Online Research Toolkit

While our Online Databases are great for finding articles (check your own library website if you aren’t from SCSU), they aren’t the only resources out there. There are a large number of open web, free-for-reading resources that are still high quality. Open Access sites are resources that are free to read, but may have costs for publishing. It’s essentially a business model, and is not incompatible with peer-review or other editorial standards that ensure high quality materials. Other sites may specialize in public domain works (works that have expired copyrights or were otherwise released from copyright restrictions and can be freely copied). Still others may allow free reading of certain materials but not others, using the free material essentially as advertising. I use the phrase “Open Web” to describe anything that does not require a password or membership to access, as a contrast to subscription databases, which you can only access on campus or via a login.

I’ll highlight a few sites for open web materials that are particularly good for academic work. There is a lot of junk on the web, but there are also a lot of very good resources. (more…)

Refworks is a web-based bibliographic management utility. That means that it stores references of the sort that you use in an academic paper. Refworks is somewhat outside the scope of this site because it’s not anywhere near free. However, many colleges and universities (like SCSU) subscribe to it for their students and faculty, so from the user’s point of view it may be free for use. (more…)

Email is great, but sometimes you just need to talk realtime with a group. Making decisions on who will do what on a project, for instance. You can do it by email, but it seems to take forever. This is when a synchronous communication service is needed.

The most common synchronous (”same time”) communication that most people are familiar with is telephone, of course. But not everyone has conference lines available. Instant Messaging is another, but you need accounts with the various services, and there are so many services it can be hard to agree on which one to use. Sometimes you just want a quick, no download, no registration, no hassle chat.

That’s what Chatzy (http://www.chatzy.com/) provides. There are no downloads, no registration, anyone can start a chat and you just need the URL to join (so you don’t even need to give an email). (more…)

TagFacts (http://tagfacts.com/) is a note service offered by the creater of Reader2, a social book list service. TagFacts allows you note down, well, pretty much anything, and tag it with keywords. You can also include links, so you can use it as a bookmarking site for web pages, as well as for notes from lectures, books, interviews, conversations, random thoughts, etc. (more…)

Update: Writely was bought by Google in March, 2006. At this time (April 11, 2006), Writely is not accepting new registrations. You can give them your email address to be notified when registration reopens. (There may be a workaround, contact me if you really want to try Writely.) In the meanwhile there are several other online word processors to try: Zoho, Thinkfree, AjaxWrite, and gOffice. Individual reviews to follow.
This post was first posted on my FAQ blog in September 2005.

One problem that many online students have is needing to do word processing in a variety of situations. You may be in your local public library doing online research, logging in from a hotel while you travel, or working with other students spread out around the world. You need access to your files, access to a word processor (many public computers do not have full word processors available), and the ability to share with your classmates. Luckily, there are some online services that meet these needs (and some of them are even free).

I’ve used Web Collaborator for several projects with colleagues and it is quite useful. You can create and edit documents and hold discussions about the project, all within a password protected environment. You can even allow read-only access for some (classmates, instructor) while retaining editing control by you or your group. Versions are saved in a history section. When you have a finished product, you can download as PDF or MS Word (formatting can be a little weird and may need some clean up, depending on your version of Word.) Web Collaborator is a project by a Reed College student and I don’t know what his plans are for keeping it updated.

Writely is a new service with some similar functions (thanks to Paul Pival, The Distant Librarian, for the link). One of the nice features is that you can upload HTML, MS Word (.doc), plain text (.txt), and image (.gif, .jpg and .bmp) files. Document files can be up to 500k and image files up to 2Mb. You (the document “owner”) can invite collaborators by email. There are also several publishing options, including posting to a Blogger blog, publishing on a Writely web site, and exporting as a Word document. Older versions are available in the History. One useful “publish” feature is that you can work on a document in the background while the published version is available without changes. This post was written within Writely, and then posted to the blog. Writely is currently in beta, and is currently free. When they do the full release, there will be free and for cost options, according to the FAQ.

Writely is more robust (though I do like the discussion aspect of Web Collaborator). The programmers are working on several additions, including uploading PDF and RTF files, and will take suggestions. They are also planning on offering a corporate/enterprise version, which would have some interesting implications for educational institutions. What if a college or university decided to license Writely instead of Microsoft Word? Most of the standard editing features are available (see the image of the toolbar below). I don’t see a way of doing the proper indentations (hanging indents) for cited reference pages or any way to do double spacing. (In some ways, it’s more of an HTML editor than a word processor. Of course, that’s probably because, as an browser based tool, it is an HTML editor.) Still, for the vast majority of writing on campus, and the willingness of the faculty to let go of a few conventions, it would be fine. You can’t do a hanging indent in an email or in most online discussion boards, either. It doesn’t affect the purpose or clarity of the citation.

This may cause some consternation in the library world. Many libraries, including this one, don’t put an Office Suite on their main public access computers. The main reason is that we don’t want students to be using every single computer to write papers leaving nothing for checking the catalog. We already have a problem with having most of the computers needing a personal log on, especially when it takes longer to log on than to check the catalog. So now what do we do? Any reasonably savvy student (like all my readers, of course) can now write their papers online. Shall we block Writely from our public access computers? I hope not. Personally, I think that browser applications are the way to go, and I don’t think that we should prevent students from writing and collaborating online in the library. Writing is part of the research process, which is what we are here for. A few dedicated terminals for the catalog, and other research are necessary, especially in a state institution like ours.

I have a theory. With the proliforation of online tools (word processors, linksavers, etc.), I think that soon, if not now, someone will be able to do all the actions they need for research, all online. All the research materials may not be online, but the tools you need to do research are or will be soon.

This site will be a collection of reviews of online tools and suggested uses for online research. Many of these services are in beta testing and so may end up with new functions, new fees, or may disappear completely. However, I think that the potential is there, and I will try to keep these posts updated and current. (Wish me luck!)

Do I really think that distance students (and faculty, and librarians) will all jump up and start using all of these tools to become hardware independent? Of course not. But, a few of these may be just what you’re looking for to work on that group project, or to use when your job (or your life) sends you off on a big trip right in the middle of your online course.

I’m using a blogging tool for this, because of the ease of updating. Each tool will be assigned to a category, and each category will be accessible from the side bar. Categories will include Online Searching, Notetaking, Collaboration, Presentation, and probably more as I find more tools. (I’ll take suggestions, too.)

I hope you find this information intriguing, and useful.