The convenience of reading an article straight from the internet was made possible by the addition of the Library Access browser extension.
This extension keeps my IP and all personal information private. It provides a pop-up to notify me whenever the article I am exploring on a site can be fully accessible, either online or as a download. At the click of a button, I can login to the UBC library to gain access to the full text.
This helpful desktop program provides immediate access to any online scholarly article that is available through our UBC library, from any non-UBC website.
RefWorks is an onine document storage system for (mainly) scholarly articles. Of its many functions, I have used folders to keep my research organized and citation to prepare proper APA 7 style references. The browser extension allows me to upload an article directly to an existing folder.
I found Library Access and RefWorks to be essential tools for my MET courses. For all that I appreciate these programs, they were created for the desktop user.
What scholarly mobile apps do you recommend as a post-secondary student?
Hi Brittany,
You bring up very valid points. Both the Library Access extension and RefWorks are optimized for desktop use.
Thank you for your suggested Google Scholar, which I have also used, though in conjunction with RefWorks.
There are a myriad of apps for referencing; but not many options for accessing articles.
I really appreciate the Library Access extension for allowing me to quickly open articles. What have you found useful on mobile for this?
Hi Evelyne:
I have used RefWorks in the past. The problem with this tool is that it is not very useful on a mobile device like a smartphone. Due to this I opted into Google Scholar with its citations link. Not only was I able to look up reference formats for APA quickly, I was able to also access the links on my smartphone record them in a text, then e-mail them to myself where I could access them with my laptop. After seeing enough APA references, I managed to develop the skills where I did not have to rely on RefWorks and could also identify when references were missing critical information that needed to be included. Let’s be honest, no digital reference application is perfect. As smart humans, it is important that we are able to critically critique references to determine the proper information that needs to be included. It is a painful process in post – secondary education, however, the more you examine and create references, the easier the process becomes.
I have relied on both Google Scholar and RefWorks throughout my MET courses. RefWorks is a great way to organize the research articles you are using for a particular course or area of interest and it makes it easy to locate articles you have used for previous courses if you want to use them again. It’s a simple matter to make a folder for each topic needing organization. I agree that Google Scholar’s citation tool is handy, and while I’m not as good at spotting problems with my citations, I find that comparing the RefWorks and Google Scholar citations often gives you a reasonable way of making sure the citation is correct.