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title: OST-RG in Google Summer of Code 2019
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  <h3>Open Source Tools - Research Group in Google Summer of Code 2019</h3>
  <h4 id='application_instructions'>Application Instructions</h4>
  <p>We are looking for students interested developing software for the scientific community. We need participants who are experienced in or are willing to learn about literature reviews and meta-analysis. There will be a lot of support on these topics provided by our group of experts.</p>
  <p>Before applying, it is mandatory to read the <a href='https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352711018300293'>paper that introduces to Buhos</a>, to obtain a clear view of the objectives and features already availables </p>
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About the student proposal, we have some things in mind:</p>
<ul>

<li>You'll need to have a concrete task in mind (you can pick some of the ideas listed on the page), and you´ll need to  define explicit success criteria.</li>
<li>We need to evaluate your interests and skills, to estimate if your skillset is in accord with your task. Therefore, please give us some information about your background and your knowledge about coding, research and literature reviews.</li>
<li>You'll need a complete schedule for your project, including specific dates and milestones.</li>
</ul>
<p>We're accepting GSoC proposals that fits one of two categories:</p>
<ul>
<li>Extensions to Buhos, with new features that improve significantly the functionality of the software.</li>
<li>Major refactoring of Buhos. As example, it would be very useful to implement the different features of the software as independent modules, available on different gems. </li>
</ul>
<p>It is expected that all contributions provide extensive unit and integration tests and documentation. Also, as all features will be tested on its usability, is required that the schedule includes time to obtain feedback and make the corresponding changes.</p>
<p>The time available to develop your proposal is <strong>4 months</strong>. A simple proposal that only takes one or two months could be rejected for a more ambitious one. The GSoC only cover coding, so other activities, like 
writing an article or create documentation are not suitable.</p>
<p>Any proposal should be sent to our <a href='https://groups.google.com/forum/#!aboutgroup/open-science-tools-research-group-common'>Mailing group</a> for further discussion.</p>
<h4 id='ideas'>Ideas</h4>
<p>Some suggestions of ideas to extend Buhos are presented. Feel free to submit any proposals for things not detailed in the list. Anyway, the ideas listed below are the most urgent needs according to our expert group, so keep that in mind. In addition, projects that provide both extensions to backend and frontend are preferred to others that extends only the backend.</p>
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      <li class='list-group-item'><strong>Development of an open specification for representation of systematic reviews</strong>. This would allow users to save and upload different versions of each SLR, for backup and control version purposes. This format could eventually be used to import and export SLRs from one tool to another. As a developer, is expected that you could provide rationality of a specific documentation format, and create the modules to read and save SLR in the database.</li>

      <li class='list-group-item'><strong>Integrated federated search, allowing simultaneous searches in multiple databases</strong>. Buhos already implement interfaces to Crossref, Scopus and PubMed that allow to retrieve information from external services, but is necessary to develop a search interface for users. Implementation of interfaces for other databases will be appreciated.
      </li>

    <li class='list-group-item'><strong>Generate canonical representations of authors and journals</strong>. Now, the authors as journals as stored as-is, but could be very useful to provide canonical representations of both objects, like the canonical representation provided to documents. A user interface should be implemented, that allow analyst and administrators to remove duplicates and perform basic bibliometric analyses.  </li>

    <li class='list-group-item'><strong>Improve reference search support</strong>. It could be performed directly extracting the information available in PDFs and integrating it with the information available in indexed databases.</li>

    <li class='list-group-item'><strong>Encoding of quantitative data, with descriptive statistics and meta-analysis.</strong>. The user interface for extract information should be adaptable, because one article could be report several studied, using different effect measures.</li>
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