New VPN EasyConnect Web Interface

The Administrative Computing and Telecommunications Department (ACT) recently launched an enhanced VPN service. This service allows authorized UCSD users to access campus resources, including the electronic resources the Libraries pay for, from off campus.

This new service is web-based and uses the Active Directory authentication system which requires the user to have a valid UCSD Active Directory (”AD”) login and password.  Our experience at the Library is students with problems or questions with their Active Directory login and password should contact ACT directly. Faculty and staff should work with their departmental IT contact.

The advantages of using this enhanced VPN service via the EasyConnect web interface are:

1. Users working behind firewalls are more likely to be successful using UCSD resources from off campus.

2. Users do not need to change any of the setting on their browser as is the case with the proxy server.

3. Users do not need to be authorized to download and install an application on to the computer they’re using.

To use the EasyConnect web interface, go to https://vpn.ucsd.edu

Web of Science has new Citation Map feature

Citation Map is a new feature now available in Web of Science. When you view a full record for an individual article you will see a link labelled “Citation Map (beta)” that will let you generate visual maps looking backward, forward or both, beginning with your original article. Requires Java, and the displays may not work perfectly with Firefox.

Art Observation and Medical Students

From the July 2008 issue Journal of General Internal Medicine is a research study from Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) where researchers, led by Joel Katz and Shahram Khoshbin, from the Departments of Medicine and Neurology developed a pre-clinical course for Harvard Medical School students to enhance their diagnostic abilities and improve their visual assessment skills through close observation and guided discussion of fine art and artistic concepts. The researchers found that the students who took the course had a 38 percent increase in overall accurate visual observations of patients and art work compared to otherwise similarly-trained control students in the study.

http://www.brighamandwomens.org/Pressreleases/PressRelease.aspx?PageID=385

Medicine 2.0 blog carnival

Medicine 2.0 is a weekly “blog carnival” that features a roundup of blog coverage of Web 2.0 applications for medicine and healthcare. Each week, a different medical blogger takes a turn compiling and hosting the roundup - this week’s edition, “summertime” is hosted at ScienceRoll. Topics range from electronic health records to specialized search tools, communication and geeky fun. The “home” for this weekly feature is at http://medicine20.wordpress.com/

Free EndNote X2 Upgrade for Recent X1 Purchasers

Anyone who purchased EndNote X1 on or after April 1, 2008 is eligible for a free upgrade to X2 which was just released.  All you need to do is fax your proof of purchase and contact information (email address, mailing address and phone number) to (760) 438-5573.  The upgrade will then be sent to you electronically.

The UCSD Biomedical Library currently teaches EndNote X1 and EndNote Web classes.  More information about using EndNote is located on the library’s EndNote website, or you can just ask us!

HealthMap: new tools for disease surveillance

Healthmap.org is a very cool new web-based tool that tracks news sources about emerging diseases and outbreaks and makes them available to public health officials, researchers and the public via a map-based interface.

• Link: http://www.healthmap.org
• Summary from Wired News
• Full article on the project published in PLoS Medicine