RHUL Notebook

Accessing Exam Papers

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 07:59:14 GMT

Exams are just around the corner and we know at this time of the year past exam papers are in great demand. We are currently working on moving Exam Papers into the Digital Object Repository, the new home for RHUL's digital assets. this will make the exam papers more accessible, including enabling them to be included in Moodle courses.

Until then our exam papers are available from the Library Catalogue. They do require a library login to access however, and this can cause confusion if you use the link from your Moodle course to find the papers, login and then go back to Moodle and click on the link again. So we've created this handy guide to accessing exam papers, that will help you get the sample papers you need for your revision when you need them.

Accessing Exam Papers

Our exam papers are protected by a library login so that they can be available to off campus users as well as those on campus. We are developing a solution that will not require a login for on campus users and will embed exam papers within Moodle to make it easier for you to access resources in future. Until then please take the following steps to open exam pape rs:

Go back to the Library Catalogue and click the Your Account link in the top right hand corner .
You will be prompted for your Library Barcode (the number underneath the barcode on your college card) and you Library PIN. If you do not know your PIN you can log into the co llege portal where it will be displayed on the libary tab.
When you have logged in click on the Results List link in the library catalogue top navigatio n. If you have come from Moodle do not go back to Moodle and click the link again. Stay in the library cat alogue and by clicking on Results List the exam papers you searched for will be listed again
Click on the Exam paper you wish to view and the file should now open in your browser

Digital Object Repository for Royal Holloway

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:20:00 GMT

My new project was approved by its project board last Monday so I now have approximately 6 months to deliver a project to get a digital object repository in place for the start of the new academic session. The purpose of the repository will be to provide a space for storing, cataloguing, discovering, protecting and auditing the full range of digital assets created and used in learning and research at Royal Holloway. This means supporting our elibrary, elearning and eresearch efforts as a keystone in providing a coherent infrastructure for all this activity.

So the repository will be used to store copyright controlled electronic offprints, images, videos or other resources that can be used in course packs under the tterms of the Higher Education scanning licence. It will be used to hold digitised copies of past exam papers. It can store resources created for elearning such as the audio files, videos, powerpoint presentations, lecture notes, images and other resources currently loaded into Moodle courses. It will also hopefully provide a new home for Royal Holloway Research Online, and enable this resource to expand to include the full range of exciting and relevant research produced by our academic staff, along with electronic copies of Theses produced by our research students.

Delivering all this will be a major effort and will take the efforts of our supplier, the project team from the library as well as the services of IT Service Delivery and IT Development. Hopefully I can keep you updated as the project progresses.

Summer in the Library

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 14:43:00 GMT

Adding the post about the new library as prompted me that I haven't really written any updates on our summer projects this year. it has been a busy summer with three major upgrades going on (Aleph, Moodle and Metalib), and level 2 of the library being refurbished. All this without Owen Stephens who was head of the Systems Team as well as the college's e-strategy co-ordinator, and left to take up a new post at Imperial.

So far we are two upgrades down with one to go. We have upgraded Aleph, our library system, to version 18. This project was led my Peter and was not a significant upgrade in terms of our workflows and the service seen by the users, but does improve the 'backend' of the system. Our second upgrade was to Moodle, the virtual learning environment, to version 1.8.2. This was a major upgrade that introduces a new roles architecture. I am currently looking at this to try and use it to make our roles and permissions structure more flexible and create some new roles for the new term that will help improve the start of session workflow and give you access to your Moodle courses more quickly.

The final upgrade of the summer starts in a couple of weeks and that will upgrade Metalib, our digital resources system to version 4. I'm leading that project and am a bit worried about the grand plans the librarians are coming up with. We will all be working hard as a team to make Metalib an even better gateway to your online library resources.

Other projects we've been working on are to enhance the reading list system. You should see a new design to the front page of this, hopefully making it easier to navigate and locate your reading lists. We are helping with the project to make Level 2 of the Bedford library look stunning and provide a better learning resource environment for you, with a more open helpdesk. We cleared out the whole floor this summer leaving a very empty space. We had a great two days finishing taking down shelves in time for the carpet fitters to move in. Not that I'm competitive or anything but I did start timing how long it took me to take down a book shelf armed with a mallet and a screwdriver!

We've decorated, put in a new carpet, and are currently waiting on the new furniture. When we've finished there will be a new short loan area, a new helpdesk, new PC lab equipment, a new casual seating area, new OPAC setup and locations and the self issue and return machines will be relocated to make them more accessible. More on that closer to the start of term....

So we've had a busy and productive summer. We've just got 3 weeks left to get ready for you all to return and we look forward to welcoming you and hope you find our library services useful.

Recent Library Acquisitions Page

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 13:56:00 GMT

We've updated the page that notifies users of the latest additions to library stock. The new Recent Acquisitions page shows a list of all book stock received in the last 30 days and any new serials received in the last 2 days. We've also included links to the RSS feeds that are used to generate this page, so you can subscribe to updates in your favourite news reader if you like.

Cover Images and Table of Contents Added to Library Catalogue

Mon, 09 Jul 2007 09:33:00 GMT

We've now enhanced our library catalogue by adding a service the looks for cover images and table of contents for books. Not all books we hold are matched by the service but where possible an image of the book cover will now appear in both the brief list and full view when you are browsing the library catalogue.

Clicking on the image will open up a new window displaying the table of contents for the book where this is available. Where there is no cover iamge but there is the further information there will be an image displayed to indicate that further information is available.

We hope you will find this a useful service

WhatsNew

Mon, 09 Jul 2007 09:33:00 GMT

1 new update since your last visit: (11/4/08)

Accessing Exam Papers

Cited That; Got the T-Shirt

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 08:05:00 GMT

The lovely guys at Zotero have just sent me a t-shirt. That's my first technology related library t-shirt in obligatory black. It hangs over the back of my chair with my navy Library Staff t-shirt. One more step towards becomign a true library geek.

Seriously though I am happy to promote Zotero. It continues to grow and improve. Institutionally it isn't quite there to challenge EndNote/WriteNote and Refworks but as soon as they get library synchronisation and shared collections going it will become a whole lot more useful. Personally it is proving to be a big help in managing the references for my dissertation.

Moodle and Course Lifecycles

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 07:56:00 GMT

The last couple of weeks have been busy on the Moodle front. We've reached the end of our first year running Moodle as our virtual learning environment. We were faced with the issue of what to do with all the courses from this year and setting up the system for next year.

We decided to archive the existing courses, and we plan to keep them for 3 years at the moment. Devising a business process and technical workflow has taken some time and a lot of testing to fit in with this policy. This isn't something that is simple to do in Moodle.

I presented our experiences at the Summer 2007 Moodle Regional User Group Meeting in London last week. This confirmed that many other institutions are facing the same issues and we have a lot to talk about. Thankfully the kind folk at the JISC London RSC and the Moodle team at ULCC have set us up a Moodle course space so we can continue the discussion.

This week has been rollover week at RHUL and so far things seem to have gone OK. This could be because hardly anyone is around to notice, but fingers crossed we have successfully rebuilt the environment and can look forward to a second successful year of Moodle use at the college.

Royal Holloway Library Catalogue Google Toolbar Buttons

Fri, 25 May 2007 11:43:00 GMT

We're all for you being able to search our library catalogue from wherever is most convenient for you. To help this we've added another search location: the popular Google Toolbar extension to your web browser (works in Internet Explorer and Firefox).

Click this link to install the Royal Holloway Library Catalogue Google Toolbar Button

You can find out more about this project in the Library Systems Lab

Let us know if you have any problems using the toolbar button or if you can think of anymore places you would like to search teh catalogue from.

Alison: The Global Learning Experience

Thu, 17 May 2007 14:41:00 GMT

Adrian pointed me in the direction of Alison The Global Learning Experience. It offers free online interactive courses from Advance Learning. It stands for Advance Learning Interactive Systems Online as opposed to myself who also supports learning as an Advance Library and Information Systems Officer. Don't get us confused!

Moodle London Regional User Group June 27 2006

Wed, 16 May 2007 15:04:00 GMT

I'm going to be facilitating a session on course housekeeping at the Moodle London Regional user Group in June. Possibly not the most exciting topic if you're not a systems officer but sort of essential to all the pedagogical goodness that goes on in Moodle. http://www.rsc-london.ac.uk/1042/

10 months into our first year of running Moodle as our Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) we are having to face our first end of year rollover and have had to think of policies and workflows to determine what happens to courses and student enrolments at the end of the academic year and how we set Moodle up for the new academic year.

We are planning on doing our rollover on 30 June/1 July so only a few days after the meeting - so I hope no-one throws a big spanner in the works when I present our approach as part of the session. Given that I am starting to test all the steps in our technical workflow next week hopefully there shouldn't be any surprises.

SelectThemePlugin

Fri, 11 May 2007 11:35:00 GMT

This plugin was previously called StyleChooser.

Name	SelectThemePlugin
Created by	SimonBaird and SaqImtiaz
Location	http://tw.lewcid.org/#SelectThemePlugin
Version	1.2.5
Requires	TW2.x

Description

An alternative style switcher, can be used to switch just stylesheets and/or pagetemplates, or a combination of both (a theme)
you can add your own stylesheets and pagetemplates, or use a ThemePack, like BigThemePack.

Usage

You have to have fetch or create some styleSheets and pageTemplates to use this plugin.

You can either get a ThemePack like BigThemePack which automatically adds themes to ThemeSelect.
or create tiddlers with styleSheets and pageTemplates and tag them styleSheets and pageTemplates respectively.

Put <<themeSelect style 'Select theme'>> in your SideBarOptions.

Creating Theme Packs

You can create your own theme pack if you like. Instructions can be found here.

History

20-Dec-06, v 1.2.5, fixed horizontal rules for IE (thanks Clint), compatibility fix with HoverMenuPlugin
08-Sept-06, v1.2.4, fixed bug with TW2.1
15-May-06, v1.2.3, added paramifier so you can put theme on url, eg http://www.somewhere.com/twfile.html#theme:Berry2, thanks Clint (Simon).
28-Apr-o6, v1.2.2, fixed bug with opening TW after deleting themepacks. (Saq)
26-Apr-06, v1.2.1, more code optimization, dropdowns now updated on the fly. (Saq)
25-Apr-06, v1.2.0, added 3rd party ThemePack support, and made various other improvements.(Simon & Saq)
24-Apr-06, v1.1.0, added: no styles and default styles options,
support for ThemePack, support for tag variations(Saq)
21-Apr-06, v1.0.0, Reworked dropdowns to include option for pagetemplates (Saq)
21-Apr-06, v0.9.0, Rewrote and added Saq's lovely dropdown select (Simon)
20-Apr-06, v0.0.1, Basic switcher working (Simon)

Examples

Source	Output
`<<themeSelect style>>` for a dropdown with StyleSheets	Choose StyleSheet: ▾
`<<themeSelect pagetemplate>>` for a dropdown with PageTemplates	Choose PageTemplate: ▾
`<<themeSelect style customlabel>>` to use a customlabel	customlabel▾

When applying a stylesheet or template, it also looks for a template or stylesheet respectively based on naming convention, eg MyFunkyStyleSheet and MyFunkyPageTemplate.

Notes

See also http://www.tiddlytools.com/#SelectStyleSheetPlugin for a more feature-rich style sheet switcher

Ideas

do ViewTemplate also?
Pretty up the [x] bit

Code

// for compatibility with TW <2.0.9
if (!Array.prototype.contains)
   Array.prototype.contains = function(item)
   {
    return this.find(item) != null;
    };

// for compatibility with TW <2.0.9
if (!Array.prototype.containsAny)
   Array.prototype.containsAny = function(items)
   {
    for(var i=0; i<items.length; i++)
        if (this.contains(items[i]))
            return true;
    return false;
    };

version.extensions.SelectTheme = { major: 1, minor: 2, revision: 5, date: new Date(2006,12,20),
	source: "http://tw.lewcid.org/#SelectTheme"
};

config.SelectTheme = {
	things: {
		style: {
			tag:        ["StyleSheets","StyleSheet","styleSheet","styleSheets","stylesheet","stylesheets"],
			theDefault: "StyleSheet",
			suffix:     "StyleSheet",
			notify:     refreshStyles,
			cookie:     "txtStyleSheet",
			otherThing: "pagetemplate",
			label:      "Choose StyleSheet: ",
			tooltip:     "Choose a StyleSheet",
			caseNone: { text:"None", title:"NoStyleSheet"},
                        caseDefault: { text:"Default", title:"StyleSheet" }

		},
		pagetemplate: {
			tag:        ["PageTemplates","PageTemplate","pageTemplates","pageTemplate","pagetemplate","pagetemplates"],
			theDefault: "PageTemplate",
			suffix:     "PageTemplate",
			notify:     refreshPageTemplate,
			cookie:     "txtPageTemplate",
			otherThing: "style",
			label: "Choose PageTemplate: ",
			tooltip:    "Choose a PageTemplate",
			caseNone: { text:"None", title:"NoPageTemplate"},
                        caseDefault: { text:"Default", title:"PageTemplate" }
		}

	},

                         specialCases: ["caseNone","caseDefault"]

};

TiddlyWiki.prototype.removeNotification = function(title,fn) {
	for (var i=0;i<this.namedNotifications.length;i++)
		if((this.namedNotifications[i].name == title) && (this.namedNotifications[i].notify == fn))
			this.namedNotifications.splice(i,1); // counting on it only being there once
}


var things = config.SelectTheme.things;
var specialCases=config.SelectTheme.specialCases;

for (var zz in things) {
	// make sure we have a value
	if (!config.options[things[zz].cookie])
		config.options[things[zz].cookie] = things[zz].theDefault;

	// remove core notify
	store.removeNotification(things[zz].theDefault,things[zz].notify);

	// and add our one
	store.addNotification(config.options[things[zz].cookie],things[zz].notify);

}

//checks to see if a tiddler exists in store or as a shadow.
TiddlyWiki.prototype.isTiddler= function (title)
        {return store.tiddlerExists(title) || store.isShadowTiddler(title)}

//hijack core function & make sure template exists
window.applyPageTemplate_themeSelect=window.applyPageTemplate;
window.applyPageTemplate=function(title){
           if(!store.isTiddler(title))
                       {title = things.pagetemplate.theDefault;}
           applyPageTemplate_themeSelect(title);
 }

TiddlyWiki.prototype.makeActiveTheme = function(what,title,alsoCheckOtherThing) {

	var thing = things[what];
        if (!store.isTiddler(title))
		title = thing.theDefault;

	var oldTitle = config.options[thing.cookie];

	if (what == "style") {
		// remove old style element from DOM
		var oldStyleElement = document.getElementById(oldTitle);
		oldStyleElement.parentNode.removeChild(oldStyleElement);
	}

	store.removeNotification(oldTitle,thing.notify);
	store.addNotification(title,thing.notify);
	store.notify(title);

	config.options[thing.cookie] = title;
	saveOptionCookie(thing.cookie);
	if (alsoCheckOtherThing)
		this.makeActiveTheme(thing.otherThing,
				title.replace(new RegExp(thing.suffix+"$"),"") + things[thing.otherThing].suffix,
						false);
};

if (config.hoverMenu)
    {
    old_hovermenu_makeActiveTheme = TiddlyWiki.prototype.makeActiveTheme;
    TiddlyWiki.prototype.makeActiveTheme = function(what,title,alsoCheckOtherThing)
        {
         old_hovermenu_makeActiveTheme.apply(this,arguments);
         if (!alsoCheckOtherThing)
                    config.hoverMenu.handler();
        };
    }

config.shadowTiddlers.NoStyleSheet = "";
config.shadowTiddlers.NoPageTemplate = config.shadowTiddlers.PageTemplate;


function switchTheme(e){
         if (!e) var e = window.event;
         var theTarget = resolveTarget(e);
         var theLink = theTarget;
         var switchTo= theLink.getAttribute("switchTo");
         var mode = theLink.getAttribute("mode");
         if ((config.options[things[mode].cookie])!=switchTo)
               {store.makeActiveTheme(mode,switchTo,true);};
         return(false);
}


config.macros.themeSelect={};
config.macros.themeSelect.dropdownchar = (document.all?"▼":"▾");
config.macros.themeSelect.handler = function(place,macroName,params,wikifier,paramString,tiddler){
         var arrow = config.macros.themeSelect.dropdownchar;
         var mode = params[0];
         var label = (params[1]?params[1]:things[mode].label) + arrow;
         var cookie = (config.options[things[mode].cookie]);

         var onclick = function(e)
             { if (!e) var e = window.event;
             var popup = Popup.create(this);

             var tagged=[];

	     store.forEachTiddler(function(title,tiddler) {
                  if ((tiddler.tags).containsAny(things[mode].tag)){
					tagged.push(tiddler.title);}
	     });

             //integrate ThemePacks
	     if (config.themes) {
		     // see what themes have been loaded...
		     for (var i=0;i<config.themes.length;i++) {
			    // see if there is one
			    var lookForThis = config.themes[i] + things[mode].suffix;
			    if (store.isShadowTiddler(lookForThis)) {
				   tagged.pushUnique(lookForThis);
			    }
		    }
		     tagged = tagged.sort();
             }

             //this function used later to create buttons
             var createThemeButton = function(switchTo){
                        var theButton = createTiddlyButton(createTiddlyElement(popup,"li"),text,null,switchTheme,useClass);
                        theButton.setAttribute("switchTo",switchTo);
                        theButton.setAttribute("mode",mode);};

            //create Buttons for None(shadow styles) & Default (StyleSheet)
                     // Default button is not created if StyleSheet doesnt exist.
             for(var t=0; t<specialCases.length; t++){
             var special = specialCases[t];
             var text = things[mode][special].text;
             var useClass = "tiddlyLinkExisting";   //redundant, optimize!
             if ((things[mode][special].title==cookie)||(special=="caseNone"&&!store.isTiddler(cookie)))
                      {text+= " [x]";
                      useClass = "currentlySelected";}
             if (!((special=="caseDefault")&&(!store.getTiddler(things[mode][special].title))))
             createThemeButton(things[mode][special].title);     }

             //insert horizontal rule
             //createTiddlyElement(createTiddlyElement(popup,"li"),"hr");
             createTiddlyElement(createTiddlyElement(popup,"li",null,"listBreak"),"div");

             //create buttons for all other stylesheet tiddlers
             for(var t=0; t<tagged.length; t++)
                     { var useClass = "tiddlyLinkExisting";
                       var text = (tagged[t]).replace((things[mode].suffix),"");
                     if (tagged[t]==(cookie) )
                           {text+=" [x]"; useClass="currentlySelected";}
                     if ((tagged[t]!= (things[mode].theDefault))&&tagged[t]!= (things[mode].none))
                        {createThemeButton(tagged[t]);}}
             Popup.show(popup,false);
             e.cancelBubble = true;
             if (e.stopPropagation)
                e.stopPropagation();
             return(false);
             };

        var createdropperButton = function(place){
           var sp = createTiddlyElement(place,"span",null,"ThemeChooserButton");
           var theDropDownBtn = createTiddlyButton(sp,label,things[mode].tooltip,onclick);
        };

        createdropperButton(place);
};


setStylesheet(".popup li a.currentlySelected {background:#ccc;color:black;font-weight:bold;}","currentlySelectedStyle"); // could do better probably...

config.macros.layoutChooser=config.macros.themeSelect;

//shadow tiddler to hold instructions for creating ThemePacks
config.shadowTiddlers.ThemePack='See http://simonbaird.com/mptw/#CreateThemePack'; 

config.macros.applyTheme = {handler: function (place,macroName,params,wikifier,paramString,tiddler) {
	var theme = params[0];
	var label = params[1]?params[1]:'Apply theme "' + theme + '"';
        var tooltip = 'Apply the "'+theme+'" theme to this TiddlyWiki';
	createTiddlyButton(place,label,tooltip,function() {
		store.makeActiveTheme("style",theme+things.style.suffix,true);
	});
}};


// this means you can put #theme:ThemeName in url. suggested by Clint
config.paramifiers.theme = {
	onstart: function(themeName) {
		store.makeActiveTheme("style",themeName+config.SelectTheme.things.style.suffix,true);
	}
};

SideBarOptions

Fri, 11 May 2007 11:34:00 GMT

search
» Tools »» Options »

These InterfaceOptions for customising TiddlyWiki are saved in your browser

Your username for signing your edits. Write it as a WikiWord (eg JoeBloggs)

SaveBackups
AutoSave
RegExpSearch
CaseSensitiveSearch
EnableAnimations

AdvancedOptions
PluginManager
ImportTiddlers

» Time »
Select theme▾

DefaultTiddlers

Fri, 11 May 2007 11:30:00 GMT

WhatsNew

MainMenu

Fri, 11 May 2007 11:30:00 GMT

WhatsNew

ShowUpdatesPlugin

Fri, 11 May 2007 11:27:00 GMT

Name	ShowUpdatesPlugin
Created by	SaqImtiaz
Version	0.2
Requires	TW2.x

Description:

Allows you to list tiddlers that have changed since the users last visit. You can list only all changed tiddlers, or filter them to only show tiddlers that have or do not have a specific tag. By default a simple list of the titles of changed tiddlers is created. However, using an extremely versatile syntax you can provide a custom template for the generated text.

Examples:

ShowUpdatesDocs

Installation:

Copy the contents of this tiddler to your TW, tag with systemConfig, save and reload your TW.

Syntax:

<<showUpdates>>
additional optional params:
<showUpdates excludeTag:TagToExclude onlyTag:TagToList maxEntries:10 write:CustomWriteParameter >>
excludeTag: TagToExclude
onlyTag: TagToList
maxEntries: max number of entries displayed when there are no updates. (default is 10, which can be changed in the config.macros.showUpdates.settings part of the code)
write: if a write parameter is not provided, an un-numbered list of the updates is generated. Alternatively, you can specify a custom 'template' for the text generated. The syntax for the write parameter is identical to that of the forEachTiddler macro. Additonal documentation on this syntax will be provided soon.
Some of the variables available in the write parameter are 'index', 'count' and 'lastVisit' where lastVisit is the date of the last visit in the format YYYYMMDDHHMM. Also areUpdates is a boolean that is true if there are new updates since the users last visit.

To Do:

refactor code to facilitate translations
a streamlined version without the custom write parameter

Code

window.lewcidLastVisit = '';
window.old_lewcid_whatsnew_restart = window.restart;
window.restart = function()
{
        if(config.options.txtLastVisit)
                 lewcidLastVisit= config.options.txtLastVisit;
        config.options.txtLastVisit = (new Date()).convertToYYYYMMDDHHMM();
        saveOptionCookie('txtLastVisit');
        window.old_lewcid_whatsnew_restart();
}

TiddlyWiki.prototype.lewcidGetTiddlers = function(field,excludeTag,includeTag,updatesOnly)
{
              var results = [];
              this.forEachTiddler(function(title,tiddler)
                      {
                      if(excludeTag == undefined || !tiddler.isTagged(excludeTag))
                                    if(includeTag == undefined ||  tiddler.isTagged(includeTag))
                                            if ( updatesOnly == false || tiddler.modified.convertToYYYYMMDDHHMM()>lewcidLastVisit)
                                                  results.push(tiddler);
                      });
              if(field)
                  results.sort(function (a,b) {if(a[field] == b[field]) return(0); else return (a[field] < b[field]) ? -1 : +1; });
              return results;
}

config.macros.showUpdates={};
config.macros.showUpdates.settings =
{
         maxEntries: 10  //max items to show, if there are no updates since last visit
}

config.macros.showUpdates.handler = function(place,macroName,params,wikifier,paramString,tiddler)
{
          var args = paramString.parseParams("list",null,true);
          var write = getParam(args, "write", undefined);
          var onlyTag = getParam(args, "onlyTag", undefined);
          var excludeTag = getParam(args, "excludeTag", undefined);
          var sortBy = "modified";
          var maxEntries = getParam(args,"maxEntries",this.settings.maxEntries);

          if (lewcidLastVisit) 
                {var tiddlers = store.lewcidGetTiddlers(sortBy,excludeTag,onlyTag,true);
                 var areUpdates = tiddlers.length>0? true:false;}

          if (!lewcidLastVisit)
               {var countLine = "!!Recent Updates:";
               var tiddlers = store.lewcidGetTiddlers(sortBy,excludeTag,onlyTag,false);
               var areUpdates = false;}
          else if (tiddlers.length == 0)
               {var countLine = "!!@@color:red;No new updates@@ since your last visit. @@color:#999;font-size:70%;" + (Date.convertFromYYYYMMDDHHMM(lewcidLastVisit)).formatString(" (DD/MM/YY)") + "@@\n!!Recent Updates:";
               var tiddlers = store.lewcidGetTiddlers(sortBy,excludeTag,onlyTag,false);}
          else
               {var countLine ="!!@@color:red;"+ tiddlers.length + "@@ new " + (tiddlers.length==1?"update":"updates") + " since your last visit: @@color:#999;font-size:70%;" + (Date.convertFromYYYYMMDDHHMM(lewcidLastVisit)).formatString(" (DD/MM/YY)") + "@@";}

          tiddlers = tiddlers.reverse();
          var lastVisit = lewcidLastVisit? lewcidLastVisit:undefined;
          var count = areUpdates == true? tiddlers.length : maxEntries;
          var sp = createTiddlyElement(place,"span","showUpdates");
          if (write==undefined)
                 {
                  wikify(countLine,sp);
                  var list = createTiddlyElement(sp,"ul");
                  for (var i = 0; i < count; i++)
                          {
                           var tiddler = tiddlers[i];
                           createTiddlyLink(createTiddlyElement(list,"li"), tiddler.title, true);
                          }
                 }
          else
                {
                 var list = '';
                 for (var index = 0; index < count; index++) {
                 var tiddler = tiddlers[index];
                 list += eval(write); }
                 wikify(list, sp);
                }
}

Tiddly Wiki Flavours

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 16:03:00 GMT

TiddlyWiki is a great tool. It powers this notebook. You can stick it on the web, on your desktop, on a USB stick and have an easy to use non-linear notebook you can take anywhere. It is great for notes, jottings, thoughts. It doesn't depend on a server - it is all contained within a file. However if you want to stick it on a server and edit it over the web you'll need to add server side editing capability using something like MiniTiddlyServer which I use for tiddly wikis on my personal web site. All this sound too complicated - sign up for a free account with Server Side Wiki

As with any open source tool the user community soon starts contributing variations or flavours of the original idea, creating great new functions through collaborative effort. Two that I've noticed recently are really useful in the academic enrvironment.

Firstly there's the TiddlyWiki Student Edition which is really useful for organising your course notes. Secondly there is BibblyWiki. This is an interesting idea: using TiddlyWiki to manage a bibliography. It is certainly a creative solution and adds another useful tool to the citation management mix. One to keep an eye on.

Thanks to Mark Pearson of Earlham College in the US who got me into TiddlyWiki on his recent visit to look at our work on Moodle.

I'm a Diigo Featured User

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 15:47:00 GMT

The good people at Diigo wrote to tell me I'm currently a featured user on their community page. Which is nice.

Diigo is a great tool that can help with your research. Not simply a bookmark manager (although it can be used that simply), Diigo also allows you to highlight sections of web pages, annotate pages and add your own sticky notes. Diigo also creates a cached copy and can tell you when you accessed the page. Perfect for when you are putting together a bibliography that includes online resources.

Diigo also features great social features including tracking people who have similar interests, and now groups so you can collaborate with others to build a great list of useful resources.

A range of tools allows you to post your links in other locations, like your own website, and Diigo intergrates well into the browser meaning your bookmarks are a simple click away. If you are a fan of del.icio.us or another bookmarking software, don't despair. Diigo can cross post bookmarks to other services so you don't have to choose.

I find it essential in both my professional and my academic research. It's definitely worth a look.

Integrating Moodle with Metalib: Article for SMUG4EU

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 15:41:00 GMT

An article I wrote on RHUL's first attempts at integrating library resources within Moodle was included in Issue for of SMUG 4 EU the newsletter of the SFX and Metalib User Group.
Download the newsletter: http://www.igelu.org/sfxmetalib/newsletter/smug4eu_issue4.pdf

Library Opens 24/7

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 15:35:00 GMT

As a pilot Bedford Library at Royal Holloway will be open 24/7 during the exam period. This is an exciting opportunity for us to extend our services to users and provide them with essential resources at this stressful time.