Ella Garrison, Learning & Research, Ex Libris

Systematic Review & Research Collaboration: How RefWorks Projects Came to Be

In the course of research, users may be involved in multiple projects simultaneously or over a period of time. While these projects generally have distinct goals, requirements, source materials, and collaborators, together they also collectively constitute user activity.

Researching multiple projects is time consuming and the ability to isolate references and folders is critical to staying organized. Having an easy-to-use process is significant to the user’s peace of mind…. especially for those working on several projects simultaneously with different groups of people.

The concept of projects is not new to RefWorks. Many veteran RefWorks users are familiar with the concept when using the legacy version. However, in legacy RefWorks this is accomplished by creating multiple accounts— one for each project— for the same user, a more cumbersome approach than the new RefWorks Projects feature.

That is why over the past year the RefWorks team sought the advice of our users to learn when and how they used multiple accounts. This helped define the purpose and scope of Projects and design it to be more seamless and straightforward.