Zotero Extension for Firefox
Zotero is a free Firefox extension for keeping track of references when conducting research. According to their website:
Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. It lives right where you do your work — in the web browser itself.
I’ve just played with it a little but it looks great. It appears to have the functionality of End Note but with a much better price–free! Users can keep track of citations, notes, and even attach files. When it’s time to create a reference list, there are several styles it can use including MLA and APA.
I’m not sure how well it will configure on school computers which are shared. Will students references–known as Libraries in Zotero–and their files be saved on individual hard drives or can they be saved to a student’s documents folder? I know the files can be exported at the end of a work session but it would be great if it could all be done automatically.
Thanks to at Jeff Utrecht for his recent post entitled Top 5 Firefox2 Extensions For Educators.
Hi Rob,
My name is Trevor, I work in outreach with Zotero. I thought I would throw out a few ideas about using Zotero in the classroom.
The shared computers issue has a few work arounds. You can install a version of firefox on a thumb drive, and you should be able to install it to a student’s documents folder. It is worth noting that in phaze two of the project this will be a moot point, we are currently in the planing stages of the Zotero server system, which will allow all sorts of sharing remote access.
But for the time being, if your interested, you can look at some of the work arounds in these links from our forums.
http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/254/
http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/198/
http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/213/
I am glad you like the application. Also, we just went live with our word integration aplha. We appreciate your thoughts, please feel free to email me with any questions, ideas, random thoughts etc. you have about Zotero.
Yours,
trevor
Trevor@Zotero.org