why we learn

Photographers have a plethora of options when it comes to managing their digital assets. Off the top of my head I can name four rather conspicuous members of the group, Aperture, Lightroom, Photo Mechanic, and Portfolio. Each of these, in their own way, allows the photographer to quickly add metadata, resulting in quicker and more focused queries after storage. There are an entire libraries of books instructing photographers on the nuanced manner in which they should store, back-up, and generally manage their RAW files.

Software programmers are required to manage vast quantities of cryptic text. Additionally, they most often work on projects in groups, sharing code and a common vision for the way in which code is used, reused, and the way in which annotations (comments) are added to the code to ensure readability and consistency. The number of programming environments is also large. Apple’s XCode and the Eclipse platform are two very powerful solutions that are also free.

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If you’ve ever done any type of research, you are probably familiar with “keywords” or “subject terms” used by databases that index journal articles related to your field of interest. My understanding is that most journals allow authors to tag their articles with keywords of their own choosing. Let’s look at some examples from the submission guidelines for several of my favorite journals.

Educational Research

Articles should begin with a structured abstract and up to six keywords, and should not normally exceed 5,000 words.

Journal of Educational Psychology

All manuscripts must include an abstract containing a maximum of 180 words typed on a separate page. After the abstract, please supply up to five keywords or brief phrases. In fact, every journal listed on this page has the same requirements.

Educational Psychology Review

Directly below the abstract, provide 3–5 key words that express the manuscript’s precise content.

and, Teachers College Record does not reference, or I assume require, keywords.

I could go on and on. Zero specificity or guidance. Lists of suggested keywords are not mentioned. Now I know why I’ve so often seen the phrase “author supplied keywords”.

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I’m not quite sure whether I should be enthusiastic or despondent as I write that a superb implementation of what I’ve envisioned in terms of a research tool already exists. Launched in January of this year, A.nnotate serves precisely the role that I hoped to create independently. I knew that the creation of this sort of interface would be difficult, if not impossible to do on my own. So, in that way I’m excited to know that any development work that might have served as an impediment is no longer a worry. The creators do a nice job explaining the premise behind the idea of their sight.

An Overview

I’ve just briefly looked over the interface, actually using an article as a test case. It’s brilliant. Basically, it allows a users to upload PDF files (Word files and HTML pages are also allowed), then read and annotate these uploaded documents using highlights and user created notes. Each annotation can be “tagged”. Annotations can then be,

• searched
• sorted, by date, subject, tag, or document
• and, shared.

This service works on a “credit system” under which the first 30 or so pages are free. Subscriptions range from $19.99 – $199.95 per month. A complete description of the fee structure can be viewed here:

Additionally, it is possible to run a dedicated server per organization or institution. Discounts for universities are available (server not required). If a group membership is purchased, than members of the group can all comment/highlight (annotate) the same papers. Individuals can only delete their own annotations, but the superuser (for lack of a better term) has the ability to delete any annotation that they wish.

Furthermore, the company, textensor has a second product called PublicationsList, an online bibliographic manager that possesses the ability to export citations in commonly used formats (including RIS and BibTex), as well as store the actual files. I emailed them to inquire about how tightly these two products are integrated. In their response they indicated that, as of right now, it is only possible to like via the notes within the A.nnotate interface. Their are investigating the possibility of integrating more tightly these two web apps next year.

This is powerful stuff.

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Aguinaldo (2004) provides the reader with an alternative and useful interpretation of, and prescription for, judging validity. He encapsulates his argument nicely in concluding

The goal of validation is not to determine, once and for all, if a representation serves a particular function, but rather to discover and anticipate how it “does,” “can,” or “might,” function to incite and foreclose, emancipate and oppress, and so forth when applied to different times and contexts and evaluated from different social locations (Aguinaldo, 2004, p. 134).

Further, Aguinaldo provides the reader with some context, using the example of his own work on the abusive relationships extant in the community of gay men. Specifically, his focus is founded on four narrative strands that run through his work,

• a realist narrative premised on an objective perspective
• a critical narrative focused on political entities and injustice
• a deconstructive narrative which actively seeks disequilibrium and the “proliferation of possibilities”, and
• a reflexive narrative which makes known to the reader the intentions and subjectivity of the researcher.

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I have done extensive tweaking to my workflow in terms of reading and writing for the program. Although most everyone uses Microsoft products, maybe my setup will be of some interest.

The technologies that I use are,

• BibDesk
• Skim
• VoodooPad
• LaTeX
• TextMate.

BibDesk, Skim, and LaTeX are free (open-source), the other two cost around $80.00 combined. BibDesk is a reference manager, much like EndNote, but is specific to the BibTex format (more about this later). One BibDesk file stores reference information about every article on my hard drive. The most important piece of information is a “cite-key”, or a unique identifier that is used by BibDesk, BibTex, and later, LaTeX when writing. Each downloaded article is saved in a folder corresponding to its year of publication within a parent directory entitled “Papers”. BibDesk also allows for the searching of articles and the categorizing by keyword. (Many downloaded RIS files include keyword information provided by authors.)

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