Web 2.0 Tools For Legal Researchers

1. Web 2.0 Tools For Legal Researchers Amy Wright & Jill Fukunaga, Spring 2008

2. What Is Web 2.0? • A perceived second generation of web-based communities . . . such as social-networking sites, wikis, and blogs, . . . which aim to facilitate creativity, collaboration, and sharing between users.– Wikipedia entry, “Web 2.0”

3. It’s All About Sharing! Photo by ryancr, “Sharing,” accessed on Flickr on 2/11/08.

4. Web 2.0 Sites Are…. • Collaborative: users can contribute content – not a “read-only,” passive format. • Interactive: users can view each others’ contributions & communicate about content. • Oddly named!

5. Quiz • Which one of the following is not an actual Web 2.0 application? • Twitter • Wiggle • Scribd • Magnolia • Digg

6. Answer • “Wiggle” is the imposter!

7. Twitter • http://twitter.com/ • Free “micro-blogging” service that allows users to send short updates about their daily activities via IM to a profile page.

9. Scribd • http://www.scribd.com/ • “YouTube for Documents” • Free service that allows you to upload documents in different formats – like Word, Excel, PDF, PowerPoint. • Unlimited storage & searchable.

11. Magnolia • http://ma.gnolia.com/ • Social bookmarking service that allows you to collect and categorize your favorite websites on your own web page.

13. Digg • http://digg.com/ • News stories and websites posted by users, then voted on by other users. • Most popular stories are promoted to the front page of the site.

15. Social Bookmarking & Research • Why use social bookmarking? • Access the sites that you use frequently anytime, anywhere. Not tied to particular PC like “Bookmarks” on Firefox or “Favorites” on Internet Explorer. • Share your collections of websites easily with other researchers and students.

16. Social Bookmarking • Discover sites used by other researchers working in your field. • Organize the sites that you use for research by project name, topic, jurisdiction, etc.

17. Recommended Site: del.icio.us • Pronounced “Delicious” • Most reliable & popular social bookmarking site. • Free: no limit on number of accounts; no size limits.

18. Easy Access: Anywhere, Anytime • To Sign Up: http://del.icio.us • All of my favorite web page addresses are saved on one web page: • http://del.icio.us/amyjwright

19. Separate Web Pages That You Visit by Project

20. Organize With Tags • Add unlimited number of descriptive categories, called “tags,” to the web pages that you want to save.

21. Tag Names Are Clickable

22. Permanent, Stable URLs • Each cluster of web pages with the same “tag” will have its own separate URL. • I can send the link http://del.icio.us/amyjwright/richardleo to Professor Leo to share the web pages that I’ve saved for him.

23. Add Extensive Notes!

24. Browse Lists Created by Others Click Here

26. Subscribe to Pages or Tags • Use RSS Feeds to subscribe to others’ delicious pages or to particular tags:

27. Privacy • Possible to mark bookmarks as private so they aren’t shared with the rest of the world.

28. Other Social Bookmarking Sites • CiteULike: http://www.citeulike.org/Add scholarly paper & book citations to your own web page. • Users have access to their own full-text, but other users who click on a cite in someone else’s list don’t have full-text access unless they subscribe to the database.

29. CiteULike Disadvantages • Buggy (error messages 2 out of 5 posting attempts) and not very intuitive. • Not used heavily by legal scholars.

30. CiteULike

31. RSS Feeds Image credit: Taken by mosilager, “RSS Feed icon,” on Flickr, accessed 2/11/08.

32. RSS Feeds • Feeds allow you to have web content from multiple sites delivered to you on one web page. • Don’t have to visit multiple web pages to get most current changes to content. • Easy to see which blogs or pages have updated content and which don’t.

33. RSS Feeds • Not just for blog content! Lots of law review, news sources, and government websites now have RSS feeds, so easy to stay on top of what’s getting published. • SSRN author pages have RSS feeds.

34. Subscribing to a Feed • Sign up for a free aggregator service. • Zief Librarians’ Favorites: • Bloglines: http://www.bloglines.com/sub • Google Reader: http://www.google.com/reader

35. Subscribing to a Feed • Look for these symbols on any web page – click on them to add the page to your feed:

36. Google Reader

37. Google Reader

38. Bloglines

39. What Are Wikis? • Shorter form of “wiki wiki”: in Hawaiian it means “quick.” • Collaborative website that can be edited by anybody who is granted editing access to it.

40. Wiki Privacy • Can be password-protected and private. • Can be open to the whole world, like Wikipedia.

41. The Most Famous Wiki

42. Legal Wikis: Cornell’s Wex

43. Legal Aid Wikis

44. Why Use a Wiki? • Blogs are great for disseminating info or opinion from one individual or a group of individuals to a wider audience. • Wikis are a better choice when many individuals need to collaborate on a project.

45. Wikis Are Great For… • Class projects: Ask students to create their own pages on class wiki. • Clinic Projects: Post drafts, manuals, assignments, sample documents, templates, research links online.

46. Our Class Wiki

47. Popular & Easy Wiki Software • PBWiki: http://pbwiki.com/education.wiki • Don’t need to know HTML to create or edit on PBWiki. • Previous versions of pages are saved. Can revert back to previous versions if necessary.

48. What’s Coming in the Future • USF IT Committee evaluating web-based wiki options for entire campus. • Purchase will allow faculty & staff to create unlimited number of wikis with enhanced storage space.

49. Social Networking • Social Networking for Everyone: • LinkedIn • Facebook • Social Networking for Scholars: • bepress SelectedWorks • USF Pilot Project: Personos

50. LinkedIn