Reader FAQ ~ Author FAQ ~ Institution FAQ

COBRA Reader FAQ

What is a "technical report"?
Although many of the technical reports within COBRA have gone on to be accepted in peer-reviewed journals, a technical report (also known as a "working paper" or "pre-print") is usually a scientific work in progress that has not yet been peer-reviewed.
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What else does COBRA feature beyond technical reports?
Articles from the peer-reviewed journals Statistical Applications in Genetics and Molecular Biology and The International Journal of Biostatistics, as well as dissertations from PhD candidates from many top biostatistics programs.
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Why is it that the COBRA version of a paper comes up on top in Web searches?
There are multiple reasons. Search engines use a variety of metrics to determine which sites come up first in queries. We work hard to ensure that COBRA, and the content that it features, is recognized as quality material. For example, COBRA has a relationship with Google that facilitates their ability to search and index our sites. Also, our content is featured on medbioworld.com (the largest medical and bioscience resource directory on the Internet) and the Current Web Contents™ portion of the ISI Web of Knowledge (Thomson’s research powerhouse), which adds significantly to our web standing. In addition, COBRA is linked to numerous general biostatistics resource pages throughout the web.
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How does COBRA search work?
With COBRA search readers type in search terms and the system will search not just titles and the abstracts, but the actual full text of each report as well. We have PDF search capability, which means our system allows for a much more powerful and complete search than most. With the advanced function, readers can narrow their focus even more by searching within particular categories, such as author name, subject area, institution, or date. As an added bonus, readers can save their ideal search criteria for subsequent visits, or can choose to be notified of new content through periodic email alerts (COBRA notification).
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What is "COBRA notification"?
COBRA notification allows you to have content sent to you by email. Pathways into our COBRA notification service include:

Email Announcements list – Receive notification of the latest COBRA papers from top institutions such as Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and The University of Washington. The email announcements list includes all papers from all institutional working paper series as well as content from the peer-reviewed journals Statistical Applications in Genetics and Molecular Biology and The International Journal of Biostatistics.

Personalized email notification – The most common way to receive content updates is to sign up for notification within a particular subject area, for example, clinical epidemiology, microarrays, etc. You can also receive notification of content that fits any keyword of your choosing, such as an author name, a series name, or a general biostatistics term (example: biometrics). You can even use this function to see if people are citing your work by entering your own name as the search term. The system will automatically email you if your name is referenced in any COBRA article.
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What is RSS feed?
If you are not interested in getting email alerts, you can also create a COBRA-specific RSS feed, which will deliver, directly to your computer, notifications of newly posted Collection of Biostatistics Research Archive content. RSS is a standard for publishing regular updates to web-based content. For more information on RSS and how it works, please visit: http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/about
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What are the most common ways that people browse content?
Browsing the "most popular reports" section of our site is an easy way to discover cutting-edge COBRA content (you can access these reports from the COBRA homepage). We also feature most popular content broken down by institution. Go to an institution’s COBRA homepage and select (for example) "Harvard’s most downloaded" to browse their most popular content.
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How are the "most popular papers" chosen?
Papers are chosen based on the average number of full-text downloads per day since the paper was posted. A "full-text download" is accomplished when a reader selects the "download the paper" option and allows the PDF to fully launch in their browser.
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How often do you update the rankings?
Rankings are automatically updated every 2 weeks.
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What other ways can I browse?
You can also find COBRA content broken down by author ("Browse Author") and by subject ("Browse Subject")—we index all COBRA articles within 21 distinct biostatistics categories. Both browse functions are available through the COBRA home page.
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How should papers be cited?
Suggested citations for each paper are located on the paper abstract page. An example: Melody S. Goodman, Yi Li, and Ram C. Tiwari, "Survival Analysis with Change Point Hazard Functions" (April 2006). Harvard University Biostatistics Working Paper Series. Working Paper 40.
http://www.bepress.com/harvardbiostat/paper40
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Why should I register for an account?
Registering for an account is free and allows you to:
  • Control your content - Sign up for emailed tables of contents from specific series
  • Stay on top of the latest research - Create a customized alerting service for new papers in your field (anchor link out to "what is bealert"—above).
  • Participate – By submitting your own work to COBRA, you can help your research reach a wider audience. Please see instructions on how to submit at: http://biostats.bepress.com/cgi/submit.cgi?context=cobra.
  • Get right to what matters – Save your personalized COBRA searches, so that you can immediately rerun them when you visit the site.
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For more information, please contact:

Kathleen Cowan
Product Marketing Manager
The Berkeley Electronic Press
2809 Telegraph Ave.
Suite 202
Berkeley, CA 94705
510-665-1200 x118