WikiSeer to help with notes

I've been playing with a site under beta testing, http://www.wikiseer.com. What it does is takes an html webpage and provides a series of quick, easy-to-read keynotes of the page. So far, I've tried it with some general websites like CNN and a site I formerly worked for www.designnews.com and the application works quite well. However, even though the site notes that it will work with pdf files, in which many of our academic sources can be found, I have not been too pleased with the results. But remember, this is in a testing phase, so it won't be perfect.

This is a potential tool to doing a quick review of a research report to determine if you should read the entire copy. However, like any tool, it doesn't replace your own results in reading the complete document, though it could help weed through some documents quickly and efficiently!

An interesting article recently published in "Inside Higher Ed" noted the so-called "Google Effect" of conducting research -- www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/09/29/search. One way to see the differences in search engines is to use the site Bingle, which searches Google and Bing simultaneously -- www.bingle.nu. While I don't usually encourage the use of generalized search engines, in some cases, these sites may offer some relevant information. By all means use Bingle to cut down on your research time and multitask the two major search engines at once!