Collaborative use of CiteULike

Author: Jan Goossenaerts (Wikinetix.com)

Specifically regarding the use of CiteULike as a collaborative bibliographic tool, here a list with some benefits. Each brief paragraph explains one of the points raised in (1) where discussion has a focus on comparing CiteULike with other platforms that include bibliographic services (Zotero, Mendeley, Bibsonomy, BidDesk,..)(see also (4)): 1. CiteULike provides global server-based (collaborative) bibliography services with a minimal technical requirement on the client side, and for any kind of endeavour - the focus is not just on research. I experience the benefit especially in cross-disciplinary activities. How CiteULike tags matter to the Wikiworx platform is explained at Bibliographic resources in the Platform's Tutorial. With CiteULike everyone on the Internet can contribute tiny efforts to improving global knowledge commons (Communications & Teamwork). 2. The ease of posting with bookmarklets is explained in (2). 3. Several publishers provide buttons to post articles to CiteULike. See the ''Post to CiteULike'' button at http://www.sciencemag.org/content/325/5946/1345 - using this button it took me 10 seconds to post this 20-author article into 7 groups for which I considered it relevant. That's productivity for the global public good! 4. The default is to share all references. At http://www.citeulike.org/user/jago/article/5777935 , just by selecting an author, you can find other articles by the same author in my library, e.g. http://www.citeulike.org/user/jago/author/Arrow:K , and next by clicking ''see everyone's Arrow:K'' , at http://www.citeulike.org/author/Arrow:K , you can access 158 articles by K.J. Arrow posted by other users of CiteULike. You can copy those you like to your own library, and to groups in which you are a member. In conclusion: CiteULike is Cool for virtual teams. It is a low-hurdle tool for individuals keeping track of what they read and for teams working on lowering access hurdles to knowledge circulating among the team members.
Bibliography

(1) http://www.academicproductivity.com/2009/citeulike-bibdesk-sync-your-references-and-livesmarter/ (2) CiteULike Bookmarklets (3) CiteULike in Wikipedia (4) Thing 14: Zotero/Mendeley/Citeulike in 23 Things for Professional Development
Editing History

July 14, 2012. Version 1. In response to a question on advices for a collaborative platform and tools at the LinkedIn Group: Web2forDev - Participatory Web 2.0 for Development