Curating Information

Using a web based tool to store and organize important sites and articles.

Curation of Health Information

My first step when I am searching for information is to look to reliable websites such as the New England Journal of Medicine and the Mayo Clinic. I also have access to a virtual library at work that contains volumes of articles. I follow many sources on Twitter such as Public Health Ontario, the World Health Organization and the Canadian Pediatric Society. I consider the information and links to information provided through the Tweets made by these groups to be reliable due to the organization’s reputation. I always like to rely on peer-reviewed articles or on information from known experts in the field I am researching. Every day I see the damage that unreliable studies can cause. Vaccine programs around the world deal with the fallout from the fraudulent Andrew Wakefield study on the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine causing autism. This study was not peer reviewed and has motivated parents to avoid vaccines for their children, resulting in multiple disease outbreaks worldwide (Godlee, Smith, & Marcovitch, 2011).

I must admit I am not great at curating and will value this skill once I have mastered it. When I find articles or other interesting information that I want to save I usually copy and paste the link. Currently I store links to articles and other sites in Microsoft OneNote or in the electronic notes application on my desktop and on Pinterest. OneNote is a good tool for organizing information but I am not sure about it’s use for sharing information with others. Pinterest is a fairly good tool for organizing and sharing but not useful for annotation. I have spent time researching the suggested bookmarking tools and have landed on Mendeley. Evernote was a close second and I may return to exploring it as I am having difficulty uploading documents in Mendeley. I don't find the functionality user friendly on either of these tools and often want to revert back to OneNote. I will persevere and hopefully I will learn to love one of them.

Note (July 24, 2019): After using several tools to organize and store information I have found Zotero to be the tool I like the best. It is easy to organize and saves all types of web pages. I have no doubt I will continue to use it through the remainder of my studies.

References

Best Note Taking App - Organize Your Notes with Evernote. (n.d.). Retrieved May 21, 2019, from https://evernote.com/

Godlee, F., Smith, J., & Marcovitch, H. (2011, January 06). Wakefield's article linking MMR vaccine and autism was fraudulent. Retrieved May 09, 2019, from https://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7452/

Godlee, F., Smith, J., & Marcovitch, H. (2011, January 06). Wakefield's article linking MMR vaccine and autism was fraudulent. Retrieved May 09, 2019, from https://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7452/

Microsoft OneNote - digital notepad & note-taking app. (n.d.). Retrieved May 21, 2019, from https://products.office.com/en-ca/onenote/digital-notetaking-app

Paediatric Society. (n.d.). Protecting and promoting the health and well-being of children and youth. Retrieved May 21, 2019, from https://www.cps.ca/

Public Health Ontario. (n.d.). Retrieved May 21, 2019, from

https://www.publichealthontario.ca/

Reference Management Software & Researcher Network. (n.d.). Retrieved May 21, 2019, from https://www.mendeley.com/homepage-2-1interaction_required=true&mboxSession=ec925407f1884dd899c81f0ac4a9efcc

World Health Organization. (n.d.). Retrieved May 21, 2019, from

https://www.who.int/

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