on what I see on social media. It is a great way to find out what my colleagues are reading and keep up with the newest cool research.
A few weeks ago I released a really simple prototype for an app that would improve on this experience called papr, its like Tinder but for papers :). The basic idea is for you to log in to the system, and then swipe to rate preprints on biorxiv on one of two scales:
- Boring versus exciting
- Probably accurate versus questionable.
Since then Lucy and Nick went crazy and turned it into something way more interesting. You can now rate papers just like before by swiping:
But now Lucy and Nick have added a recommendation engine that will learn from what you like and show you more papers that meet your personal tastes.
But there’s more! You can download your ratings to analyze yourself or you can take a sneak peak into our recommendation engine to find other papers you might like with this interactive PC plot:
But my favorite feature is that you can see other people who have liked similar papers and follow them on Twitter - so you can discover new scientists that work in your field!
We hope to aggregate the data and get a community level view of what is going on biorxiv. Lucy and Nick have done an amazing job and I really hope that you will check it out and rate some papers, who knows you might find a new paper or Twitter friend!
https://jhubiostatistics.shinyapps.io/papr