Doing research is much more than managing your references. And scholarz.net is much more than importing sources (as shown in the last few posts). If you’re looking for plain reference managers you will find better solutions than scholarz.net.

Research is about gathering existing knowledge out of sources and coming to new findings in your own research projects. So one of the big issues is gathering and structuring ideas, information, quotes, equitations, images, etc. and integrating them into your new research.

Gathering and importing sources is just the start. The core of scholarz.net is a unique “multi-dimensional” knowledge organization, helping you to utilize your knowledge. Here’s a short description:

A user gathers information (like quotes, images, excerpts) in notes (the purple boxes).

These notes are assigned to the different elements (like sources, projects & keywords) with tags. When viewing an element you get all notes assigned to it.

Example:

Note 1 is a summary of a chapter of Source I. This information shall be used in Project A and thematically belongs Keyword X.

Depending on the chosen view you see

• the content of a source (Note 1 & 2 for Source I)

• all information that shall be used in a certain project (Note 1 & 3 in Project A)

•every note, across all data, that belongs to a certain topic/keyword (Note 1 & 4 for Keyword Y).

So how does that help you with your academical writing?

When you write something new, you usually start of with reading a few sources to get an overview. Then you start writing. That’s when the searching begins: Where was that quote I wanted to cite here? Which source was I planning to use to support this proposition? Wasn’t there some idea that I haven’t mentioned yet? …

Myself for example used to write summaries in long Word documents. And when writing my papers I scrolled through endless texts, searching my information.

No more of this! With scholarz.net you can assign all the relevant information to a project, even to a certain chapter of that project, while you are reading. It’s as easy as winking: just drag & drop. And then, when you start writing, you’ve got all the data you gathered just where you need it. No more searching, no more skimming through sources, no more data-chaos. And you’ll never forget an idea or source anymore.

Or imagine another situation: you want to write a new paper to a topic you already have read about. With scholarz.net it’s only half the work as before. You don’t have to search and read everything again. Just check the keywords you need in Quotebook.net and assign the helpful notes to the new project. And immediately you can start writing and even have all bibliographic data at hand.

And if you simply want to see what a certain source is about, just check the source-view and you’ll get everything you (or others) have noted to this source.

That’s the knowledge management function in scholarz.net. It will dramatically ease academical writing.

The last days we talked about importing citations from PubMed or Reference Managers. But what if you browse online databases and catalogs and wish to directly import your results to scholarz.net?

We are working on some great tools that can directly capture any citations on any site and turn them into a new scholarz.net-source, but it will still take us some time to finish that. Until then you can achieve the same goal by making a small detour:

Most online catalogs offer the possibility of exporting your search results in Endnote or BibTeX stile.

(If you have the choice we recommend BibTeX.) So: do your usual research and then export your findings to your desktop.

Then simply upload this file as shown before.
Alternatively you can also paste the code into the field 1b.

And viola: the annotation has been uploaded. You can check it once more and import it with a click.

scholarz.net supports the import of bibliographic data in several formats, amongst others Endnote and BibTeX. Yesterday we showed how to import sources from PubMed. Today we’ll show how to transfer your library from a Reference Manager to scholarz.net, using Endnote as example.

1. Open Endnote und and select “Refer Export.ens” as Output Style in the Style Manager.

2. Choose the sources you wish to export.

3. Open the File Menu and select Export. Choose “Text Only” and “Refer Export.ens” in the export window and save the sources to your desktop.

4. Upload the new file to scholarz.net, select Endnote as import format and click “Upload File”. (Read here for more details on uploading and importing to scholarz.net.)

BTW: most reference managers offer library export in Endnote or BibTeX format. So you can transfer your library from almost any referece manager to scholarz.net.

Gathering bibliographic data is quite a tedious task. So we developed a number of import features to help you do the job.

Today we introduce the probably most important feature for researchers in science: importing PubMed sources in four easy steps.

	1. Exporting from PubMed - Find your sources in PubMed. - Choose “XML” in the Display-field. - Choose “File” instead of Send in the last Show-field. - The file containing your search results is saved on your desktop.
	2. Open scholarz.net-Importfilter - Login on scholarz.net. - Click the Import-Link in the bottom right of the dashboard.
	3. Upload file - Choose your PubMed File saved on your Desktop. - Select Pubmed XML in the drop-down menu. - Click “Upload file”.
	4. Check and import - You now see all uploaded sources. Choose which you wish to import. - Click “Import selected data” to finish .
	Two more hints - If you wish to import a single source, you might as well simply paste the code. - Importing a greater amount of sources may take a while. Don’t interrupt the uploading. The view will automatically change as soon as everything is imported.

Why don’t you just try it. If you have any comments or further requests, we’d be happy to hear from you!

At the moment we work on a redesign of the scholarz.net software. In the course of the redesign we have also re-worked our logo. Which turned into:

Here another version. As you can see, we changed the claim as well: “Make a point”

And the Z-Icon has been changed too:

The new versions will gradually be phased in. Which means that the current logo will be kept up for a short while.

We proudly present: Our first own office. Since we left the university rooms a few weeks ago, we now stand on our own feet. Recently we also had our first big team workshop in the new rooms. Here you can see some impressions of both:

In the beginning was the emptiness. IKEA hooked us so that we spent our first two weeks in an empty room with an old garden table. Well, I guess that was real start-up flair. BTW: The lady at the garden table is Amra Basic. Amra joined us in January and we are very happy to have her on board. First we started filling the emptiness with cables, then finally with furniture. We rented a small 2-room + kitchen & bathroom flat. That makes two offices and a meeting room (the kitchen). Small and inexpensive, but beautiful, and fully sufficient for our needs.

Every few months, we gather for a big team workshop: we lock ourselves in and take a few days to define our objectives and priorities for the time ahed. With such a workshop, we also inaugurated the new rooms. The days are hard work, the evenings great fun. E.g. with Wii Boxing. Particularly impressive was the battle of the ladies. After that no one wanted to fight against Steffi or Irene so we switched to tennis and bowling .

The first scholarz-year lies behind us. Always exiting, sometimes straining. This year we started a new chapter in our history. As you know, we started as the interdisciplinary research project “Scientific work in the Web 2.0” at the University of Wuerzburg. Embedded in an university environment we turned our ideas into bits and bytes and labored on materializing our vision. Now scholarz.net is online, helping thousands of researchers do better research. At this moment we would like to thank you for your support and enthusiasm. We would not have come this far without your help and many mails. Please continue writing us your opinion, ideas, wishes, praise and critics!

The university time is coming to an end. The research project is over, we are leaving our rooms at the university and start to stand on our own feet. We have founded a spin-off venture that will continue operating and developing “scholarz.net”, thus ensuring its permanent existence. The office has moved in a small flat near Wuerzburg and from here we will continue to persue our vision with the same effort and enthusiasm as before. We love academia, and we believe that a software like “scholarz.net” brings great benefit for its users. You have encouraged us in our belief. Thank you for that. We promise to will continue creating great tools for better research.

Some days ago Google announced that they will stop developing the popular online notebook “Google Notebook”.

For all disappointed users “scholarz.net” has good news:
1.    We offer the same basic features – and even more
2.    We wrote an easy import-tool to help you switch

Just as with the Google Notebook you can make and sort notes, organize data, search for sources or bookmark your notes.
But “scholarz.net” offers some significant improvements: your notes can be assigned to multiple folders, so you receive a multidimensional knowledge-management. You can assign your notes to all the places where they’re needed. E.g. you can find your quotations in the source, where it came from, in the project, in which it is used and with those keywords, that fit.

In addition to that there are even more fascinating features, which help you do better and more efficient research: reference management, project-groups and a social network – all together a unique combination of knowledge-management and networking.

“scholarz.net” is designed especially for researchers, students and knowledge workers.

If someone wants to switch from Google Notebook to “scholarz.net”, there now is an easy import-feature:

First export your data out of Google Notebook.
1.    Sign into Google Notebook.
2.    Select the notebook that you want to export.
3.    Click the Export link at the bottom of the page.
4.    Choose ‘Atom’ as export option.
5.    Save the Google Atom Notebook file to your own desktop.

Then import your data to scholarz.net.
1.    Select the file from your desktop by using the above form.
2.    Click “Upload file”.
3.    Your data will be imported into a single project or source.
4.    If you like to import multiple notebooks, simply repeat this process for each.

Not only your data, notes and structure will be imported but also all your labels.

Welcome to “scholarz.net”, we hope you enjoy doing “better research”!

Marc and Jens have been busy again. Last night they uploaded a new update, the new features are now available.

Besides a few minor changes the main updates are the new group forums and an improved handling of bibliographic information.

- Group forum: instead of the rather simple Pinboard the groups now have a full scale forum. The data of the previous pinboard has been integrated as sticky thread.

(BTW: did you know that the “scholarz.net” working-groups are far more than just “normal” groups? You can create group projects and group sources and upload group files. Collaborate with entire research or study groups and make working in groups far more efficient than before.)

- Handling of bibliographic information: we have slightly redesigned the form for entering bibliographic information and the data model it is based on. There now is an own field for publisher and editor (we somehow overlooked that at the beginning). More important: we have added several “identifier”, making the whole form more flexible and complete. In case you still miss something, please write us!

The next projects we are working on are a general improvement of usability, more sophisticated import and export options, and further language options.

Ah, there is one more thing. But we’ll talk about that on monday.

While some individuals are content attending college for a bachelor’s degree, it takes a great degree of dedication to continue one’s studies through to the doctoral level.  While life in academia isn’t for everyone, there are some distinct advantages to spending one’s life in the university environment.  What follows is a brief list of these advantages.

Spend Time with Like-Minded Individuals

If you decide to spend your life dedicated to study, you will certainly meet others who share your passion for learning, research, and sharing this information with others.  Spending many months and years learning about the minutiae of specific subject matter and conveying this to other academics takes a particular type of person, so it is good to share time and space with people who have a shared passion for this type of lifestyle.

Discourse

In no other place will you find people who are qualified or concerned to the same degree with which to discuss the intricacies of specific subject matter.  Having a good discussion on topics that interest you and your colleagues is something that you can count on.  Learning through discourse is something that seems to happen almost by default when spending your life immersed in academia.

Develop Your Own Style

By working with and learning from others who are as dedicated to their field of study as you are, you can count on taking bits and pieces from those you encounter.  Doing this will only help you to develop and hone your own specific style, which will ultimately help you to stand apart when your work is ready for the reading public.  This style can manifest itself in methods, research, writing style, or any other variety of ways.

Teaching Others

Spreading the knowledge that you have picked up along the way is another excellent advantage of spending your life dedicated to academics.  While you may have immersed yourself in more intricate details, you may be asked to teach introductory or even survey courses related to your area of expertise.  This will only serve to enrich your experience and solidify your knowledge base of the subject matter, while hopefully passing on some of that passion to future students looking forward to a life in academia.

Lifelong Learning

While many others out there who earn their degree are able to flourish with the knowledge they acquire, our knowledge continues to grow and expand.  Being part of the world of academia means that you have to potential to be on the cutting edge of what is being taught, studied, and discovered as a result.  Lifelong learning is one of the many fringe benefits of living an academic life.

By-line:
This post was contributed by Kelly Kilpatrick, who writes on the subject of American history PhD. She invites your feedback at kellykilpatrick24 at gmail dot com