# Junior Researchr: A design proposal


This spring, I took a class called ["Knowledge, Media and
Learning"](http://www.encorewiki.org/display/KMDI2003/winter%2C+2011),
where one of the assignments was to do research and create a design
proposal. Together with [Rebecca Cober](http://rebeccacober.net/blog)
and Lixa Lin, we decided to look at the research workflow for a junior
researcher, such as a graduate student. Although we could think of many
ways in which the infrastructure of academic publishing could be
optimized, we wanted to restrict this proposal to what could be done,
given the existing infrastructure. (However, we were very inspired by [a
paper](http://www.freelancepropaganda.com/archives/MP3vPDF.pdf)
comparing management of academic metadata with MP3 collections, and
added some of this to our proposal).

We began by looking at existing software, and [capturing
screenshots](http://www.encorewiki.org/display/KMDI2003/Screen+captures)
of some of the designs that we found elegant or practical. After
[brainstorming](http://www.encorewiki.org/display/KMDI2003/Notes)
various issues and possible solutions, we collaboratively wrote a
"future scenario", ["a day in the life of a junior
researcher"](http://www.encorewiki.org/display/KMDI2003/Future+Scenario).
Finally, our designer-talent Rebecca [created a
diagram](http://www.encorewiki.org/download/attachments/6357272/centre5.gif)
of our thinking, and using a number of different existing programs, and
some "sleigh of hands", we made a screencast of what an ideal workflow
"could look like".

We based ourselves on [Papers](http://mekentosj.com/papers/), with its
very friendly design and high usability, but "added" a number of
functions that the developers of Papers would be surprised to see. We
used [Skim](http://skim-app.sourceforge.net/) to show highlighting of
papers, and
[DevonThink](http://www.devon-technologies.com/support/academy/index.html)
to show displaying and sorting through snippets, with Kindle
integration. Inspired by the graphical interface in
[SciPlore](http://www.sciplore.org/software/sciplore_mindmapping/), we
used [Tinderbox](http://www.eastgate.com/Tinderbox/) to mock up a "mind
map" view of the snippets, and finally brought it back to Papers.

We hope none of the authors of all these excellent packages will object
to our borrowing them for this little movie. We did make very clear in
the introductory text that this does not represent existing
functionality, but hopefully it can be an inspiration for developing
some of this functionality in the future. (Despite of this warning, one
person who viewed it was very excited, and asked how he could download
this new version of Papers).

Quite apart from this mock-up, but perhaps partly inspired by it, I've
been working hard at setting up my "PhD information architecture",
figuring out how to keep notes, references, citations, PDFs etc
organized in a way that both supports my own knowledge work, and lets me
share as much as possible with others. I've come up with a pretty neat
solution, which I will write more about soon.

Stian