Research+Tools

 ﻿ Running head: WEB 2.0 RESEARCH TOOLS 1

Web 2.0 Research Tools Melisa Clifton Florida State University

Author Note Melisa Clifton is a student in the Instructional Systems program at Florida State University. This book chapter was written as part of the course requirements for EME 6415. Correspondence concerning this chapter should be sent to Melisa Clifton at mec08f@my.fsu.edu. WEB 2.0 RESEARCH TOOLS 2 Abstract This chapter explores Web 2.0 tools in three categories: Social bookmarking, collaboration and file sharing and storage. It provides an overview to specific tools within each category providing the reader with an introduction and links to access them.

Keywords: Web 2.0 tools, social bookmarking, collaboration, file sharing, and information storage WEB 2.0 RESEARCH TOOLS 3 Research Tools

Research is important because it helps us to learn and understand more about people, our environment, and how things work in the world. It improves our decision making process and helps us to help others. In education, research is important in order to provide effective tools for teachers and for learners. Therefore, doing effective research is critical. Effective research requires effective tools. The following are brief overviews of some of the tools I find most useful. Classification of Tools Social bookmarking tools allow users to organize, store, manage and search for online resources via bookmarks. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Collaboration tools allow users to share, create, and edit files. These files include common document, spreadsheet, or presentation types along with more complex concept mapping. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Filing sharing and storage tools does exactly what it sounds like, it allows users to store and share files. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Tools in Depth <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Social Bookmarking <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">One of the greatest challenges of research is organizing, maintaining and sharing information. The following tools will be of great service to any researcher. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Diigo <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Diigo is a powerful online application that provides users with collaborative and research tools, a knowledge-sharing community and social content that allow them to track what they are doing online. Diigo provides the online researcher with powerful tools that will increase productivity. For example, with a simple browser add-in, users can highlight specific areas of text and apply a sticky note to a website, much like highlighting and annotating in a textbook or journal. When the user returns to the website the WEB 2.0 RESEARCH TOOLS 4

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">highlights and sticky notes will still be on the original site. In addition to the powerful tool, Diigo takes it a step further by maintaining this information on their servers. This provides the researcher with a collection of their research that is easily accessible. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Diigo has a collaborative research platform that allows researchers to share information. A user can easily share their highlights and sticky notes with others. Likewise, others can share their research information with you, making Diigo a central location for research. Diigo focuses your research strategy. Since all Diigo users’ tags, highlights, and sticky notes are searchable; Diigo has created a huge repository of content that is already filtered and annotated. A user can subscribe to the most recent or popular bookmarks associated with any tag. When reading a web page, the Diigo sidebar reflects the other users who have bookmarked the page along with similar pages. This results in a social browsing experience. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Diigo is a knowledge-sharing community: You are what you annotat ing? Diigo provides a new way to stay connected to your friends and family. It extends beyond the social and transcends into sharing. With Diigo, you can share what interests you the most while staying connected with others who share in your interests. This is made easy with the variety of mobile and desktop applications. For example, Diigo offers mobile apps for the iPhone, iPad and Android. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For additional information regarding this amazingly powerful research tool please check out the following links: <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__Diigo Overview__] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__YouTube - Diigo__] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Del.icio.us <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Delicious is also a social bookmarking site that allows users to tag, save, manage and share web sites visited. Like Diigo, Delicious allows the researcher to bookmark sites and access this information at anytime or from different a computer. Thus making your bookmarks portable because they are stored on the Delicious website. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You can share your bookmarks with other Delicious users by sending them via Delicious. The <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">WEB 2.0 RESEARCH TOOLS 5

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">next time your friend logs in they will receive the bookmark. Likewise, your friends can share with you. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There are some major differences between Delicious and Diigo, of which I would like to highlight here. First, Diigo provides the highlighting tool. This can prove to be an invaluable tool for researchers. It allows you to go back to the exact text on a website. This saves valuable search time. Second, saving pages is easier in Diigo across multiple Internet applications. Although both tools work well in the major browsers like Internet Explorer and Firefox, Delicious loses some flexibility in some of other web applications like Chrome. Third, Diigo allows users to leave ‘sticky notes’ on a web site. Not only can you see your notes but the notes of other users. Additionally, Diigo allows you to see other Diigo users on the same web site, what they are tagging. Delicious only allows you to see if another Delicious user has bookmarked the site. The last difference I would like share is Diigo’s ability to share. With a single click, a Diigo user can send their favorite bookmarks to Facebook or Twitter. These are just a few of the major differences. Other differences can be found at <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__7 Reasons Diigo Tastes Better Than Delicious__] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Collaboration <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Sometimes research requires teamwork. When this is the case, the following tools can prove to be useful. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Google Docs <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Google Docs consists of a word processor, spreadsheet, slide show presenter and form maker. We frequently use the Microsoft Office Suite (MS Office) for creating these types of documents, but Google Docs offers the researcher the ability to create, edit and share information online. Thus creating a portable collaborative workspace that MS Office cannot currently compete with, which is the greatest asset of the tools. On the flip side, Google Docs provides the user with a simple and straightforward interface. In doing so, they forfeit some of the robust features found in MS Office. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A gmail account, an email account supported by Google, is required for access to Google Docs, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">WEB 2.0 RESEARCH TOOLS 6 <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">which is not a huge inconvenience, but to some it is simply one more login and password to maintain. Follow this <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__link__] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> for a demonstration of Google Docs. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Mindmaps <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Mindmaps are diagrams that can be used to represent ideas from simple to complex. They provide the researcher with a picture of how an idea or concept is seen in the mind’s eye of the individual or team. This makes them a very powerful tool for collaboration because it allows teammates to actually see how others view the idea or topic. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Basically mi nd maps are constructed around one word or a central topic and branches are used to indicate related words, ideas, or sub-topics. Thus the end products displays and identifies how things are related to the main topic, which is can be a very effective tool for visual learners. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Since mindmaps represent information in a non-linear fashion, they foster brainstorming, which can be critical when planning and organizing tasks to be completed for research. This vital information can provide the researcher with a starting point or identify other areas that need to be covered. This can be helpful in ensuring that your research is thoroughly and professionally conducted. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There are several online Mindmapping tools available. FreeMind is an open-source tool available for download <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__here__] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. Mindmap is also another tool available but it is not free. A free trial version is available <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__here__] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. Cmaps is another free online mapping tool, although they do prompt for a donation. Although Cmaps terminology is built around concepts, it is easy to see how concept maps and mind maps are interchangeble. Cmap can be downloaded <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__here__] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Zoho Projects <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Zoho Projects is an online project managementsoftware suite that combines software tools and applications to provide users with an easy and effective way to communicate, collaborate, plan, assign and prioritize tasks. Zoho Projects allows research teams to work more efficiently by providing planning and tracking tools to help maintain the critical research schedule. Online collaboration improves <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">WEB 2.0 RESEARCH TOOLS 7

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">communication between team members and helps to keep everyone on task. Zoho Projects allows researchers to assign and track task priority and completion. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A few of the notable features are task management, time management, and document management. Task management makes planning a research project easy by using milestones to organize projects. It will allow you to set task dependency and priority and assign ownership to a team member. The time tracking feature allows the user or research team member to record hours worked and to export the data to reports that are easily created. Lastly, document management provides a central location to create documents, spreadsheets and presentations. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A free online account can be created <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__here__] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. It should be noted that the free account has limitations and the subscription can become a little pricey. You can check prices <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__here__] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. However, two noted advantages are that 1) Zoho Projects can be integrated with Google Docs and 2) mobile application for the iPhone and Android are in the works! <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Filing Sharing and Storage <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A big challenge experienced while doing research is where to store all the information being collected. We create a lot of information! One tool that can help with this issue is Dropbox. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Drop Box <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Dropbox is an online tool that provides limited free space. Users can store documents, photos, and videos in a single place and access them from any computer. You can also share them easily with your peers or co-workers who also have a Dropbox account. Dropbox alleviates the issues of not having the current document, overwriting information, and sharing information. When you save a document in the Dropbox it is automatically saved in all your other Dropbox locations. For example, if you save a document into your Dropbox from your computer, it can be accessed from any other computer. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Sharing files is made easy in Dropbox. A researcher can easily share files with other users simply <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">WEB 2.0 RESEARCH TOOLS 8

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">by sharing folders. This is accomplished by inviting other users to share the file on the Dropbox server. This allows you to view changes to documents, view photos and videos instantly. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">DropBox requires the user to create an account and to download the application. The application provides the user with an icon for easy accessibility. Dropbox is available for the mobile device as well - everything from the iPhone, iPad to the Android and BlackBerry. For additional information and use of Dropbox please view this <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__YouTube video__] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Conclusion <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In closing, the Web 2.0 tools covered here are just a few of the many tools currently available. Some of the tools mentioned have features that would allow it fall into more than one of the listed categories. For example, Google Docs is also a central place to store your documents. However, the tools were selected for key features the highlighted and the importance they can play in conducting research. Being active in research almost predicates being current with the tools available, but there are new tools being created or existing tools being improved everyday so this can be a daunting task. Ultimately, when conducting research it is important to select tools that you are comfortable with using and that fit the research task.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I still need to do my references....I’m trying to figure out how to cite a website in APA format...again.