Academic institutions in Sweden among the quickest to adopt JoVE

Academic institutions in Sweden are among the quickest to adopt a novel biomedical science publication, the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE), with over 35 percent of institutions subscribing and contributing content to the journal. One explanation for this phenomenon is that Swedes are among the fastest people in the world to embrace new technologies.

"I think we are a very curious people and interested in new things," said Dr. Caroline Kampf, a researcher from Uppsala University in Sweden who is in the process of publishing an article in JoVE. "I think that we are very interested in innovative things."

There are several metrics to support this, including the Connectivity Scorecard report, created in 2008 by London Business School Professor Leonard Waverman. According to last year's report, Swedes are the world's foremost users of information technology, overtaking the United States and leaving Norway in third place.

With new developments in information technology have come new advances in scientific publication, and Swedes have been quick to catch on. JoVE, the latest innovation in academic publishing, is the first and only peer reviewed video journal indexed in PubMed and MEDLINE. Watching experimental procedures, as opposed to simply reading the text, enables researchers to learn and teach new technologies faster and more effectively. This increases productivity in biological sciences and education at academic institutions.

Dr. Jens Sundstrom, an Associate Professor at Uppsala University, published an open access article in JoVE in 2009, about an experimental methodology used in plant biology research. He now uses the video to teach the technique to his graduate students.

"In the video we aimed to show certain steps which is difficult to do just with reading, and it is a bit of a time-saver for me, because I don't have to show them," said Dr. Sundstrom. "I think it is good for them to have the video to refer back to because when you are a grad student, you have to figure out a lot of things on your own, so it's a help."

"Sweden is one of the world leaders in technology and science, and we are not surprised that JoVE's innovative approach to science publishing has been adopted by top academic institutions in that country," said JoVE CEO and co-founder, Dr. Moshe Pritsker.