Celebrate Learning! Fall 2015 (Vol 7, issue 1) | Page 15

projects you can create. Let’s say you have a freshman research paper on your favorite president. You first create a project and you can store all your information on that paper in that project. The same semester you have a computer paper about Grace Hopper. You create a separate project to store all your information about Rear Admiral Hopper. You know that next semester you are taking a course in humanities and you see an article that may come in handy. Don’t wait; create a project and start putting information in that project for a future paper. At the same time you are collecting information for a work presentation, create a project for that. Each piece of information you collect goes into a project, think of a project as a folder. The RefME system is an online resource and can be accessed from any computer with Internet access or mobile device via an app. That leads me to the second feature I would like to share, the app. From the free RefME app, you can access your projects and create notes. But I feel the coolest feature of the mobile app is as you discover a new resource, all you have to do is scan the ISBN barcode on the book or periodical and it will create the citation for you and add it to your project. That is as easy as taking a selfie. Honestly, however, are today’s digital native students doing much research using books? What is the option for web sites? With RefME, there is a web clipper that is a plug-in that you By Larry Straining, CPLP Part-time Instructor Business & Information Technology Northeast Campus “There’s an app for that!” would make a great answer for Jeopardy or Trivial Pursuit, but is it still a relevant topic or has it gone the way of “Be kind, rewind,” “Call me collect,” or “They’re in the Yellow Pages” comments? I feel it is still relevant, not because the technology still exists, but because doggone it, there really is an app for everything. As a lifelong learner myself, I have written more papers for school, personal, and professional reasons than I would like to remember (and in some cases admit). And one of the main reasons for my aversion to writing formal papers has been the research aspect of it. Not because I do not like to learn, but because I had to prove everything I did, cite it. Well fear not, there’s an app for that! I would like to formally introduce to you; RefME (www.refme.com). RefME is not just an app, but a complete suite of products that may help you be a better researcher by helping you be more efficient at citing your papers. I would like to focus on several key parts of this product. The first feature I would like to explore with you is its capacity. There is no limit on how many (Continued on page 16) 15