Organizing & Managing Research Using Digital Tools

Organizing & Managing Research Using Digital Tools

Lisa SpiroDigital Media Center

March 2009

Lisa SpiroDigital Media Center

March 2009

Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/slimcoincidence/1109995859/

Feeling Overwhelmed?Feeling Overwhelmed?

Dutch researchers estimate that the Indexed Web contains at least 22.36 billion pages

The hidden web (content not indexed by search engines because it is dynamically generated, protected, etc.) is estimated to be 500 times bigger than the Indexed Web

Approx. 7 million books have been digitized by Google. See http://www.emc.com/digital_universe for up-to-date ticker of

amount of data produced in 2008

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/will-lion/2595497078/

Dutch researchers estimate that the Indexed Web contains at least 22.36 billion pages

The hidden web (content not indexed by search engines because it is dynamically generated, protected, etc.) is estimated to be 500 times bigger than the Indexed Web

Approx. 7 million books have been digitized by Google. See http://www.emc.com/digital_universe for up-to-date ticker of

amount of data produced in 2008

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/will-lion/2595497078/

Will Abundance Lead to Better Scholarship?

Will Abundance Lead to Better Scholarship?

“Historians, in fact, may be facing a fundamental paradigm shift from a culture of scarcity to a culture of abundance… it costs no more to deliver the AHR [American Historical Review] to 15 million people than 15,000 people; it costs less for our students to have access to literally millions of primary sources than a handful in a published anthology. And we may be able to both save and quickly search through all of the products of our culture. But will abundance bring better or more thoughtful history?”--Roy Rosenzweig, "Scarcity or Abundance? Preserving the Past in a Digital Era," The American Historical Review June 2003 http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/108.3/rosenzweig.html (emphasis added)

“Historians, in fact, may be facing a fundamental paradigm shift from a culture of scarcity to a culture of abundance… it costs no more to deliver the AHR [American Historical Review] to 15 million people than 15,000 people; it costs less for our students to have access to literally millions of primary sources than a handful in a published anthology. And we may be able to both save and quickly search through all of the products of our culture. But will abundance bring better or more thoughtful history?”--Roy Rosenzweig, "Scarcity or Abundance? Preserving the Past in a Digital Era," The American Historical Review June 2003 http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/108.3/rosenzweig.html (emphasis added)

AgendaAgenda

Open up a discussion about the impact of digital resources and tools on research

Introduce you to some useful tools that can help you Keep current in your field Organize research materials

Describe some of the tools & services that the Digital Media Center (DMC) can provide

Open up a discussion about the impact of digital resources and tools on research

Introduce you to some useful tools that can help you Keep current in your field Organize research materials

Describe some of the tools & services that the Digital Media Center (DMC) can provide

“Methodology for the Infinite Archive”

“Methodology for the Infinite Archive”

“The web is an archive that is constantly changing and effectively infinite. What kind of research techniques can historians develop to make use of it?” (Bill Turkel, http://digitalhistoryhacks.blogspot.com/)

“The web is an archive that is constantly changing and effectively infinite. What kind of research techniques can historians develop to make use of it?” (Bill Turkel, http://digitalhistoryhacks.blogspot.com/)

What You Can Do With Digital Information

What You Can Do With Digital Information

Search Mine Copy “Trap” Organize Tag Visualize Analyze Distribute Remix/ Mashup Etc.

Search Mine Copy “Trap” Organize Tag Visualize Analyze Distribute Remix/ Mashup Etc.

http://www2.vcdh.virginia.edu/emancipation/

Exploring Digital Scholarship: Lisa’s Dissertation Remix

Exploring Digital Scholarship: Lisa’s Dissertation Remix

Experiment in using digital tools for research Remixing 2002 dissertation as a work of “digital

scholarship” Relying primarily on web-based resources Using analytical tools to find patterns in information Disseminating research electronically & openly Blogging the process at

http://digitalscholarship.wordpress.com/

Experiment in using digital tools for research Remixing 2002 dissertation as a work of “digital

scholarship” Relying primarily on web-based resources Using analytical tools to find patterns in information Disseminating research electronically & openly Blogging the process at

http://digitalscholarship.wordpress.com/

Stay Current in Your FieldStay Current in Your Field

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/western4uk/173094122/

Staying Current Using RSS feedsStaying Current Using RSS feeds

Subscribe to online content & automatically receive notification of updates.

Like having a customized newspaper delivered to your doorstep rather than having to seek out information

Identify sites that have RSS feeds by looking for the RSS icon Publications, e.g. the New York Times science

section Blogs, e.g. Lifehacker Journals, e.g. Nature or Victorian Studies

You can use a service like http://page2rss.com/ to create an RSS feed for pages that don’t support RSS

Subscribe to online content & automatically receive notification of updates.

Like having a customized newspaper delivered to your doorstep rather than having to seek out information

Identify sites that have RSS feeds by looking for the RSS icon Publications, e.g. the New York Times science

section Blogs, e.g. Lifehacker Journals, e.g. Nature or Victorian Studies

You can use a service like http://page2rss.com/ to create an RSS feed for pages that don’t support RSS

How to Use RSSHow to Use RSS Set up a feedreader such as:

GoogleReader: http://www.google.com/reader/ (web-based; translate feeds, share them, star them, organize them, view trends, etc.)

FeedReader: http://www.feedreader.com/ (installed on local machine rather than browser based)

Subscribe to the feed Browsers such as Firefox will usually display an icon

in the address bar if the site has a feed. Look for words such as subscribe, feed, rss, xml,

atom, or images such as

Set up a feedreader such as: GoogleReader: http://www.google.com/reader/ (web-

based; translate feeds, share them, star them, organize them, view trends, etc.)

FeedReader: http://www.feedreader.com/ (installed on local machine rather than browser based)

Subscribe to the feed Browsers such as Firefox will usually display an icon

in the address bar if the site has a feed. Look for words such as subscribe, feed, rss, xml,

atom, or images such as

Let Information Come to You: Web Alerts

Let Information Come to You: Web Alerts

Google Alerts: http://www.google.com/alerts Be notified by email when

Google picks up resultsrelevant to search criteria

Specify how often you’renotified & what you search

Filtrbox http://www.filtrbox.com/ Specify search restrictions Get email alerts or view online View “trends” in alerts Share articles

Many journals & databases also offeralerts

Google Alerts: http://www.google.com/alerts Be notified by email when

Google picks up resultsrelevant to search criteria

Specify how often you’renotified & what you search

Filtrbox http://www.filtrbox.com/ Specify search restrictions Get email alerts or view online View “trends” in alerts Share articles

Many journals & databases also offeralerts

Organize Information Via a Research Portal

Organize Information Via a Research Portal

http://www.pageflakes.com/lspiro/http://www.pageflakes.com/lspiro/

How & Why to Create a Research Portal

How & Why to Create a Research Portal

Aggregate online resources (a bio, publication list, RSS feeds, images, etc) at a single site with minimal effort

Can serve as a start page for your research, a page that you use to inform others of your research, or both

Information is online and available from any computer “Widgets” include to-do lists, RSS feeds from news & info

sources, search tools, etc. People can subscribe to the RSS feed for your portal It’s easy to add new content May be especially useful as a teaching tool, e.g.

http://www.netvibes.com/wesch#Digital_Ethnography Free services for creating research portals:

PageFlakes: http://www.pageflakes.com/ NetVibes: http://www.netvibes.com/

Aggregate online resources (a bio, publication list, RSS feeds, images, etc) at a single site with minimal effort

Can serve as a start page for your research, a page that you use to inform others of your research, or both

Information is online and available from any computer “Widgets” include to-do lists, RSS feeds from news & info

sources, search tools, etc. People can subscribe to the RSS feed for your portal It’s easy to add new content May be especially useful as a teaching tool, e.g.

http://www.netvibes.com/wesch#Digital_Ethnography Free services for creating research portals:

PageFlakes: http://www.pageflakes.com/ NetVibes: http://www.netvibes.com/

Organize Research Materials Using ZoteroOrganize Research Materials Using Zotero

http://www.zotero.org/ “a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you

collect, manage, and cite your research sources. It lives right where you do your work — in the web browser itself.”

Developed by scholars at George Mason’s Center for History & New Media

Efficient: Supports tagging, sorting by tags, automatic download of citation information and PDFs of articles

Search your collections, including tags & HTML documents

Innovative: Will ultimately support groups and recommendation system, etc.

Need to download an extension to insert references into Word

Requires Firefox 2.0+

http://www.zotero.org/ “a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you

collect, manage, and cite your research sources. It lives right where you do your work — in the web browser itself.”

Developed by scholars at George Mason’s Center for History & New Media

Efficient: Supports tagging, sorting by tags, automatic download of citation information and PDFs of articles

Search your collections, including tags & HTML documents

Innovative: Will ultimately support groups and recommendation system, etc.

Need to download an extension to insert references into Word

Requires Firefox 2.0+

How to Use ZoteroHow to Use Zotero Click on the page icon in

the address bar to automatically download citation info & assoc. files

Alternatively, you can add item from Zotero toolbar

Organize cites into collections

Add tags & relationships to make everything more findable

Take notes

Click on the page icon in the address bar to automatically download citation info & assoc. files

Alternatively, you can add item from Zotero toolbar

Organize cites into collections

Add tags & relationships to make everything more findable

Take notes

New Features in Zotero 1.5New Features in Zotero 1.5

Automatic synchronization of collections across multiple computers.

Free automatic backup of your library data at Zotero.org.

Rich-text notes. Automatic detection of PDF metadata (author, title, etc.) Browse through your library online. New user profiles tied to Zotero accounts. Preliminary support for following other Zotero users WYSIWYG CV creator. Ultimate goal: “aggregate & analyze shared wisdom”

(Dan Cohen)

Automatic synchronization of collections across multiple computers.

Free automatic backup of your library data at Zotero.org.

Rich-text notes. Automatic detection of PDF metadata (author, title, etc.) Browse through your library online. New user profiles tied to Zotero accounts. Preliminary support for following other Zotero users WYSIWYG CV creator. Ultimate goal: “aggregate & analyze shared wisdom”

(Dan Cohen)

Zotero 1.5 Researcher PageZotero 1.5 Researcher Page

http://www.zotero.org/tjowens/358http://www.zotero.org/tjowens/358

Zotero 1.5 LibraryZotero 1.5 Library

Analyzing Zotero Collections: SEASR Analytics for Zotero 0.3.2

Analyzing Zotero Collections: SEASR Analytics for Zotero 0.3.2

What You Can Do with SEASR Analytics for Zotero 0.3.2

What You Can Do with SEASR Analytics for Zotero 0.3.2

http://seasr.org/documentation/zotero/ Uncover patterns in data Submit items or collections for analysis & retrieve,

display, and store the results in Zotero Currently supports

Author Centrality Analysis Author Degree Distribution Analysis Author Hits Analysis

http://seasr.org/documentation/zotero/ Uncover patterns in data Submit items or collections for analysis & retrieve,

display, and store the results in Zotero Currently supports

Author Centrality Analysis Author Degree Distribution Analysis Author Hits Analysis

Information Management ToolsInformation Management Tools

Mendeley: “free social software for managing and sharing research papers. It is also a Web 2.0 site for discovering research trends and connecting to like-minded academics.”

Devon: Store files, categorize them, take notes, run sophisticated searches

EverNote: Take notes, synchronize across devices Papers: “iTunes for Research” See ht

tp://digitalresearchtools.pbwiki.com/Organize-Research-Materials

Mendeley: “free social software for managing and sharing research papers. It is also a Web 2.0 site for discovering research trends and connecting to like-minded academics.”

Devon: Store files, categorize them, take notes, run sophisticated searches

EverNote: Take notes, synchronize across devices Papers: “iTunes for Research” See ht

tp://digitalresearchtools.pbwiki.com/Organize-Research-Materials

Learn about software that you can use in your research: DiRT

Learn about software that you can use in your research: DiRT

http://digitalresearchtools.pbwiki.com/

CautionsCautions Tools come and go. To avoid getting trapped, choose tools that:

Are fairly mature Have a number of adopters Allow you to easily export data in standard formats.

Some tools that you download from the Internet may bring with them risks of viruses. Check for reviews to verify that the software is secure & authentic.

You may be sacrificing some privacy (or dignity) in exchange for access to some tools. For instance, PageFlakes briefly put up ads for diet pills on user pages.

Sometimes you can waste a lot of time learning to use a new tool that doesn’t do what you thought it would do. Investigate the tool before downloading it.

Tools come and go. To avoid getting trapped, choose tools that: Are fairly mature Have a number of adopters Allow you to easily export data in standard formats.

Some tools that you download from the Internet may bring with them risks of viruses. Check for reviews to verify that the software is secure & authentic.

You may be sacrificing some privacy (or dignity) in exchange for access to some tools. For instance, PageFlakes briefly put up ads for diet pills on user pages.

Sometimes you can waste a lot of time learning to use a new tool that doesn’t do what you thought it would do. Investigate the tool before downloading it.

How the Digital Media Center Can Support Your Research

How the Digital Media Center Can Support Your Research

http://dmc.rice.edu/ Location: Herring 129 Part of Fondren Library Mission: The Digital Media Center

(DMC) supports the use and creation of multimedia in education, scholarship, and creative expression. Towards this end, we: provide hands-on training consult with patrons on digital

projects offer access to the essential tools

for creating digital resources.

http://dmc.rice.edu/ Location: Herring 129 Part of Fondren Library Mission: The Digital Media Center

(DMC) supports the use and creation of multimedia in education, scholarship, and creative expression. Towards this end, we: provide hands-on training consult with patrons on digital

projects offer access to the essential tools

for creating digital resources.

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Borrow Equipment from the DMCBorrow Equipment from the DMC

Available equipment: 12 video camcorders 8 audio recorders 5 digital cameras Supporting gear: mikes, tripods, etc.

Check out for up to 3 days Reserve in advance Free to the Rice community, although

you must provide your own media, e.g. DVDs & miniDV tapes

Available equipment: 12 video camcorders 8 audio recorders 5 digital cameras Supporting gear: mikes, tripods, etc.

Check out for up to 3 days Reserve in advance Free to the Rice community, although

you must provide your own media, e.g. DVDs & miniDV tapes

QuickTime™ and a decompressorare needed to see this picture.

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Digitize Materials & Create Multimedia

Digitize Materials & Create Multimedia

Scan documents, oversized materials, slides/film, etc.

Convert LPs, audio tapes, VHS tapes, etc. into digital formats

Workstations: 3 audio editing stations 6 video editing stations 7 graphics editing, web development, etc. 1 podcasting booth (in collaboration w/ IT)

Print out posters on a plotter Get help with all of the above

Scan documents, oversized materials, slides/film, etc.

Convert LPs, audio tapes, VHS tapes, etc. into digital formats

Workstations: 3 audio editing stations 6 video editing stations 7 graphics editing, web development, etc. 1 podcasting booth (in collaboration w/ IT)

Print out posters on a plotter Get help with all of the above

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Take a Class at the DMCTake a Class at the DMC

13 free hands-on workshops sponsored by the DMC in Spring 2009

Classes include: Video editing Podcasting Flash Creating DVDs Using the Web for

Research Zotero Digital Storytelling

13 free hands-on workshops sponsored by the DMC in Spring 2009

Classes include: Video editing Podcasting Flash Creating DVDs Using the Web for

Research Zotero Digital Storytelling

Study or hold meetings at the DMCStudy or hold meetings at the DMC

2nd floor devoted to study & meeting spaces Beautiful views Comfortable seating Configurable: move furniture around

Can reserve classroom/meeting space, which features large display

Videoconferencing unit on 2nd floor

2nd floor devoted to study & meeting spaces Beautiful views Comfortable seating Configurable: move furniture around

Can reserve classroom/meeting space, which features large display

Videoconferencing unit on 2nd floor

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.QuickTime™ and a

decompressorare needed to see this picture.

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Work with Geospatial Data at the GIS/Data Center

Work with Geospatial Data at the GIS/Data Center

http://library.rice.edu/services/gdc/the-gis-data-center Location: basement of Fondren Library

http://library.rice.edu/services/gdc/the-gis-data-center Location: basement of Fondren Library

ResourcesResources

Contact me with questions, comments, etc: lspiro@rice.edu Visit the DMC web site: http://dmc.rice.edu/ Download your own copy of these slides from

http://scholarship.rice.edu/handle/1911/21663 Find links cited in this talk at

http://www.diigo.com/user/lspiro/dirtclass Visit DiRT (http://digitalresearchtools.pbwiki.com/) to find more

information about digital research tools--and please provide feedback

Contact me with questions, comments, etc: lspiro@rice.edu Visit the DMC web site: http://dmc.rice.edu/ Download your own copy of these slides from

http://scholarship.rice.edu/handle/1911/21663 Find links cited in this talk at

http://www.diigo.com/user/lspiro/dirtclass Visit DiRT (http://digitalresearchtools.pbwiki.com/) to find more

information about digital research tools--and please provide feedback