[Application to Help Students with Their Referencing Skills]

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Acknowledgement

I would take this opportunity to thank my research supervisor, family and friends for their support and guidance without which this research would not have been possible.

Declaration

I, [type your full first names and surname here], declare that the contents of this dissertation/thesis represent my own unaided work, and that the dissertation/thesis has not previously been submitted for academic examination towards any qualification. Furthermore, it represents my own opinions and not necessarily those of the University.

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Abstract

Reference management (RM) software is widely used by researchers in the health and natural sciences. Librarians are often called upon to provide support for these products. The present study compares four prominent RMs: CiteULike, RefWorks, Mendeley, and Zotero, in terms of features offered and the accuracy of the bibliographies that they generate. To test importing and data management features, fourteen references from seven bibliographic databases were imported into each RM, using automated features whenever possible. To test citation accuracy, bibliographies of these references were generated in five different styles. The authors found that RefWorks generated the most accurate citations. The other RMs offered contrasting strengths: CiteULike in simplicity and social networking, Zotero in ease of automated importing, and Mendeley in PDF management. Ultimately, the choice of an RM should reflect the user's needs and work habits.

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTII

DECLARATIONIII

ABSTRACTIV

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION1

PROJECT APPROACH2

PROJECT PLANING3

AIM3

OBJECTIVES3

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY4

RATIONALE OF THE STUDY6

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW7

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY11

Research Methodology11

Sample and data collection11

Data collection instruments11

Questionnaires11

Interviews12

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS13

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION21

CHAPTER 6: OUTCOME OF REFERENCE SYSTEM23

Users evaluation23

Potential for interactivity and intelligence23

REFERENCES27

APPENDICES30

QUESTIONNAIRE30

Chapter 1: Introduction

The adoption of data automated referencing tools is very effecting in providing users with guidelines on how to cite quotations for sources they have cited in their work (Gerald, 1998, P.23). The process of adopting an automated system in the Business School as a referencing guide will provide students and researchers with an effecting tool for referencing guidelines. The advancement in computing technology has propelled the development of mobile applications that can be used in remote locations. Manual systems are characterized by inefficiency, are slow in retrieval and their security is not guaranteed (Eugene, 1998, P.144). An application to help students with referencing will provide a tool that relies on an expert system to offer referencing services. The automated system will enable users access information sources directly at their convenience.

Reference management is one of the most complicated aspects of being a researcher. The tedium of formatting references based on a variety of citation styles has made the reference manager (RM) an essential tool for scholars at all levels. The variety of RMs available makes it difficult to know which tool to select. Although there are a number of RMs on the market, we selected the following for analysis: CiteULike, RefWorks, Mendeley, and Zotero. These RMs are well known within the scientific community (Hull et al. 2008: 45:45; Norman 2010: 105; Duong 2010: 79; Mead and Berryman 2010: 87). We chose RefWorks as our only representative of the more traditional style of ...