Student Research Project

lbedal

I am a college professor, and I had the idea to incorporate Zotero into the coursework by requiring students to create a library in which they gather all of the bibliographic information, notes and attachments from their research and then submit it to me for a grade. Requiring them to keep records of their work will (I hope!) help them to develop good research skills and to see the value of keeping track when they need the information at write up time.
HOWEVER! I just bought a new computer and am in the process of trying to transfer my large library (1600 entries, more than haf with attachments) and I am more than dismayed to discover how difficult it is to transfer. I still haven't figured out how to get it done. The online instruction tell how to find the right folder to transfer, but it doesn't say how to pull the data into the program on the new computer. I am appalled that Zotero hasn't addressed this as people change computers on a regular basis these days.
So, in addition to welcoming helpful hints about how to open my library on the new comouter, I would also like ideas aobut how students would submit copies of their own libraries for me to view and grade. I thought they would export the files and I could open them in my program, but apparently it is more complicated than that. HELP!

aurimas

To transfer your full library, you would first back it up, then restore it from the backup on the new computer. If your library is not too large, or you want to buy online storage, the simpler solution is to simply sync.

In either case, the above is only for transferring your own library. Your students would not use this method to submit their libraries to you. You have a couple choices though. They could either export the appropriate collection or entire library as Zotero RDF (with or without PDF attachments), send the exported file to you, and you could import it. The alternative (which, if you don't care about students seeing each other's work, I think is much better) is to use a group library that all students have access to. You could set up different collections that each student can work in.

lbedal

Thank you, aurimas
I had tried the back up transfer method with no success. I followed the instructions on this pagehttps://www.zotero.org/support/kb/transferring_a_library which does not say anything about which specific files to copy over (storage and sqlite). It just leaves you at making the copy. I tranferred the storage folder, but was afraid to tranfer others in case it created a probelm. I didn't know that I had to find the rest of the instructions on another page (never would have thought to look under "Data Directory"). Zotero needs follow Northwestern's example for instructions! But in the meantime I had set up syncing and crossed my fingers thinking it wasn't working because nothing showed up in my online library. But suddenly I looked in the program and there everything was!
Thank you for your help and for the ideas for the student assignment. I will experiment with the options and see what works best.

adamsmith

I've added a link to the data folder page on the word "data folder" -- that might help a little. Unfortunately, we just can't do detailed step-by-step instructions for every operation and keep them up to date.

The simple, low-tech solution, as aurimas says, is to just sync.

zuphilip

Zotero can create reports with all information, which then can be saved and handed in as HTML file possible with some additional files. This may also be interesting for your teaching assignments.