RefWorks is an online research, writing, and collaboration tool. Like Diigo, it helps manage information. Can you tell I'm very interested in research and collaboration tools? Since I teach college English, the bulk of student work is spent in writing thesis-based papers and working in discussion and presentation groups, so while there may be flashier and more fun online tools out there, but I need a workhorse that delivers on helping students with research and collaboration.
RefWorks is a bit limited in that it is not free. You can check out the link and a trial here: http://www.refworks.com. I know a lot of colleges have subscriptions.
St. Thomas DOES have a subscription, so as a student you can make use of this tool for yourself. Or if you teach here, your students have free use of this great tool. You can find the RefWorks link on the UST Libraries home page (you will need to create an account ID and password to enter): https://www-refworks-com.ezproxy.stthomas.edu/Refworks/login.asp?WNCLang=false. I don't know if high schools use this, but it seems like it would be useful tool for any school where students are expected to complete rigorous research.
I completed a training session on RefWorks at the library, and I have my students also attend a training session in preparation for their final research project. RefWorks is one of those tools that make me think "why couldn't I have had this back when I was in college!" It makes collecting and organizing research so easy, and best of all it creates a bibliography for you! There are tutorials that walk users through how to use this tool, and the library staff can provide help as well, so I won't go into details of how to use it. Instead, I'll detail what I consider highlights and challenges of this tool.
Highlights:
RefWorks connects easily with online journals and materials. It's pretty easy to gather materials from online sources. In fact, it's not that different from online shopping, except here you're adding research to your "cart". I personally find it intutive to use. My students, on the other hand, had mixed reactions. Some found it really easy, others needed a little extra help.
They make it pretty easy to hand-enter reserach done off-line...you know, old-fashioned things like books! You fill in online fields to collect book or journal information (title, author, publisher, year, etc.) and RefWorks formats it and adds it to your collection. I found the hand-entering so easy that I used it quite a bit.
You can organize all your materials into different folders, and it's easy to move materials around or use them in more than one folder.
The bibliography tool is AWESOME. You just select what you want in your bibiliography, select the style in which you need it (various versions of MLA, APA, Chicago, and others...I counted there are 23 to choose from), and it will create your bibliography in the chosen style. Like magic, in maybe a minute you have something that would have taken maybe an hour to do by hand.
Challenges:
The collaboration elements of RefWorks seem limited to sharing resources. I think if I were assigning a group presentation I would use a class wiki instead, or even Diigo. RefWorks seems better suited for the creation of research papers, and not online collaboration.
While I love the bibliography tool, it does kind of eliminate the need for students to actually learn a particular style, and I'm not convinced that a basic knowledge of style elements isn't still necessary. I teach basic MLA style in my class, and I can tell that students do wonder why they need to know it when the computer just does this for them. However, I've used RefWorks twice now for my graduate education classes, and have chosen the correct APA style, and in both cases my profs have indicated there was something minor incorrect with my bibliography. So either RefWorks doesn't have the style exactly correct or my profs don't. But I have to say that I've also noticed little issues when students have submitted their RefWorks MLA-style bibliographies. So, I think the bibliography tool should be relied on in the same way one uses spell-check. With spell-check, you still need to have enough knowledge to know if something is spelled wrong because a computer cannot understand context. In the same way, I think you still need to have enough knowledge to be able to proof your bibliography for small issues. Then again, my students say I'm the "only professor" who cares about that (which I do not believe!) and my sister (also back in school) says that she doesn't need to know style because the computer does it now and her professor doesn't care if it's exactly right or not. Perhaps I'm old-fashioned in my concern for overreliance on computers, just as my grandmother insisted that my sister and I should know how to sew, even though we laughed at her: "grandma, you can just BUY clothes now". But I wish I did know how to sew now, and I still think that tools like this RefWorks bibliography are very useful...but one still shouldn't entirely rely on it. Don't neglect your own skills.
That was a bit of a tangent, and probably underlines my over-arching attitude toward online tools like this: they are great tools, but not total replacements.
Thanks for the post Terry. I have been telling myself for years to get over to the library and learn Ref Works. Perhaps your post will be that last little push I needed! I appreciate your discussion of using the tool as part of the process rather than a complete replacement. As you described you process, I got the sense that Ref Works in an integral part of the class. Would you say this is a departmental goal or more of a personal one? I ask because I feel like I am fighting a losing battle in my department concerning Minitab which is a statistical software. By requiring students to learn Minitab, I sometimes feel like I an taking away from several department level outcomes I should be focused on. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteI love RefWorks! There are so many different bibliography formats but with Refworks you just click which format (MLA, etc) you want. With this in mind, I can see how this resource makes it a challenge to teach students how to site their sources. I think that this resource could be introduced once you have taught your lesson or it could be used to check if they have their bibliography formatted correctly. On the other hand it is frustrating when students turn in a bibliography that isn't formated correctly or when they don't do one because they don't know how to do it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments, Mike. Using RefWorks is definitely not a department goal...the profs all seem to have a different attitude toward using it (and using technology resources in general). In talking to our library liason, very few English profs are using it as a resource. I'm using it because I really want my students to use the library and be comfortable using all the great tools that are available. Also, it releived me of some burden in having to explain it all in class :). And RefWorks is so easy...students really should learn it. So it's more of a personal goal than a departmental one. On the other hand, the English Department is cool about leaving it up to individual profs how they want to handle the research component of our classes, so I'm not going against a certain outcome. The outcome is that students know how to write a thesis-driven research college paper, and however we arrive at that successful outcome is fine.
ReplyDeleteJessica, yes I agree! My "middle ground" is to review the basics of MLA style in class, but then have them use RefWorks to collect and sort their research, and to create the bibliography. But I tell them they need to proof the bibliography just as they would the rest of their paper. Some do, most don't, but it remains their responsiblity and a graded component. I think combining in-class review, cheat-sheets, and a RefWorks lab provides a well-rounded experience...but I'm always looking for ways to do better with this. Thanks for your comments!
ReplyDelete