Using Social Bookmarking in Academic Research

Adriana Reed J. Willard Marriott Library

April 30, 2008

Background Using the Open Web for research is a major

component of library instruction.

Courses I teach that allow (or require) students to use Open Web sources to develop research products:

Educational Psychology – individual/group research paper and group presentation

Engineering LEAP – group research paper and presentation

Writing – annotated bibliography, individual research paper

Social Bookmarking

Store and share bookmarks to your onlinesources online.

Web-based, NOT browser-based.

Access and add bookmarks from any computer with Internet access.

Tools for social bookmarking: Del.icio.us CiteULike

del.icio.us: What Is It?"a collection of favorites - yours

and everyone else's." 

Uses the following browsers: Firefox Internet Explorer Safari Opera Flock

Uses tags, NOT folders to organize bookmarks

Tags?

"one-word descriptors . . . You can assign

as many tags to a bookmark as you like and

easily rename or delete them later.”

Benefits of tagging:

1. Track online sources

2. Explore other publications that have the same or similar tag(s)

del.icio.us: How Does It Work?

1. Sign up.

2. Install "my del.icio.us" and "tag this" buttons into browser of your choice.

3. Begin bookmarking and tagging websites.

text box!buttons!

tag tools!

CiteULike: What Is It?

“a free service to help you to store,

organise and share the scholarly

papers you are reading”

Uses ANY browser(s) of your choice. No buttons to add-it’s not bound to one browser.

Uses tags and author names to organize bookmarks.

CiteULike: How Does It Work?

1. Sign up.

2. Add the CiteULike bookmarklet into the browser of your choice.

3. Bookmark articles from a supported database using the “Post to CiteULike" bookmark, OR post articles manually.

4. Assign priority level.

Navigation Menu!

del.icio.us Versus CiteULike

del.icio.us Big community of users = more chances for

finding additional sources User-friendly design Ease of use Purpose: Social network

CiteULike Focus on scholarly sources Collects and stores bibliographic information Purpose: Academic network