Thing 3 & 4 - Collaboration Tools and File Sharing

I believe the collaboration aspect is very significant in the journey of a researcher. It is always great to gain feedback and perspectives on parts of the research you have been working on. There are located and cloud aspects of collaboration.

When working on any research project, the progress of the research project is best communicated to your research group via located presentations on the research and then asking for the audience input.

  For cloud research sharing, I believe some great collaboration tools could help in getting your work out there and open for comment:

> twitter
> Google Docs
> Prezi
> Slideshare

You may  also want to share referencing resources for which EndNote Web is another great collaboration tool!

File Sharing - I mainly use Google Docs for file sharing purposes. The greatest benefit I find in this tool is that users can edit files in real time simultaneously!
In terms of security, only the users that you share the docs with have access to the material. 

Thing 2 - Notetaking Tools

When it comes to taking notes, I am an Ipad user. Hence, most of the time use the "Notes" app that comes in the pre-set ipad menu. However, in the context for Researchers, some of the good note-taking apps would be :

• Evernote 
• Note Lock - $1.29 from the App store - this is useful especially if researchers want to make their notes / data private. It is a a password - protected app that allows users to make notes, add photos / pictures and has double lock mechanisms - a passcode system and a secret pattern. For a small fee, this is great value!
• Notetaker - You are attending a seminar on your favourite topic. You may set this app to record the session and simultaneously type your notes. Whenever you want to re-visit a particular section of your notes, the recording will commence at the point of where your notes are!

23 Research Things - Thing 1 - Blogging

Blogging is not something that comes to me naturally. Ask me to share a link on twitter or facebook and comment on it and I am ready to do that in a heart-beat. I believe that researchers have a lot to offer when it comes to blogging. It was a bit of a challenge for a non-tech-savvy person like me to firstly find a blogging platform that suited my needs! And now here it is...

When encouraging a researcher to start blogging, the first thing I would encourage them to do is to 'follow' existing bloggers. The main reason for this is for them to see it as a means of informal networking opportunities. The other benefit of blogging for researchers is to have an idea and information exchange opportunity from people with similar research interests around the world! Once researchers set up a regular pattern to read blogs of their particular interests, it may encourage them to either contribute or set up a blog for themselves where they can explore personal and professional growth.

Some of the blogs that I follow have often shown interesting articles about the experiences of a PhD student, experiences and lessons learnt from research processes, informative blogs on publishing, copyright and open access. These blogs enable me to broaden my knowledge in the process of researching and publishing.

A couple of the the blogs that I follow are:

• the thesis whisperer
• scholarly kitchen