Development of a MeSH-based index of faculty research interests

An index of faculty research interests terms has many uses for an institution's researchers and administrators. This paper describes the Faculty Research Interests Project (FRIP), which addresses vocabulary and compliance problems inherent in research interests index development. FRIP creates an index using Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) associated with the MEDLINE-indexed publications of faculty authors. Following a preliminary study, a Web-based term selection component was developed that allows faculty users not only to choose MeSH terms but also to add both additional author names under which they have published and original terms in real time. In a study involving 136 medical school faculty, users successfully navigated the term selection component, and more than 90 percent of the terms they selected were MeSH terms, confirming MeSH's usefulness for indexing research interests.