Dental Informatics Online Community—a Virtual, Global Community for Dental Informaticians

The purpose of this presentation is to familiarize and involve the audience with the Dental Informatics Online Community (DIOC) project which will develop a virtual, global community for dental informaticians.
As an emerging discipline, Dental Informatics (DI) is crucial for enabling advances in dental research, practice and education. While DI provides significant opportunities for improving processes and outcomes, current evidence indicates that those opportunities are not fully exploited. We want to improve this situation by providing a networking platform for people interested in DI promoting the development of dental information resources, disseminate research results and encourage the formation of research and education partnerships.
To achieve these goals, we requested funding from the National Library of Medicine’s Extramural Programs. We received a priority score of 129 (Scientific Review for 1-G08-LM-8667-1A1) and awaiting a funding decision.
Our proposed development stages include (1) the compilation of detailed requirements based on an assessment of information needs of dental informaticians, researchers, educators and clinicians; (2) the implementation of the DIOC targeting the following five audiences: (a) researchers focused on DI who need to coordinate efforts and exchange best practices; (b) researchers from related disciplines who need to find research partners and want to share information; (c) non-informaticians, mainly dental and craniofacial researchers, educators and clinicians, who need informatics support for their research; (d) dental industry partners with interest in DI who develop clinical and research tools and technology; and (e) the library and information sciences community and (3) the evaluation of the DIOC and its impact on DI researchers using archival and survey data. 
The DIOC can only be successful if we promote an early and active participation for all people interested in DI. Thus, we want to encourage a broad discussion about the information needs of dental educators attending the ADEA TechnoFair.