Educators and researchers have benefited greatly by being able to share information and techniques via the Internet. Collaboration online, especially using social networks, is also becoming important.For researchers who want to live closer to home such as in Bermuda there is less of a need to be close to university centres.For example, lots of research tools are being put up on the Web. One of the most fascinating is the online atlas of the brain, created by scientists funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. The digitalisation of the brain cost about $55 million and for that price you get the first interactive research guide to the anatomy and genes that animate the mind.Researchers are using the information and data to dig deeper into conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, autism and depression. The Allen Institute for Brain Science likens the resource to a multifunctional GPS navigation system. It identifies 1,000 anatomical sites in the human brain, backed by more than 100 million data points that indicate the particular gene expression and underlying biochemistry.Go see what a brain looks like at www.brain-map.org. You will need to download the site’s Brain Explorer software to see it in full digital glory.Another tool, more for educators, is ThinkSpace. This online tool was created by a group of Iowa State University professors who wanted a practical way to get students involved in collaborative projects.Any discipline can set up their own case studies for students to work from and solve. The instructor groups the information into categories: databases of historical trends, numerical results of tests, clinical observations, the results of tests, interviews with clients, for example. This database is then used to hone students’ problem solving skills.To find and use ThinkSpace do a search for it on the Internet in conjunction with “ISU” as the link is too long to give here. It is particularly useful for agriculture, journalism, physics, astronomy, for which you have ready-made case studies for students to solve.For those who are doing research on the Internet itself, the Berkman Centre has relaunched its Media Cloud (www.mediacloud.org) tool. The dashboard generates weekly word clouds of mainstream and new media news content. The platform allows researchers to get quantitative answers to questions about the content of online media.Preserving data so it can be used by future generations of researchers is the focus of the UK’s Digital Curation Centre (www.dcc.ac.uk). It provides advice and expertise on how to store, manage and protect digital data so it can continue to work long into the future.Information on various storage media is available for researchers, data librarians, IT managers, funding bodies and consultants. Quite a few Bermuda companies do their own research, especially the reinsurers, and this site could be useful to them.Researchers will also be interested in the UK’s Research Information Network (www.rin.ac.uk) which has produced a free social media guide for researchers. It outlines the benefits and risks of using social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, to find collaborators or information that’s hard to dig out. The one-page “links and resources” summary that goes with the guide is an especially useful summary of social media tools. It has certainly expanded my universe beyond the usual tools.The authors put it best: “This guide will show how social media can change the ways in which you undertake research, and open up new forms of communication and dissemination. The researchers we interviewed in the development of this guide are using social media to bridge disciplinary boundaries, to engage in knowledge exchange with industry and policymakers, and to provide a channel for the public communication of their research.”Lastly, those hoping to enter a research field should go to the EU’s Future and Emerging Technologies website (www.fet-house.eu), which provides details of how the bloc is investing its money in ICT.For example the Vismaster project is attempting to tame data management through new analytical tools. It provides visual analytics methods that help researchers leverage the huge storage and processing abilities of today’s computers to gain insight into complex data-rich problems, from climate science to quantum physics.Send any comments to elamin.ahmed[AT]gmail.com