Your Resource for Information Literacy
EasyBib Guides Update & an Upgrade to Cloud Computing
Lots of exciting things to discuss today! Have you checked out our citation or research guides yet? We’ve also put together some resources for educators. These guides have always been available for free (and are licensed under Creative Commons), but we’ve recently made an exciting upgrade. They’re now hosted on SkyDrive.
Cloud computing has been the latest “thing” for a while, but it’s not a fad — it’s a revolution. Usage in cloud computing is expected to increase 12-fold by 2015, and with more people using mobile technology as their primary access point for information, it’s not terribly surprising. If you or your students haven’t made the switch to cloud computing yet, now is the time.
SkyDrive works with Office Web Apps to enable you to create and edit real Office documents online in your browser, for free. If you have a group project, or want someone to help you revise a paper, you can even work together with others on your documents at the same time – either in the browser or in Office. It is similar to Google Drive, but I’ve found the functionality of Google Drive’s apps lackluster (has anyone else dealt with formatting problems, too?). When I build presentations for our webinars, I store them in the cloud, but I build them in PowerPoint. (I’ve fiddled with web-based presentation platforms, too, but most webinar providers I’ve used favor PowerPoint files).
Working together online is great for teachers and students, especially for group projects. For those of you working on Common Core implementation, taking advantage of this feature enables students to use the Internet to interact and work with others (one of the Common Core Anchor Standards for Writing).
Another bonus to SkyDrive is that you get 7GB of free storage to start, which is the largest available from the major free services (Google Drive offers 5GB, Dropbox 2GB). Upgrading to more space is significantly cheaper through SkyDrive, too… 10 bucks will get you an extra 20GB. (See how SkyDrive stacks up against competitors on price and other features here.) If you’re already an Office 365 user, the extra 20GB is included with the Office suite. You can also create a document in Office and save it directly to SkyDrive through the software.
All sounds pretty good, right? If you have a .edu email address, you can test out SkyDrive and Office 365 integration for free for three months. Visit www.officeforstudents.com.
Read More12/5/2012 – Site Updates on EasyBib
Great news this Wednesday for our School Edition Admin users: We’ve added a whole bunch of new features you’ve been asking for.
When you are logged in to your EasyBib account, click on the “School Admin” button. If you don’t have access to School Admin features, please contact your sales representative today.
From there, you’ll see all of the student accounts linked with your account.
If you select the “Actions” button next to a specific student account, you’ll see that we’ve added the option to “unlink account”. If you choose this you will no longer see that student’s account in your admin panel. This is helpful for students that have graduated and no longer need to be managed by you.
From here, if you click on “System Settings” near the top of your screen you will see a slew of new options. Here you can enable or disable features on your students’ EasyBib such as: Source Guides, Autocite, Website URL field, Turn It In, and EasyBib Research. Additionally, you can select the default citation style.
Announcing EasyBib’s Chrome Toolbar Extension
Really big news: we’ve added a browser extension for Google Chrome! It’s available for free download in the Chrome Web Store right now. You should go check it out.
It’s really simple to use. Just visit the store and download the extension.
Once it’s installed, you can cite anything on any website you’re browsing. Just click on the red EasyBib book in your toolbar and you’ll see a drop down menu.
If you click “Cite on EasyBib” you’ll get a pop up window that has all of the citation information formatted and filled out for you. From there you can browse to EasyBib or hit the “View Bibliography” button to see all of your citations!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOL43ggmivs&w=560&h=315]
Read MoreSite Updates 9/18/12
Announcing: School customization! Now School Edition customers can customize links and school images in the sidebar of EasyBib themselves. This is a great way to link your students directly to important library resources specific to your school, like internal pages, live chat, or email. Check it out below.
Just log in to your School Edition account, got to the upper right-hand corner of the page, and click on the blue link that says “school.” Then, on the next page, click on the link that says, “customization.”
A couple other updates were added recently too. You can now view your Google analytics in EasyBib SchoolAnalytics – a great way to see how much use your school is getting out of the product. Also, our importer feature now supports EBSCO database names.
Read MoreAnnouncing School Analytics
This feature lets School Edition & Library Edition users to view the following:
- Cumulative Users
- Citations created
- Lists created
- Notes, Groups, and Outlines created
Just login to your account, click “School” in the upper right hand corner, then select “Statistics.” Check it out!
New Feature: Student Search
Good news to all the School Edition and Library Edition administrator users out there: you can now search for any of your students in EasyBib via their first name, last name, or email address. This will enable you to check out the stats on their bibliographies, check their progress, and give them any help they may need.
Check it out!
