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Peer Review

Papers 3 App for iOS

Reviewed:
Jan 22, 2019 by Teacher Education
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Ratings

Overall Rating: 4.5 stars
Content Quality: 4.5 stars
Effectiveness: 4.5 stars
Ease of Use: 4.8 stars
Overview:

Papers 3 is an app which allows the user to search, read, organize, and share research.  It allows searches simultaneously from 20+ repositories, including PubMed, Google Scholar and ArXiv.
• When you import papers into your library, Papers lets you organize them in collections and read, annotate and freehand draw them in glorious full screen.
• Import Word, PowerPoint, and other document files to your library and organize them just as easy as your PDFs.
• Automatically find and download the PDF for references you import from search engines, when the full-text is available!
• Papers now also optionally lets you synchronize your library via your local Wi-Fi network or Dropbox to your Mac, PC and iOS devices.
• Create Shared Collections and add content to your Reading List, also accessible via your web browser.
• Support for Apple Pencil in the reader mode.

Type of Material:

Papers 3 is an iOS app.

Recommended Uses:
  • Use to find and organize research for a class or work project
  • Share research and document collections with others for a group project
  • Save articles and documents for future use
Technical Requirements:

Requires iOS 9.3 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Identify Major Learning Goals:
  1. Search, download, organize scholarly articles and resources
  2. Access research in one organized repository.
  3. Annotate articles and documents
  4. Share collections with others
  5. Sync with dropbox
Target Student Population:

College General Ed, College Lower Division, College Upper Division, Graduate School, Professional

Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:
  • Familiarity with searching for and organizing resources for research
  • Familiarity with search engines and vetting resources
  • Would help to know how to focus research questions to narrow searches and make organization easier

Content Quality

Rating:
Strengths:
  • Basic program that contains several useful and easy-to-use features
  • Allows access to some of the best research search engines
  • Can be integrated with other programs (such as dropbox) and allows user to access, annotate, and organize several document types (Word, PDF, PowerPoint)
  • Can be used in a variety of disciplines and settings, although mostly at the undergraduate level and above.
Concerns:
  • Excludes access to some important search engines
  • Takes some time to get used to all of the features
  • Requires an account (although it is free)

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:
Strengths:
  • Easy to use and integrate into research projects in class
  • Allows users to find and organize resources quickly and efficiently
Concerns:
  • Although a short tutorial is provided on the tools within the program, it would be useful to also have some tricks and tips for those who are unfamiliar with finding and vetting resources
  • Tools are intuitive within the program so it would take a good amount of use to get used to which tools allow the user to accomplish which tasks.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:
Strengths:
  • Free app which, upon first opening, takes the user through a brief tutorial pointing out tools in the app
  • Visually appealing and clean design puts the focus on the tools and content
  • Interactive design allows for sophisticated functions on an app
Concerns:

·       Instructions are basic and would benefit from more elaborate tutorials

·       Requires significant practice learn functions and to really get use out of the app

Might be more of a supplementary tool rather than a replacement of tools that researchers already use extensively.

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