What/Why Furl/Social Bookmark?

(if you are using another bookmarking tool like del.icio.us or Digg just change some verbage below)

Furl is a social bookmarking website. If you’ve used “my favorites” in Internet Explorer, or bookmarks in Firefox, you will know the usefulness of bookmarks; however, bookmarks saved on your computer can not travel or be shared with anyone. For this course, you’ll primarily use bookmarking to help you keep track of the various resources you find while researching. You will want to “furl” or “bookmark” each online resource you find (including database articles, some will “save” in Furl).

To take full advantage of social bookmarking, you’ll want to be sure to categorize, or tag, each bookmark. You will also want to be sure to take notes (consider quickly jotting down how/why this resource might be useful for your research project).

I especially like Furl because it saves the actual page you bookmarked. One of the problems with the internet is that the pages can either update or change on a regular basis. Furl will save the page that you bookmarked, at the time you bookmarked it. The “social” element of Furl also allows you to subscribe to other Furl user’s bookmarking lists. So, if you do some research at the Furl site, and find someone who has a lot of good resources bookmarked, you can subscribe to that individual’s bookmarking list. If anything new pops us, you get notified at your furl page.

Furl can be tricky to use. If you have your own computer, you are best served by going to the “My Tools” tab and downloading the toolbar. When using the Furl “tabs” on your internet browser, it will open up a window. If you have your internet browser security set at a high level, it may not allow the pop-ups. To override the pop-up blocker, you can just hit the “ctrl” button on your keyboard when clicking on the furl link (or any other link you need to override). If you do not have your own computer and will be using public machines, follow the directions here: http://www.furl.net/faq.jsp#portable. Notice that most technologies have a “help” feature somewhere on the site, it is worth your time to spend a little time reading some of that material.

Be sure to make your Furl account “public.” Go to the “My Settings” tab and the “Preferences” link to make your list of bookmarks public. Email your instructor the public URL (web address), or just your account username, so that s/he can find your list of bookmarks.

If you are using other social bookmarking tools…

I especially like Del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us) because it is much easier to bookmark a resource (you just cut and paste the URL into a box at the del.icio.us site); however, it is best to download the internet browser toolbar if you can. I also like del.icio.us because it is it is very “social.” Once you have bookmarked a page, del.icio.us will tell you how many other people have bookmarked it. You can follow links to find out who bookmarked it, what comments they made, how they tagged it, what else they bookmarked, etc. Hopefully you see how useful this can be with research…you can follow other individual’s trains of bookmarks.

And if you want to look into another tool, or share with your students…

Digg (http://www.digg.com/) is a newer social bookmarking tool that I’m also beginning to “digg” for research purposes. Although it is a more complicated process to “submit” sources, the social element of “digg” is a ranking system by its users. This might be more useful on a class focused on one topic.

Diigo (http://www.diigo.com/) looks like it cache’s pages, like Furl; but also has some cool online annotation tools.

February 09 2007 | Posted in Techno Tips