software for research for freshers jun 2010
DESCRIPTION
Some useful tools to improve the efficiency of doing researchTRANSCRIPT
Experiences of
Srinivasan TatachariOB & HR
Using Information Technology for Efficient Research
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
Abraham Lincoln
Is there a choice?
• Information is moving to electronic avatars• Is there a choice?• Intimidating? Faint-hearted??
• Solution:– Personal Knowledge Management
Personal Knowledge Management
Personal Knowledge Management
• Stages– Ideation– Search– Storage– Retrieval– Application
• Artifacts– Research papers, Ideas, electronic versions of
books, handbooks, snippets from websites ….
Ideation aspects
Ideation
• Scribbles, notes• Mind-mapping tools– Helps in abstraction, conceptualization and
collation of ideas– Brainstorming & collaborating• E.g. Xmind Mindmap tool
• Blogging/Twittering/Facebooking ?
Mind Map (example Xmind)
Seek & You shall Receive• You search on-need or receive when ready– Library visits, journals by mail
• Google – the ‘God’ of search? – Scholar– Sometimes just old Google.com
• Research databases: JSTOR, EBSCO …
• Journal websites
• IIMB library assistance
References -> A to Z of EBSCO
Respective journals’ website
Serendipitous Receive
• Email subscriptions for notifications – New articles, journals
• Online First / New issue Print
• E-Mail lists like those of AOM, COGNET– Discussions, information sharing
RSS feeds directly from journal sites
Subscribing to RSS
FeedDemon
MS Outlook 2007
Email Alerts from Google Alerts
Email Alerts from Google Scholar Hot
Storage & Retrieval aspects
Storing
• Print documents – physical archive, highlight– Highlight in PDF (License?)
• Manual classification: Folder structure, Filenames– Tag, classify, keywords, type of documents
Store snippets, urls, images… in Evernote
MS OneNote
Retrieval & Application
• B(u)y memory !• Go by manual classification and open each file
to searchOR….
Use desktop search tools: Copernic Desktop Search
Similar to (better than?) Google Desktop
Retrieve snippets from Evernote
Zotero for Firefox stores citations, clips, notes, pdf& others
Endnote – no site wide license!
Use Zotero for citation in Word
Mendeley
EndNote
• Commercial Referencing tool• Not available on all desktops
Other tips
• Autohotkey– Automatically search for highlighted word in any
application from google and scholar website!
PDF-Xchange – Viewer free
Closing notes
• Start early– Be organized– Be efficient– Save Paper
• Backup data regularly (esp. laptops)• You may need administrative privileges for
desktop• May not be the best tools/methods available– Free!– Some are experimental – beware of crashes!!
Thanks
Contact for specifics:srinivasant07@iimb
It would be great if you can share your ideas from your experience/ experiments!!