I have trialled many social bookmarking sites in an attempt to find the best solution to read, bookmark and share online resources. To date I have been most impressed with Diigo, Delicious and StumbleUpon as bookmark storing and sharing platforms. Recent interactions on Twitter with @allergynotes and @symtym and @DrCris have led to forays into Goole Notebook and a conversion to Google Reader for regular RSS feed reviews.
Recent Tweeple conversation from @helenjaques and @IanMulvany led me to return to Connotea as an alternative open source platform specifically to read, bookmark and share medical and scientific references – and I was impressed by the changes that had been made since my last visit.
Connotea has been specifically designed for scientists and clinicians – with great extra features definitely missing from the more ‘social’ bookmarking sites. The interactive citation management for references from sources such as PubMed and many journals enable Connotea to recognise the page you are saving; automatically collect the bibliographic information for you and allow your authorship status to be recognized.
Like other bookmarking sites – Connotea is a website with ‘unlimited’ tag storage and can be accessed from any computer with an internet connection.
Saving references in Connotea is quick and easy. You do it by saving a link to a web page for the reference, whether that be the PubMed entry, the publisher’s PDF, or even an Amazon product page for a book. Connotea will, wherever possible, recognise the reference and automatically add in the bibliographic information for you. Refrerences can be public (default) or kept private for your own library.
The Connotea browser button makes saving references very easy. The browser button does most of the work for you — click it from any web page and you’re instantly half way towards adding that page to your Connotea library. Add a few keywords to help keep yourself organized and you’re finished. Connotea looks up the web page and fetches the title, URL and any other information it can recognise, so you don’t need to re-type anything.
Most important features:
- Easy to use Bookmarklet for reference tagging
- Very effective bibliographic infomration for a large number of journals and pubmed
- Easy to share references with colleagues
- Universal access from any computer (using your login details)
- DOI Digital Object Identifiers included where possible
- VERY simple to set up with great overview guide – accessible from every page!
- Useful instructional videos for beginners
The number of social tagging systems like Connotea is increasing and the systems are enjoying rising popularity. However, communication patterns within these systems are not yet fully understood. The Media Computing Department and the Media Educational Science department of the University of Regensburg (Germany) are conducting an interdisciplinary research study of social tagging system usage. They are looking for participants who are willing to spare the time to fill out a short online survey and answer several questions about how they use Connotea. The only requirement for participants is that they have at least 20 papers in their Connotea bibliography. If you are interested, please help us by filling out the following online survey. The results will be shared on the Connotea Blog
About Mike Cadogan
