Online Research Toolkit

EtherPad: Realtime Collaborative Text Editing

A real time, multi-user, online notebook. Real time is real time, with little delay. Public Pads can be set up instantly, with custom URL’s if desired, but have no security (and can’t be deleted). So, they are very, very public pads.

I covered Picnik, the web-based image processor back in April. But the photos still originated on your drives, either uploaded directly to Picnik or through a photo-sharing shite, making it a little less than a true “web-app”. Well, now thanks to the Picnik Firefox Extension, you can take a screen shot or find a web-mounted picture and import it directly to Picnik (assuming you use Firefox, of course.)

I can definitely see this being used to add images, possibly cropped, “doodled”, or with text or block shapes, into a paper or presentation (suitably acknowledged to avoid plagiarism, and under proper fair use or copyright permission, of course). If you didn’t want to download the new photo before adding it to your project, you could import into one of the photo-sharing sites available.

Picnik works directly with Flickr, Facebook, Photobucket, Picasa Web Albums, and Webshots. You log into your photo-storage/sharing site via the links within Picnik and “activate” Picnik. (Activation is essentially giving Picnik your passwords. Use at your own risk.) Then you can choose your photos, edit, and save the newly edited photo into the site. Or email it, print it, download it, or save it to a different site.

This is the original image from NASA’s JPL PhotoJournal.
This is the image I produced in Picnik.

I imported the image directly from the NASA site. (US Government materials are in the public domain by law.) I cropped, heightened the contrast to show the smoke a little more, and added the text in Picnik. Then I exported the image to Flickr, which is the source for the image above. No downloading at all, so no worrying about virus checkers, disk size, or plugging my USB drive into a public computer.

Update (12/6/07): You can now edit Flickr pictures from within Flickr. Just click on the Edit button on your photo’s page (you can only edit your own photos.)

Did you know that Google Scholar can link into subscription databases, allowing you to use it as a federated search for databases like JSTOR and Science Direct? That you can import citations into Refworks or Endnote?

Just click the little Scholar Preferences link to the right of the search box. From there, you can change your language, add a library for full text subscriptions, change the results display, and choose a citation manager.

And don’t forget to check the Advanced Search as well. Advanced search allows you limit by subject (such as “Biology, Life Sciences, and Environmental Science”), which is really handy when you are searching for keywords that are used differently in different fields.

We don’t live entirely online. There are times when you have a offline “document” that you need to get online, and there is no scanner available or it’s something that isn’t scannable. Whiteboard notes come to mind. You can take a picture, but you generally then have to spend some time adjusting the contrast and color, cropping the image, etc., before you can use the notes.

There are a couple of services that help do some of this automatically and give you a place to store and share the images. Scanr works with cameras, including camera phones, that take at least 1 megapixel images (that’s most newer phones and nearly all digital cameras). Quipit has similar requirements. In both cases, you take a picture of the whiteboard, handwritten/drawn document, or typed document, and send it to the service. They process the picture to increase the contrast, remove shadows and camera artifacts (like flash glare), and crop the background out, and provide a link or account where you can download, share, email, or fax your image as a PDF document. Registration for both requires an email address, and agreement to the terms of service, which are fairly standard.

For the most part, a standard 1 megapixel shot in either service will do nicely for a whiteboard or for handwritten notes, but not for typed documents. Both services have lists of phones that work for whiteboard, notes, or typed documents, so you can easily check if your camera phone will work. Lighting and careful photography are still important, no matter how good the image processing, so both services provide tips for improving your images.

Both Scanr and Quipit have Facebook applications for sharing classnotes. Quipit allows you to post documents to a blog. Quipit works in color or black & white, while Scanr says it is dedicated to high quality black & white images. Both services have tagging and searching.

Security is based on passwords and both services have SSL security for login, however transmission is not necessarily encrypted. You are sending images from your camera phone via the text messaging system, or from your computer via email, and neither service has control over that part of the system. So use care if you have proprietary or personal data.

So the next time you have been scribbling on a napkin, or brainstorming on a whiteboard, get out that camera phone and give one of these a try.

I’ve not updated this blog for a while, so I’m hoping this will be the first of some more regularly updated material.
I had mentioned Zoho earlier. With a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation tool, they were a nice contender in the online tools arena. I even noticed when they started adding lots more modules, like a database, project manager, and chat. However, they have really won me over now, by being the first on the online tools that I’m aware of to offer (free*) synchronization with Microsoft Office. The Zoho plugin allows you to edit your text or spreadsheets in either Zoho’s online service or Word/Excel. Good job, Zoho!

They are also working on an independent offline editor. Offline viewing is already available via Google Gears. No Microsoft Office required, just the Google Gears download. Very intriguing. Plus Zoho offers plugins for IE and Firefox to view documents in Writer (doc), Sheet (xls), or Show (ppt).

And I’m checking out the Notebook. Not only can you do web clipping (like Google’s Notebook), but you can incorporate documents and other Zoho services, add audio and video (like YouTube), record(!) audio and video, and use the built in chat or Skype. And all of this can be edited collaboratively and be published for public viewing (with comments, too.) I’m going to experiment with this for doing online presentations. (Oh, and did I mention that they’ve got a Web Conferencing module, too?)

(*Thinkfree will be offering an online/offline sync, but it looks like you’ll have to pay for it.)

Picnik is an online photo/image editing program with some very nice features. There has been a void in online tools for image related services, so Picnik fills a greatly needed niche.

You can upload from your computer or get a photo from Flickr, Picasa, direct from a webpage, Yahoo! Search, or even from a webcam plugged into your computer. You can crop, apply a bunch of filters, sharpen and soften, fix red-eye, rotate, and resize. Once you’re done, you can save, email (including “send to website” services, as some blogs have), send to Flickr or Picasa, or print. All features are currently free while the service is in beta testing; some features, like the Doodle function, will be premium services when they move out of beta (assuming someone like Google doesn’t buy them and change the business model.)

Now, how does this fit into the “presentation” category? I can see someone taking a photo with an online camera, uploading it, editing it, then adding to to a paper or presentation. Or taking a screenshot, converting it to JPG, GIF, BMP, TGA, TIF, or PNG with the basic software that usually comes with computers, such as Windows Imaging or Paint, then uploading it for more sophisticated editing then those “come with the computer” programs allow. Most scanners allow saving in JPG, GIF, BMP, and/or TIF, so scanning an image in would is definitely an option, too.

Here is the inevitable copyright statement: Remember that almost every online image you run into is going to be copyrighted, as are many images from books and magazines that you might scan. Even if the original object, painting, etc. is not, the photograph probably is. Given all the copyright free, Creative Commons, and otherwise permissioned images that are available, please use discretion when choosing images for editing and use in your papers and presentations. And always give credit where credit is due. Copyright and plagiarism are not identical, but both are frowned on.

Thanks to Wayne McPhail and his Online Tools for the 21st Century for tipping me off to this great tool.

NoodleBib Express is an online citation generator for MLA and APA styles. It’s from NoodleTools, which also sells NoodleBib, an online bibliographic manager that lets you save and organize citations. (NoodleBib is the least expensive of the for-fee managers I’ve run across so far, currently at $8/year. The Express version is free.)
The strength of NoobleBib, both Express and the full version, is the question series that guides you through creating a citation. First you choose MLA or APA, and then what type of source you have, such as book, journal, video, report, thesis, court case, etc. Then it gives you some alternative options. For instance, if you pick “book”, you get alternatives such as an article reprinted in a book, a pamphlet, or a reference work. All types have descriptions, so you stand a pretty good chance of figuring out what your source type is. Then you pick print or online; online leads you to questions about the online source: stand alone site, database, etc.

At each step, you answer more detailed questions, until the exact type of source is determined, then you enter in the data. Each field has explanations and instructions; for instance, the APA title field gives general instructions about capitalization (capitalize only the first word, and any proper names), plus a link to a help page. There is an Error Check feature that highlights possible problems, but you can continue without correcting them if you don’t think there is a problem. (In my example, the publisher is Libraries Unlimited, which NoodleBib flags as a potential problem. In APA format, you leave out “business types” like Company, but in this case the name does include Unlimited, so I elect to leave it in.)

The citation is produced on a new page so that you can cut and paste into your document:

Reitz, J. M. (Ed.). (2004). Digital reference. In Online dictionary for library
     and information science. Portsmouth, NH: Libraries Unlimited. Retrieved
     December 6, 2006, from http://lu.com/odlis/odlis_d.cfm#digitalref

This tool should be very useful for students (and others) who are unfamiliar with citation formats or who are unsure about what to do with an unfamiliar type of source. The lengthy questions would probably get tedious quickly, but it would serve as a good teaching tool.

One of the complaints that I have with full bibliographic managers like RefWorks is that you need fairly extensive knowledge of citation formats in order to be sure it’s working correctly. I do a lot of fiddling with settings to get what I think is the proper format, especially for online material. NoodleBib Express would be a good starting place for those not ready for something as complicated as RefWorks.

Zoho came out with Zoho Writer about the same time that all the other online word processors were coming out. They were good, but I didn’t think they were special in any way. However, Zoho is really making strides in the Office Suite department. They now have a word processor, slideshow, spreadsheet, database application, planner, and chat system that are all free. They also have a virtual office suite and a customer relations manager that are free for small groups (10 for the suite, 3 for the CRM), and they are now demoing a project management service. And, of course, all of these allow collaboration with anyone who has an email address.
One of the other exciting things that Zoho offered, and one that I installed immediately, is a plugin (available for IE and Firefox) that will display office-type files in the web browser without having the software installed. It reads doc, xls, ppt, odt, rtf, sxw, sxc, sxi, and pps files. (I’m really excited about this, because, if it works well and I can get our IT department interested, it might solve some of the viewing problems we have on our public computers.)

I’ll be trying everything out and will report on the individual applications separately, but I couldn’t resist posting about the whole thing right away.

Anyone who has used instant messaging knows the problems of moving to a new computer. You have to download the software on every computer you use. If you use a public computer, you also need to be sure that you don’t save your log in information–assuming that you can download the software in the first place.
Enter the web-based IM clients. Meebo (http://www.meebo.com/) is based on a multi-IM protocol and handles AIM, ICQ, Jabber, GTalk, Yahoo! Messenger, and MSN Messenger accounts. You do still need accounts on whatever services you wish to use, but you can log into all of them at once through the single interface. (This is similar to the desktop clients Trillian and Gaim, but does not require a download.) Very handy when you are on a computer that does not allow download or installation of new software (i.e. most libraries!)

Meebo does not allow file transfer, webcam viewing, or many of the other additional services, but it’s great for basic chatting. In my own work, I have found IM very useful for short collaboration sessions, such as planning a meeting, working out some last minute bugs in a presentation. One group even edited a paper via IM. (We sent round the paper in MSWord by email before the session, then went through it paragraph by paragraph over IM, making suggestions and having one person act as secretary. Afterwards the corrected file was sent off to everyone to review the changes–we used MSWord’s Track Changes feature, which our professor also used for grading.)  It’s also nice for just getting to know people. It is often hard to stay on track for long periods of time, however, and since you don’t have the ability to split off new threads, those side tangents get distracting pretty quickly. My advice for IM conferences is to have a single topic to get through, get through it as soon as possible, and then let everyone chat who wants to.

Oh yes, and in IM you will notice connection differences. It’s easy to dominate an IM conversation if you are the only one with a broadband connection, so take it easy if one or more of your group is on dial-up.

Finally, many public libraries, schools, and businesses block IM and chat sites. I generally don’t agree with such policies; I believe that IM is a legitimate collaboration tool, but I do understand the “waste of time” argument. So I’ll include a link to the meebo repeater with a little hesitation. I generally feel that it’s better to work out the problems with the administration through education and pilot programs, but it can be very frustrating in the meanwhile, so I’ll just ask you all to use your best judgement.

Vyew (http://vyew.com/) is a free, Flash-based collaboration platform, suitable for small group work and light weight online conferencing. Consisting of text chat and whiteboard, with optional phone conferencing (toll charges apply), you can share presentations, images, and screenshots. A new feature is a desktop view. Meeting rooms can be created on the fly, even using the guest login. Participants can be invited by email or by providing the meeting room number. Participants can be desginated as viewers (view only) or presenters (full options.)
Registration includes file storage space, so that files can be viewed, edited, annotated and shared. Without registration, only the chat, image sharing from online libraries (Flickr, etc.), drawing pad, and phone conferencing systems can be used. Unregistered users can save images to their computers. Vyew is in beta and the business model is not set yet, but they do promise two years of free services for those who register during the beta period.
Vyew requires Flash and Java 1.4 plug-ins, and has been tested on Internet Explorer (5.5+ for Windows), Firefox (1.4+ for Windows), and Safari (for Mac).

The Vyew website has a good explanatory screenshot.