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Brief intro to useful tools for researchers.
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My Experiences
Srinivasan Tatachari
Improving Efficiency of Research by Using IT tools
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
Abraham LincolnSrinivasan Tatachari, 2011
Is there a choice?
• Information is moving to electronic avatars
• Solution:– Personal Knowledge Management
Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011
Personal Knowledge Management
Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011
Personal Knowledge Management
• Stages–Ideation–Search–Storage–Retrieval–Application
• Artifacts– Ideas, – Research papers– electronic versions of books, – handbooks, – snippets from websites ….
Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011
Ideation aspects
Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011
Ideation
• Scribbles, notepads (primitive techniques )• Note-taking apps
– Evernote, MS OneNote
• Mind-mapping tools– Helps in abstraction, conceptualization and collation of
ideas– Brainstorming & collaborating
• E.g. Xmind Mindmap tool
• Blogging/Twitter-ing/Facebook-ing ?– collaboration
Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011
Mind Map
Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011
Searching aspects
Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011
Seek & Thou Shalt Receive• You search on-need or gather when ready
– Library visits, journals by mail (primitive techniques )
• Google – the ‘God’ of search? – Scholar– Sometimes just old Google.com
• Research databases: JSTOR, EBSCO …
• Journal websites
• library assistanceSrinivasan Tatachari, 2011
References -> A to Z of EBSCO
Respective journals’ website
Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011
Serendipitous Receive• Email subscriptions for notifications
– New articles, journals
• RSS
• Online First / New issue Print– Papers released online much before they hit the print version
• E-Mail lists like those of AOM, COGNET– Discussions, information sharing
Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011
RSS feeds directly from journal sites
Subscribing to RSS
Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011
FeedDemon
Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011
MS Outlook 2007+
Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011
Email Alerts from Google Alerts
Email Alerts from Google Scholar Hot
Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011
Storage & Retrieval aspects
Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011
Storing
• Print documents – physical archive• Manual classification: Folder structure,
Filenames– Tag, classify, keywords, type of documents
• Snippets of useful artifacts?– Tools: Evernote, OneNote, Zotero, Mendeley
Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011
Store snippets, urls, images… in Evernote
Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011
MS OneNote
Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011
Retrieval & Application
• Go by manual classification and open each file to search
• Use OS search – criticized a lot
Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011
Windows 7
Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011
Use desktop search tools: Copernic Desktop Search
Similar to (better than?) Google Desktop Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011
Retrieve snippets from Evernote
Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011
Referencing
Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011
Zotero for Firefox stores citations, clips, notes, pdf
Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011
Zotero: citations in MSWord, openoffice
Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011
Mendeley
Mendeley helps organize library, citations, collaborate with others
Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011
EndNote
• Commercial Referencing tool
Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011
Other tips
• Autohotkey scripting tool– Automatically search for highlighted word in any
application from google and scholar website!
• Greasemonkey/ Stylish extensions
Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011
Closing notes
Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011
• Start early– Be organized– Be efficient– Save Paper
• Backup data regularly (esp. laptops)• May not be the best tools/methods available
– But they are Free!
Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011
Thanks
Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011
Free tools available at:1.Xmind: http://www.xmind.net/2.Evernote: http://www.evernote.com/3.Zotero: http://www.zotero.org/4.Mendeley: http://www.mendeley.com/5.FeedDemon: http://www.feeddemon.com/6.Copernic Search: http://www.copernic.com/en/products/desktop-search/7.Autohotkey: http://www.autohotkey.com/
