A list of why VIVO is important to different constituencies - a very pragmatic list with practical examples. Also see "Explaining Linked Data to Your Pro Vice Chancellor" for a good discussion on related topics which can be used for onsite discussions. Please add to this list as you can.

Open Science & Discovery

• Point to data sets and research products

Basic scientists

• All data is linked within the context of a person - and that data can lead to other valuable sources
• You can individually brand yourself/research
• Links can help your search engine rankings rise quickly.
• Getting funding (linking research to grants).
• Opening research to the world (imagine having your citations displayed on your affiliate society pages and beyond).
• Finding collaborators (simplifies the process of identifying experts in a field and reaching out to them).
• Being "found" by potential collaborators.
• VIVO can help junior faculty and trainees identify mentors.
• Find campus events and take advantage of local opportunities.
• Highlight teaching expertise/responsibilities. Teaching is often a thankless job on campus.
• Keep current on research in my department, on my campus.
• Find core research facilities and people with expertise within the cores.
• Track collaborators.
• Track competitors.
• Find support services on campus - library liaison, support personnel within administrative groups, etc.
• Highlight a changed research direction. Publications often lag ~2 years behind what's actually being done in the lab (Research_Objective statement is a vehicle for this).
• VIVO's ontology makes information easily findable

Clinicians

• Search for upcoming conferences, seminars, workshops, and trainings
• Find resources (labs/facilities) for screening and assessment.
• Find related articles, research conducted within an institution.
• Connect with other research areas or groups within an institution.
• Create work groups for case studies.
• Re-purpose VIVO data for practice websites.
• Gain visibility of work.
• Organize fund raising events to assist with funding research or grants/scholarships.
• Start discussions about new clinical findings.
• Interact with colleagues within the same field to gather insight and ask questions.
• Utilize VIVO to educate and promote preventive health.
• Find referral doctors in other fields.
• Find an expert who specializes in a particular procedure or protocol.
• Enable a physician to identify potential clinical trials that her/his patient might find of interest .
• Enable community groups to identify physicians who might have similar interests for future collaborations (especially important in the age of translational science - taking the fruits of translational research out and ultimately benefiting the community).
• highlight links/content of interest to their patients. For example - a researcher who works with a particular genetic disease might wish to share a link to local and national support groups for patients and their advocates.

Librarians/IS people

• Will help them to stay in touch with their departments and integrate them into various research efforts.
• The semantic web allow them to take our rich research output and make it available, reducing information boundaries (this is what librarians do!)
• Use information gleaned from VIVO to help guide collection development and purchasing decisions.
• Use information gleaned from VIVO to help guide development of new services.
• VIVO's ontology makes information easily findable

Administrators

• Creates a one-stop shop for publicly-available institutional data. Institutional attitudes often come into play when determining what data is incorporated, however.
• The underlying application is created using semantic web compliant standards --making the data transferable between systems, if you later decide to go with another platform. linked open data is available, regardless of the platform.
• Showcase rich research output (showcase publications, grants, etc.) data is easily reusable - so opportunities to restructure the data are endless.
• Could possibly increase funding money, as it allows administrators to connect people and resources when targeted funding opportunities require specific details to be met.
• Assist with locating experts for review panels, symposia, etc.
• Assist journals in locating experts.
• Assists when highlighting research efforts to potential donors (has resulted to real funding for Cornell researchers).

Students

• Find mentors.
• Find research opportunities.
• Identify courses of interest.
• Useful for recruiting new graduate students, trainees.
• Find seminars of interest.
• All data is linked within the context of a person - and that data can lead to other valuable sources
• You can individually brand yourself/research
• Links can help your search engine rankings rise quickly.

Other Benefits

• Search across variety of disciplines.
• Promote your work.
• Maintain your resume/CV - not yet
• Put together review panels/committees
• Find collaborators on projects/grants
• View personal visualizations on co-author networks and grant funding.
• Open source, community-developed tool
• Create public/private groups
• Connect with colleagues
• Display course information
• Share research
• Highlight upcoming talks or presentations that you are giving.
• Get statistics on published papers