Higher Education Course - Zotero

efmann

Hello,
I am building a 13 course for Zotero users in higher education. I wanted a ubiquitous approach to get those new to Zotero started within an institution that has increasingly high cybersecurity controls, like One Login and One Drive. With the new Microsoft and Zotero upgrades, what are the best steps for new college students? Some students use loaner computers from the library vs. their own personal laptops.

Thank you for any help,

Maureen Mann, MLIS

dstillman

I think you'd have to say more about what specific concerns you have.

efmann

Hello,
Sorry, to be clearer, issues list:
a. Can I start a Zotero Account on a multi-user college desktop library computer or a loaner Chromebook?
b. Is the best workflow to reduce items you don't want to delete them from the desktop - Zotero Storage? And is it good practice to turn syncing on or off while "cleaning" up storage? What is the best way to explain syncing to new users?

adamsmith

a) Generally yes, but: with Zotero installed on a multi-user computer, users would have to sign out of their account and remove all data after every use. If they forget, not just can the next user see their library (maybe not much of a concern) but they might accidentally delete all items in the library in a way that'd be hard to restore.

b) You can just delete items and as a regular user should basically never disable sync.
The best way to explain sync to users is an analogy to OneDrive or Dropbox: syncing allows you to make changes locally that immediately get "synced" to the server and from there are available on any other device you use with Zotero. The only difference in syncing to file-sync services like Dropbox is that Zotero has the metadata/file sync distinction which can be a bit tricky to explain depending on the user.