To advance the domain of scholarly, corporate, and professional expertise profile systems by fostering collaboration, research, education, and best practices.
Expert finder systems (EFS) and research information systems have been serving universities, government agencies, businesses, and non-profit organizations for more than two decades by showcasing metadata related to expertise, resources, and institutional strengths.
They support decision-making, research analytics, scholarly communications, competitive analysis, and specialized portals on emerging high-impact topics. They have also become major tools for economic development because they facilitate matchmaking for collaborative teams, innovation, university-industry partnerships, and entrepreneurship, and mentoring.
Forum events welcome practitioners from the university, research, and economic development communities to explore topics such as:
The forum community of practice also offers the opportunity to explore the possibility of establishing a professional organization to provide leadership and develop ongoing events.
The idea of creating the Expert Finder Systems Forum originated at the Center for Information Management and Educational Services (CIMES), part of Florida State University. CIMES already had a history in this domain, having operated an expert finder system called Florida ExpertNet since 1999. ExpertNet is a publicly funded portal of research expertise across Florida's universities.
In 2016, CIMES leaders Rebecca Augustyniak and Amy Finley were part of a panel on expertise systems at the Tech Transfer Society Annual Conference. Informal but enthusiastic discussions followed during a meet and greet sponsored by the Elsevier publishing and analytics company. Given the evident interest, Augustyniak and Finley decided to pursue the establishment of an ongoing conference. In late 2017, with the leadership of Elsevier's Brad Fenwick, Elsevier offered to provide the sponsorship needed to launch the forum, with Florida ExpertNet as the organizing sponsor. After recruiting a group of interested stakeholders, planning got underway for the first event.
The Expert Finder Systems National Forum launched in Orlando, Florida, in 2019 to support the emerging field and the community of practitioners. Sponsorship grew to include additional companies and non-profits. Subsequent in-person and virtual conferences are held regularly, and the community continues to grow.
EFS Forum event planning is led by volunteers from organizations that include Ohio State University, Clarivate, OCLC, Brazilian Institute of Information in Science and Technology, Florida International University, Texas A&M University, Northwestern University, Harvard University, FuzeHub, University of Colorado, Duke University, Pennsylvania State University, Oklahoma University, Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, Carnegie Mellon University, Elsevier, Florida State University, University of Miami, Symplectic, Virginia Tech, Syracuse University, University of Arizona, West Arete, Indiana-Purdue University, University of Florida, Idaho National Laboratory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, and Emory University.
Following the 2023 Forum, an executive committee was formed alongside the steering committee to address transitioning EFS to a more formal organization to support the growing field of research and practice that includes academic, business, and research stakeholders, while continuing to meet the expanding needs of the conference itself.
EFS systems take many forms, including but not limited to:
These systems may be maintained by a variety of providers—from commercial entities to research universities—using a wide range of commercial, locally developed, or open-source products. Expert finder systems can support research collaboration, help bring new technologies to market, promote innovation and entrepreneurship, and contribute to economic development efforts.
Researchers, practitioners, faculty, librarians, administrators, platform providers, and other stakeholders in the following areas are part of our community:
Expert finder systems
Research information
and analytics
Management systems
Economic development
Corporate affairs
Faculty advancement
Libraries
Scholarly communications
Research commercialization
Industry
Team Science
Related areas