Exit reframe it

The idea of having all my notes attached directly to the webpages they refer to was irresistable.  So irresistable that I got overexited about ReframeIt.  To make a long, painful story short – ReframeIt was a mistake.  Good riddance to it.  Now that I’ve uninstalled it my computer is running at its usual just above sloth speed.  And I really did love annotating the webpages that I was reading, that is, until all my notes disappeared – this mystery is ongoing.  And then there is the level of uncertainty with having all my notes on third party applications.  I’m screwed if they fold, as has been the case with web annotation appliations in the past.

Despite all the rave reviews for ReframeIt (and leaving aside my mishaps with it), I just don’t think it lives up to the hype.  I found the collapsible sidepane became more of a nuisance than a help, and the comments just aren’t that easy to read.  I can see how ReframeIt would be useful for small communites of researchers for collaboration, but  this kind of existing community needs to be a prerequisite for using ReframeIt.  Trying to create a community by enticing people to sign up for ReframeIt is not so simple.

In my efforts to make some sort of public database for my research, I’ve shifted from delicious to Diigo.  It meets all my requirements of social bookmarking, tagging, and note-taking.  The annotation is easy with highlighting and sticky notes.  And so far, Diigo hasn’t lost any of my notes.  Really, it’s the little things that matter.

I guess this is just an example of trying to figure out the best way to do online research–it seems much more time is spent doing it wrong than getting it right.

(homebaked speech bubbles courtesy of http://wigflip.com/ds)

More on public databases- enter ReframeIt

Using delicious as a public database only takes transparency so far.  That tiny little box for note taking isn’t enough space and it can’t direct me back to the exact line of the blogpost that I was interested in.  Despite all of delicious’ benefits for  research, its notetaking capabilities have let me down. Here’s where ReframeIt comes in.

If I want my participants to be able to see where my thinking is taking me, I need something that is more directly related to the texts they have written.   ReframeIt appears as a sidebar and allows multiple people to annotate the same text.  You can highlight the piece of text that you are referring to and make specific comments, or you can make more general comments relating to the page as a whole. And it comes with a simple firefox extension you can get here if you want to give it a try.  It’s not nearly as popular as delicious, so in some ways its usefullness will be limited. On the other hand, maybe it will take off soon.  After all, The Institute for the Future of the Book is using it in their Golden Notebook Project.  And I’ve done a quick test-run here (you have to have a reframeit account to see the comments).

The idea is that as I rebuild my delicious database, stocking it with posts from sustainability bloggers, these bloggers will have a more direct way to see the direction my work is taking and how my thoughts on their writing are unfolding.  Now I just need to get them on ReframeIt.

Using delicious as a public database

Well, new year; new approach.  I’m taking my database public via my delicious bookmarks.  This idea is in the beta stage.  Very beta.  Trial and error.  Did I mention beta?

So that means my delicious page has become the official database for my phd.  I started using delicious casually in November, just to keep up with sites and pages that I didn’t necessarily want to have bookmarked in my browser, but didn’t want to loose somewhere in the blackhole of the internet.  Then I started using it to keep track of blog posts and other things that I wanted to refer to in my own blog posts.  Then I got a bit obsessed with delicious because there are so many ways to use it (here’s a good one).

Delicious and social bookmarking are a well traversed topic–specifically their relationship with tagging.  Certain themes like the wisdom of crowds (or lack thereof) emerge, while there has also been a call to ensure that future digital academic projects make it easy for users to tag their content.

My interest in using delicious as a database arose mainly because of the opportunity for more transparency. One of the reasons I wanted to start blogging about my research was to make the research process more transparent.  So I’ve extended this philosophy to the database collection level. When I bookmark a blog post on delicious and tag it for my research, it will be immediately obvious what data I will be using when I write up analysis and conclusions.

I’m (slowly, very slowly) transferring all the blogposts I’ve collected so far over to my delicious page.  I’ve tried a variety of ways of doing this—they are all tedious.  Hopefully over the next few weeks I’ll get all this up to speed.  I’m still tinkering with tagging and notetaking on it, so don’t expect a smooth running system just yet.  I need to take a few more tips from Wess on structuring my system of tagging.  I’ve already come across problems of remembering the words I’ve used to tag something.  Somewhat helpfully, delicious prompts you with the tags you’ve previously used.  Although, the reason I often can’t remember the way I’ve tagged something is because my understanding or interests in a topic has changed. This problem is somewhat offset by tag bundles though–I can group similar tags together to compensate for my evolving use of terms.

And there is always the risk that this backfires on me and I end up with a non-useful database that just slows me down.  I’m going to take my chances because right now I see more potential than limitations.