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Hermann Agis is Head of the Competence Center for Tissue Engineering and Cell-Based Therapies, University Clinic of Dentistry, MedUni Vienna. He is also a faculty member of the F1000Prime. He describes his experience using F1000Workspace with his team and their projects.

More than just a reference manager

I am a biotechnologist working in the field of regenerative dentistry and tissue engineering. I work in a multidisciplinary research team, which includes dentists, medical doctors, biotechnologists and biologists. This diverse research environment has its benefits, but also its challenges. The management of the shared literature and notes within the team and in particular during the publication process can be quite difficult.

It has quickly become clear that F1000Workspace has not only helped us adapt our current workflow but has transformed the way we think as a team.

So, we were searching for a tool that would facilitate collaboration and allow us to collect, store and classify scientific literature across platforms easily. I am a faculty member of F1000Prime, so I became interested in F1000Workspace. The platform seemed ideal for our needs as a team, so I wanted to test it out.

My Experience with F1000Workspace

I found F1000Workspace the ideal platform for myself and my team. The platform’s integration into web browsers, allowed me to easily add publications – including the notes into our database – which was particularly helpful. The classification of articles by tags and the attribution to specific projects was very handy and these projects can be either set as private or shared.  The fast and helpful chat-based support service made it easy for myself and my students to adapt to this new style of workflow.

I really enjoy the intelligent article search, which is based on a specific library. This feature suggests novel key articles, which has helped myself and my team to stay up-to-date on the progress in the field, based on our different projects. Publications can be easily added by other team members to different project databases, this makes it so simple to keep track of progress.

The integration of F1000Workspace into Google Documents is another helpful addition since it allowed us to work on one document in international collaborations. It has quickly become clear that F1000Workspace has not only helped us adapt our current workflow but has transformed the way we think as a team.

The fast and helpful chat-based support service made it easy for myself and my students to adapt to this new style of workflow.

What does the future hold?

I look forward to F1000Workspace being available offline. Every minute counts when writing a manuscript and the deadline is approaching. Therefore, myself and my students try to make use of every spare minute available. However, there are times where an internet connection is not available; during a commute for example. In these situations, it will help us immensely to have the most important features of F1000Workspace available offline. Both myself and my team are greatly looking forward to the next update F1000Workspace brings and how it can continue to help us work even better as a team.

Given the potential of F1000Workspace and the willingness of the F1000Workspace team to update the platform, it will be interesting to see how it will develop in the future.