Usually when I search Moodle forums I find a ton of hits for what I thought was an original idea (!), but in this case I find no discussions on RefWorks, an online bibliographic database my college subscribes to that I've found to be extremely helpful for students to build and share bibliographies. Turns out someone has developed a plug-in for Blackboard (see below); are there any other Moodle users out there who also use RefWorks and are interested in some sort of linkage? Who would be willing to do the programming? Our institution may be able to pay some or all of the costs.
Thanks,
Jim P.
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Blackboard
The Blackboard Building Block is available from www.blackboard.com.
RefWorks Bridge Extension for Blackboard Installation and Usage Instructions
Release 1.0
Overview
This open source RefWorks Bridge Extension for Blackboard (a "Building Block" in Blackboard parlance) developed jointly by RefWorks and Northwestern University provides one-click access to RefWorks databases.
Access to RefWorks is provided in two ways:
Blackboard users can access their personal RefWorks accounts from within the course Tools page;
Instructors can set up links to specific RefWorks databases from within courses, allowing students to access course-specific reading lists and group research projects
RefWorks has a very sneaky marketing method. By giving site licenses they force people to buy their own copy if they leave the university or change to a university that doesn't use it. Thereby either costing the user $100 a year to maintain it or getting them to pressure their new university to get a site license. Otherwise, they have to switch to something else.
And consider their "privacy" policy, especially c:
RefWorks reserves the right to disclose personal information if required to do so by law, or RefWorks in good faith believes that such action is necessary to: (a) conform to the edicts of the law or comply with legal process served on RefWorks or the site; (b) protect and defend the rights or property of RefWorks; or (c) protect the personal safety of users of RefWorks, its web sites, or the public.
Do you really think that one's bibliography really is private considering what's been in the news lately?
I'd rather see something like Wikindx integrated into Moodle. It's just as portable, and even if one had to buy a cheap server space to maintain, it would easily be less than $100 a year. Not to mention your references at least can stay on your own server or computer if you want them to do so.
And consider their "privacy" policy, especially c:
RefWorks reserves the right to disclose personal information if required to do so by law, or RefWorks in good faith believes that such action is necessary to: (a) conform to the edicts of the law or comply with legal process served on RefWorks or the site; (b) protect and defend the rights or property of RefWorks; or (c) protect the personal safety of users of RefWorks, its web sites, or the public.
Do you really think that one's bibliography really is private considering what's been in the news lately?
I'd rather see something like Wikindx integrated into Moodle. It's just as portable, and even if one had to buy a cheap server space to maintain, it would easily be less than $100 a year. Not to mention your references at least can stay on your own server or computer if you want them to do so.
Thanks; I didn't know this! Looked up Wikindx and it is certainly a good alternative, but my college is already plugged into RefWorks...will continue to evaluate it. I run a server, btw, so this is an option. Would be great to see some sort of linking with Moodle; the thread you referred me to discusses biblios as glossaries, but that prevents much of the formatting etc. power of a biblio database.
Regards,
Jim
Regards,
Jim
BTW - I should mention that the latest release (pre-Christmas v3.2.2) now imports UTF-8 data correctly from Endnote but I've yet to get around to writing an Endnote XML exporter which would probably be of more use to you given the way you describe your use of Wikindx in the other thread. Adding UTF-8 data to the current Endnote tabbed format doesn't work as Endnote cannot handle UTF-8 data unless it has been explicity told it's UTF-8 (as it would be in the XML file).
It is on my mind but I'm busy doing other things in preparation for v3.2.3 release in a few days.
Re. cost of running wikindx -- I run the test drive wikindx server on space that costs me US$24 a year less domain registration.
It is on my mind but I'm busy doing other things in preparation for v3.2.3 release in a few days.
Re. cost of running wikindx -- I run the test drive wikindx server on space that costs me US$24 a year less domain registration.
Just in case anyone comes across this discussion in the future, the JISC funded TELSTAR project at the Open University in the UK released an integration between RefWorks and Moodle in April 2010. At time of writing the code is available via Google Code at http://code.google.com/p/telstar/
Thanks for the hint. I added the link to Integration FAQ.
Thanks Frank - should have thought about doing that myself 
Ta
Ta