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  • From: pitman AT stat.Berkeley.EDU (Jim Pitman)
  • To: pitman AT stat.berkeley.edu, jschneider AT pobox.com
  • Cc: acawiki-general AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [acawiki-general] refs in literature reviews
  • Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2011 07:56:18 -0700

Jodi Schneider <jschneider AT pobox.com> wrote:

> I agree that it's time to take a closer look at how citations are handled.
> Right now there are two ways to handle citations:
> (1) Add a page for the cited article -- i.e. a summary (perhaps blank), with
> full metadata in the forms system, e.g.
> http://acawiki.org/Content-Centered_Discussion_Mapping

I think this is the way to go. This way metadata standards for citations are
most easily kept in sync
with standards for metadata of summaries. Also, these stubs can be used to
invite users to provide summaries.
Its one less thing to do if the metadata is already there.
The presence of the stubs in the system also makes it far easier to organize
wish lists or priorities for summaries.
There should be a way of clearly flagging stubs (or allowing option to
suppress them) in various listings.

> (2) Add a reference list of selected citations (inline and/or at the
> end) e.g.
> http://acawiki.org/Discourse-marking_of_concession_and_contrast_in_asynchronous_online_discussion

As you say

> The disadvantage of (2) is that the metadata is not machine-actionable; in
> fact, to create a summary from a redlink, the user would have to rekey it.

I think this makes (2) unacceptable. We should be doing all we can to avoid
users having to
rekey metadata. This introduces errors, and there are good tools now for
machine importing metadata from various sources,
e.g. as soon as you have a DOI you can get metadata from any of Crossref,
BibSonomy, Google. I'd be glad to
work with others on automating these tools and integrating into acawiki
workflows.
I think the way to go is to provide consistent support for

1) easy import of the metadata of a reference into the acawiki database

2) a simple way of pointing to any such reference from the middle of a
summary.

I suggest you aim as soon as possible to all have acawiki references acquire
status as entries, initially
without summaries, but inviting summaries.
A plus for this is that the summaries will then tend to come in clusters, and
that should make it easier for
anyone making a literature review, to have at least metadata and preferably
summaries already available on acawiki
before they start. I would encourage authors to acquire the reference lists
first. This has value even if the review is never completed.
Just an overview paragraph and a big list of references can be something very
useful. This would push acawiki in the direction of annotated
bibliographies,
which is I think a good way to go. Also, users could flag by their
reference lists what literature reviews they were working on,
which might increase collaboration and decrease duplication of activity. So
you could make the literature review process a lot more
social.

--Jim

----------------------------------------------
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




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