BEST Liz Mazzella 07 Feb 1994 12:30 EST
I was on the way out to a meeting and had to cut my last note short. We looked into best a few months back based on some second hand information we had received that participation was useful in increasing collaborations for investigators. In my initial conversations with others in the field, there always appeared to be some confusion over whether BEST charged participating institutions for their services. The confusion stemmed from the fact that just as I was starting my investigations into BEST, BEST approached several of their current subscribers with the idea of instituting a fee. I called BEST (Cartermill, Inc) directly and found that they had in fact decided to institute a fee for participating institutions to list their faculty profiles. (The other service they provide, listing of available technologies for license, remains free of charge). They based their decision to go forward with a fee on "informal feedback" they received from participants that the fee would be acceptable. However, when this issue was discussed on Techno-l; the majority of respondants indicated that they would probably NOT continue listing their faculty profiles if a $6,000 - $7,500 annual fee were involved. Most could not point to specific collaborations or funded research that arose from their participation. A representative of BEST explained to me that the fee was intended to support Internet access to BEST for all investigators at participating institutions (currently access is direct and only through a designated office --usually Sponsored Programs. They also state that they have become so large a database that they experience significant delays in getting new faculty profiles on the database --the fee is intended to help fund provision of better service in this area --to give a guaranteed turnaround for input, etc... Corporate users of BEST, will continue to pay for the service, and will not be issued internet access capability. BEST has not approached me since we expressed initial interest and we have not signed up yet based on the lukewarm reviews we have seen. I would be interested in knowing if anyone on RESADM-L has had experience with BEST that would support the fee. Finally - I think the "CEO" reference in the initial note that started this tome referred to a new Chief Exec. Officer at BEST. * Elizabeth (Liz) Mazzella xxxxxx@ALBNYDH2.BITNET * * Asst. Dir. Technology Transfer & Sponsored Pgms. * * Health Research, Inc. 66 Hackett Blvd. Albany NY 12209 * * Voice: (518) 431-1200 Fax: (518)431-1234 *