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A Video Conversation: Digital Tools and Strategies to Streamline Research

By Beth Holland — October 30, 2015 1 min read
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Last week Sabba Quidwai, director of innovative learning at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, and I had a Google Hangout regarding digital research tools. In her role at USC, she supports both faculty and students as they shift their practice to embrace more digital tools in the service of learning. We have been discussing note-taking strategies, annotation tools, and curation techniques over the past few months. However, since I started school and embraced a few different tools, we decided to record the conversation in order to highlight digital research strategies, organization schemes, and citation management.

In the video, we highlight a few specific tools and mention others.

Citation Management:


  • Papers - Demonstrated in the video by Beth. Works on Mac, Windows, & iOS. Student pricing available.
  • Mendeley - Works on any device and free.
  • EndNote - For Mac, Windows, & iOS. Student pricing available.

Note Taking Tools:


  • Evernote - Discussed in the video by Sabba. Works on all devices. Free basic features but upgrade for more storage. School/business accounts available.
  • OneNote - Mentioned in the video by Beth. Works on all devices. Free with an Office 365 license.
  • Notability - Discussed in the video by Sabba. Works on Mac and iOS devices. Paid-for app on both platforms.

Sabba makes an excellent point in the video. The power of digital-research tools lies in how they allow students to make connections to content, curate their knowledge, and engage in deeper inquiry.

The opinions expressed in EdTech Researcher are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.