Information synthesis: a new approach to explore secondary information in scientific literature

Advances in both technology and publishing practices continue to increase the quantity of scientific literature that is available electronically. In this paper, we introduce the information synthesis process, a new approach that enables scientists to visualize, explore, and resolve contradictory findings that are inevitable when multiple empirical studies explore the same natural phenomena. Central to the information synthesis approach is a cyber-infrastructure that provides a scientist with both primary and secondary information from an article and structured information resources. To demonstrate this approach, we have developed the Multi-User Information Extraction for Information Synthesis (METIS) System. METIS is an interactive system that automates critical tasks within the information synthesis process. We provide two case-studies that demonstrate the utility of the information synthesis approach