Noormags

Accompanied by the rapid development of internet networks around the world, the idea of creating electronic journals bore fruit instantly, so that 110 titles of electronic publications and newsletters in 1991 increased to 1689 titles in 1996 and over 4070 titles in 1997, according to the statistics released by Association of Research Libraries (ARL).[1] On these lines publications and websites providing articles took different approaches to present their publications on the Internet. Some websites attempted to offer references of articles, some published digital texts of articles, some others offered images taken from physical copies of journals instead of textual files and others, like Noor Specialized Magazines Website (Noormags) as the first website working with this method, presented journals in full text and full image.[2]

Noor Specialized Magazines Website (Noormags) is a website affiliated to the Computer Research Center of Islamic Sciences (CRCIS). As the largest Islamic bank of specialized journals concerning Islamic sciences, social sciences and the humanities in cyberspace, Noormags was founded in September 2005 with the aim of facilitating and promoting research and producing knowledge. Its user interface has been so far updated several times to keep pace with new technologies.[3] The basic idea of establishing the website originated from the successful experience of presenting religious journals in Hawzah website. The increasing enthusiasm expressed by users and the experts’ growing need to new capabilities led the CRCIS to launch Noormags to meet their needs.[4]

2003: Performing the feasibility study and website analysis phases

2004: Designing and implementing the website

2005: Official opening of the website

2012: Launching version 1.5

2014: Launching version 2

• Search and information retrieval: The most important change in this version occurred in the search section. Searching in titles of journals, articles of a specific journal and articles of a specific author, searching in the texts of articles, increased search filters and standard search simultaneously in articles and journals were new changes introduced in this version. • Extracting and providing citation files of articles: In this version, users were provided with citation files of articles in three standard formats as RIS, EndNote and BibTex. • Providing a brief statistics of articles by a specific author: Statistical categorization of articles by authors was made available to users. • Display of journals based on scientific rank and language: This feature helps researchers to learn about journals and their scientific ranks and therefore to make a more accurate selection of the required sources and materials. • Using front cover image for journal icons: front cover image was displayed as journal icons in Publication Info page, Article View page and the lists.[7]

From the advent of this Website, many users have viewed and received these articles. Those who follow a particular topic in the website adopt various ways to search for it. The website can track the articles that a user views in one research task. If the number of times two articles are viewed at the same time is considerably large, it can be concluded that they are related to each other. This capability uses this method to let the user know about other articles that may be in some way related to the current one.[8]

This is a smart tool to discover the articles having titles most similar to that of the current article, taking advantage of text mining and artificial intelligence methods. Finding related articles is a research concern that must be answered in the shortest time available in order for the researchers to organize comprehensive and non-repetitive research works. The main way to know the relationship of articles with each other is to check the common words in their titles. This tool uses the titles of articles to identify their relationship with one another.[9]

A part of developing Noor local search engine has been embedded in the new Noormags website. Here are some features of the search engine: • Searching for all word forms: all derivations of the search word are included in search results. • Highlighting search results: the search results will be displayed highlighted through the texts. • Find synonyms: synonyms of the search word will be included in search results. • Spell checker: it checks the words typed onto the search input line and suggests their correct spelling if mistyped. Fast performance, quality of results considering the Persian language characteristics, logical ranking in comparison with popular search engines and many other facilities are accounted as the strength points of this search engine.[10]

• Assigning a specific address for each publication • Possibility of managing Publication Info page by the owners • Providing statistical information, e.g. number of visits, number of downloads etc. • Possibility of uploading publication files by owners [11]

• Creating a list of favorite articles, journals and authors • Releasing information on new issues and selected authors • Giving reports on users' activities including downloads, searches etc.[12]

• Integrating different services to provide the content purposefully and intelligently • Connecting to the comprehensive system of Noor Users [13]