Anticipatory...

The emphasis from this weeks readings and assignments in N6004 - Intro to Information Technology center on the use of technology to access and manage information resources especially those related to the development of evidenced based practice.
The assignment for this weeks blog is to discuss how I anticipate this information will help me in my graduate coursework. I jumped right into the readings before I looked at the assignments so I've already developed a pretty good idea, based on prior experience and the course reading how information management and storage systems are going to benefit me throughout my coursework.
1) Efficient storage and retrieval systems are essential to manage the massive amount of data and information available to us via the electronic databases currently available. Learning the specific tools and rules of operation that each database employs means I will be able to spend less time digging and more time synthesizing information. Getting back 25 hits on a search topic rather than 2500 makes all the difference in the world.
2) Personal use reference management software such as EndNote, Biblioscape or Qiqqa  makes the writing, citation and referencing process smoother. There is a learning curve but I can see the benefit of a good program that applies the right citation and reference format as I type, leaving me free to focus on the analysis of information rather than what APA 6th edition says about the third citation in the same paragraph of an article written by 12 authors and 1 organization published on a website that no longer exists. Ok, probably even EndNote couldn't handle that scenario but you get the idea. I've tried two different strategies for hand insertion of references, the 'type citations as I go and edit later' option; as well as the 'go back and figure out the citations later' method. They are both tedious, produce iffy results and don't quite get to what the APA had in mind with regard to consistency in citation, at least, not without a lot of work.
With these ideas in place and anticipating the benefit that comes from understanding information management I am going to take the opportunity to explore some of the reference management software out there. I was required to use EndNote two semesters ago and was only moderately impressed with the user interface. It seemed like a powerful platform in desperate need of an update. I hope to take the time to look at a couple of the different software options although, truth be told I probably will stick with EndNote, at least for now as my schedule doesn't really accommodate learning curves very well right now.