Microsoft Releases Free Software for Academics

Submitted by lalit on July 28, 2008 - 7:30pm.

Microsoft announced free software to help researchers for publishing and sharing data. The tools Microsoft released include:

  • Article Authoring Add-in for Words 2007: captures metadata at the authoring stage to preserve document structure and semantic information throughout the publishing process (makes search, discovery, and analysis easier later on).
  • Creative Commons Add-in for Office 2007: Allows authors to embed Creative Commons licenses directly into Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
  • Microsoft e-Journal Service: provides a hosted solution that facilitates self-publishing of online-only journals.
  • Research Output Repository Platform: helps capture and leverage semantic relationships among academic objects to facilitate access to these items in new ways.
  • Research Information Centre: in close partnership with British Library, this collaborative workspace will allow researchers to collaborate throughout the entire research project workflow by seeking research funding, searching and collecting information, and managing data, papers and other research objects.

Tony Hey, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s External Research Division said “collecting and analyzing data, authoring, publishing and preserving information are all essential components of the everyday work of researchers – with collaboration and search and discovery at the heart of the entire process.”  Microsoft also announced it will provide $1.5 million grant to seven academic research projects as part of the Safe and Scalable Multicore Computing Program.
[Via Ars Technica]