eResearch for Word users
Peter Sefton · University of Southern Queensland ePrints (University of Southern Queensland) · 2008
Abstract: This paper documents the plight of 'average ' modern researchers as they apply their academic writing skills in the new world of eResearch. We might expect researchers to have mastered some of the basic generic writing tools; an office suite with a word processor, the ability to generate charts from tables of data; a reference manager that can insert citations; and tools of their discipline like statistics packages. But the 'ordinary ' researcher who tunes-in to the clamour about ideas and tools from a conference like eResearch Australia could be easily overwhelmed by the gap between the obvious potential and their own command of the technology they have to hand. Eight things to which a tuned-in researcher might aspire: (a) to share data with colleagues, (b) to collaborate on semantically rich documents which include appropriate data visualizations, (c) to blog their research as it happens, (d) to annotate data and works in progress, (e) to submit to journals, (f) to deposit appropriate copies of papers into various discipline and institutional repositories, and not just in PDF format, (g) in HTML, with rich interactivity and links to their data. They might also aspire to ensure (h) preservation of their data and their writing without accidentally choosing a doomed data format in which to store it.