[open-bibliography] Fwd: News release: Referencing made easy

Mon May 17 16:18:51 UTC 2010

I have to disagree with this. The project was not about open bibliographic data per se, but we did consider issues around sharing of bibliographic data between staff and students with a focus on how this might happen in an online learning environment. See my previous post for more on this.

Additionally I really can't see how RefWorks restricts or licenses open bibliographic data?

Owen

On 17 May 2010, at 16:59, Jim Pitman wrote:

> This does not appear to be a step towards open biblio data: this is some promotion of 
> RefWorks, a proprietary reference management system which functions by enclosure,
> restriction, repackaging and licensing of open biblio data.
> 
> --Jim Pitman
> ----------------------------------------------
> Jim Pitman
> Director, Bibliographic Knowledge Network Project
> http://www.bibkn.org/
> 
> Professor of Statistics and Mathematics
> University of California
> 367 Evans Hall # 3860
> Berkeley, CA 94720-3860
> 
> ph: 510-642-9970  fax: 510-642-7892
> e-mail: pitman at stat.berkeley.edu
> URL: http://www.stat.berkeley.edu/users/pitman
> ----------------------------------------------
> 
>> This looks very interesting. I wonder whether/how the project
>> currently supports sharing reference/citation data?
>> 
>> David: do you know whether there are any plans to encourage
>> institutions/researchers to open up reference data? Or anything about
>> the IPR management model? Seems like potentially a big opportunity to
>> share citation data more effectively...
>> 
>> All the best,
>> 
>> Jonathan
>> 
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> 
>> News release
>> 17 May 2010
>> 
>> Referencing made easy
>> 
>> A new piece of software to help students and universities manage
>> academic references more easily has been developed by the Open
>> University and its partners.
>> 
>> Funded by JISC, and made in collaboration with RefWorks, the web-based
>> research management, writing and collaboration tool, the OU has
>> developed MyReferences to simplify referencing.
>> 
>> Lawrie Phipps, programme manager at JISC, said: “Writing up references
>> can be a really time-consuming activity for the student and researcher
>> – but it’s essential to avoid plagiarism, develop robust scholarship
>> and lead the reader to other relevant work.  This resource is one
>> aspect of a huge investment from JISC which aims to spark innovative
>> solutions to issues like referencing that affect people working up and
>> down the country, in order to inspire and help other UK colleges and
>> universities.”
>> 
>> MyReferences integrates tools from the widely-used RefWorks reference
>> management software into the Moodle virtual learning environment which
>> is used in academic institutions across the UK to support online
>> learning.
>> 
>> Nicky Whitsed, director of library services at the OU, said: “For
>> students, this means helping them to adopt good practice in organising
>> and managing references and using citations appropriately in their
>> work. And for universities this new and easy reference management
>> system will help to tackle plagiarism by making referencing easier;
>> encourage information literacy; and help libraries to improve
>> reference management for courses”.
>> 
>> The MyReferences software is open source, making it free for any
>> institution to download, tailor to their own needs and integrate into
>> their own learning environments.
>> 
>> The software is part of the 'technology enhanced learning supporting
>> students to achieve academic rigour' (TELSTAR) project.  Owen
>> Stephens, project manager, said: “These new tools are invaluable to
>> the 21st century educational institution and student. There is an ever
>> increasing wealth of resources available and hence a real need for
>> students, course and programme teams to be able to create, manipulate,
>> organise and store a range of citations and bibliographic references
>> for easy use."
>> 
>> There are already a number of general referencing tools available to
>> students, but MyReferences takes the usability of these tools a step
>> further by integrating them into online courses so the materials
>> students commonly need to reference are already available in the
>> format they need. Students simply select the sources they need to
>> reference, the referencing style their institution requires and then
>> copy and paste the result into their assignment.
>> 
>> Owen continued: “From now until July we’ll be working with other
>> institutions to implement the software, as well as continuing to pilot
>> it with staff and students at the OU. The response we’ve had so far
>> from students and staff alike has been overwhelmingly positive and
>> we’re looking forward to working with more and more organisations in
>> the UK and across the world to spread the benefits of this new
>> referencing tool.”
>> 
>> "RefWorks is proud to be a part of the MyReferences project – it not
>> only provides users with an effective and easy-to-use research
>> management tool, but it takes another step towards educating them
>> about information literacy,” said Colleen Stempien, executive director
>> of operations, RefWorks-COS.  “Any institution that currently
>> subscribes to RefWorks may easily adapt the added Moodle integration
>> functionality using the RefWorks API.”
>> 
>> See a visual demonstration of MyReferences at
>> <http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/telstar/telstar-quick-demonstration/>
>> 
>> Find out more about events planned to share information about TELSTAR
>> and developments in the field of reference management at
>> <http://www.open.ac.uk/telstar/event>
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Jonathan Gray
>> 
>> Community Coordinator
>> The Open Knowledge Foundation
>> http://blog.okfn.org
>> 
>> http://twitter.com/jwyg
>> http://identi.ca/jwyg
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> open-bibliography mailing list
>> open-bibliography at lists.okfn.org
>> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-bibliography
> 
> _______________________________________________
> open-bibliography mailing list
> open-bibliography at lists.okfn.org
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-bibliography

-- 
The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt charity in England & Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 038302).