16 February, 2012 18:55
Food for thought - and new ways to publish and to track impact
Posted by Ed Rybicki, Categories [ Open Content ][ (0) Comment ] | [ (0) Trackbacks ]
Eve Gray kindly shared this via Twitter: VERY interesting presentation by Jason Priem
14 February, 2012 11:35
Peter Dunsby of Maths & Applied Maths here at UCT has shared his experiences of coping with only an iPad while on the international visit road - and it makes very interesting reading, simply from an "I didn't know you could do that!" perspective.
"Have a look at a few posts I wrote while on the road with the iPad last year. Plan to update them soon.
Now - if only ICTS could stop the constant demands for authentication, that make it painful to use an iPad on the UCT wireless network...!11 February, 2012 12:54
iTune U: it's a good idea
Posted by Ed Rybicki, Categories [ Open Content ][ (3) Comment ] | [ (0) Trackbacks ]
iTunes U
The announcement by Apple Inc recently about the launch of the iTunes U application for the iPad and iPhone, and
related enhancements in online courseware development for iTunes U, has created rather a buzz in academic circles around the world. You see, heavyweight institutions like Harvard and Oxford Universities, MIT, and the mighty British Open University, seem to be making a lot of courseware available there - for free.
There has accordingly been some interest here at UCT in getting official approval for courseware submissions. It's difficult to know what's not to like about this: visibility from all over the world, promotion of the UCT brand, uptake of UCT-developed materials by other institutions, and new things to do for the Centre for Educational Technology, among others.
Oh, there is the "Apple factor" to possibly worry about, meaning the locking-in of participants to one technology and one interface - but iTunes works on both PCs and Macs, which should take care of that objection, and I remind you, most offerings are FREE.
While this may not immediately appear to have relevance to the eResearch Portal (as we are coming to know it), it certainly does for the instruction of research students - which is after all, a core activity of researchers at this institution.
iBooks Author
Another announcement from Steve's Company was of less general interest, but loomed large in the interest bubble of committed iPad enthusiasts. Like me, it seems almost redundant to say.
This was that Apple was making available - for free - the iBooks Author app, for constructing iBooks for use on the iPad. There has been a lot of grumbling about the EULA for this as well, given that it is necessary to use ONLY Apple's online store to sell anything developed for sale - which completely ignores the fact that it is possible to circulate iBooks for free via email or other electronic means, to any iPad user you like.
I have been having a great deal of fun with this: it is also an EXCELLENT means of painlessly making PDFs for instructional or informational purposes, which can of course be opened on any platform.
We WILL assimilate you....
07 February, 2012 13:45
Reference managing made simple
Posted by Ed Rybicki, Categories [ General ][ (0) Comment ] | [ (0) Trackbacks ]
Most academics and researchers who write papers for peer-reviewed journals, or formal reports, are going to have to manage citations to published literature in their manuscripts - and references in their bibliographies or reference lists. And, as you will know, there are apps for that. Several, in fact - and you will also know that their use is not trivial, can demand a fairly steep learning curve, and that instructing others in how to use them can take up a fair amount of time.
We intend to give access to as many tools for the purpose as possible, via the Research Portal. It has also become obvious that providing instruction on how to use them might also be a good idea - and that there are already instructional materials out there to make this easy.
Margaret Koopman, Librarian of the Percy Fitzpatrick Institute of African Ornithology on Upper Campus, has kindly made two Powerpoint presentions available, which are detailed below. I have another, and there are links to more information as appropriate.
RefWorks
"The University of Cape Town subscribes to RefWorks, a web-based reference management service used for storing and organizing references. UCT staff and students may use RefWorks FOR FREE on campus and also off-campus (by logging in via EZProxy). More information about RefWorks can be found on the UCT Libraries RefWorks information page".
Mendeley
Mendeley is an increasingly popular FREE web-based tool - and PDF file manager.
"It is a free reference manager AND a social network and does all the referencing work for you! Just point at the file/s in which you store your pdfs and - the work is done! Well, nearly - you do need to verify the information because some pdfs have iffy quality and then some of the information gets left out.
Mendeley was designed with the medical fraternity in mind, so most of the citation styles which are embedded are for medical journals."
EndNote Web
EndNote Web is available for free via the UCT Libraries subscription to the ISI Web of Knowledge - and has been described here previously. It is the "portable" version of Thomson-Reuters' popular PC-and-Mac workstation-based software, and integrates with it if you have bought it. If not, it works perfectly well via the Web, although there have been proxy issues for off-campus logins. It does require registration with a UCT email address, however.
There are options for Cite-While-You-Write for use with MS-Word, and you download a desktop version to communicate with the web server - and store things locally. However, using the web storage option means you can use it on the go with a laptop, for example. There are a LOT of output styles, and references can be pulled in from a multitude of databases.
Reference Manager
Reference Manager is a workstation-only, PC-only commercial offering - also from Thomson-Reuters, as it happens. I have used it since 1990 when it was for DOS; my laboratory standardised on it years ago, and is (only with difficulty) now being weaned off it in favour of EndNote. It also has all the bells and whistles of Cite-While-You-Write with Word, and exports are compatible with EndNote. There are hundreds of output styles, and references can be pulled in from a myriad databases, as for EndNote.
