Within the context of a major project I'm looking for a tool to create a collaborative database of reference documents and notes. As a minimum, it should be able to handle the following:

- Collaborative references/bibliographies
- Attachments (the referenced documents themselves)
- Tagging
- Collaborative notes (not necessary wiki-like; conversation threads may be a good alternative)

Nice to have:

- Full text search in attachments
- Hierarchical tags
- Some kind of visual organisation of the material, e.g. mind maps or tables


I have found diverse solutions, so diverse in fact that they are almost impossible to compare, e.g.:

- Zotero, Qiqqa etc.
- A multitude of wikis offering WYSIWYG editing
- Plone
- Papyrs

Simplicity is key, as the tech-literacy of our collaborators varies greatly. Most wikis are no option because they require markup. Papyrs is ultra simple and convenient but expensive compared to most other solutions. Building a workspace with Plone may be the most flexible solution, but I wouldn't mind skipping the development. As a collaborative bibliographic solution Zotero may be the best option, but possibly weak on the note taking part.

A suitable solution that people can try out _now_ would be preferable. Also, I would prefer to not use more than one tool, e.g. both a bibliographic manager and a wiki...

Any ideas are welcome.

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Within the context of a major project I'm looking for a tool to create a
collaborative database of reference documents and notes. As a minimum,
it should be able to handle the following:

- Collaborative references/bibliographies
- Attachments (the referenced documents themselves)
- Tagging
- Collaborative notes (not necessary wiki-like; conversation threads may
be a good alternative)

Hm, that's a tough set of criteria, especially if you want an all-in-one solution... I'm presuming that by "references/bibliographies" you mean academic type references and bibliographies, such as downloading/importing them from online academic journals and then formatting the bibliography in a word processor like MS Word or LibreOffice?

Services that come to mind:

Paperpile: https://paperpile.com/features
http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/5152/0/paperpile-web-and-chrome-based-academic-writing-and-referencing-system

EasyBib: http://googledrive.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/add-ons.html
http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/5314/0/easybib--referencing-add-on-for-google-doc

EndNote Web: https://www.myendnoteweb.com/

I imagine EndNote's main competitors would all try to offer something similar, so it might be worth checking them out.

Thanks for the suggestions; I will check them out.

Dr Andus wrote:

I'm presuming that by "references/bibliographies" you mean
academic type references and bibliographies, such as
downloading/importing them from online academic journals and then
formatting the bibliography in a word processor like MS Word or
LibreOffice?

I should clarify this further. The academic context is _not_ essential, though it may be useful--project partners include some universities and these could more easily import some of their existing references in the database.

What is essential is to be able to classify/organise the documents within the context of the project topics. So, at the very least, any imported document should be tag-able and should have some kind of note field associated to it.

And then, any collaborative notes should be able to link to the imported documents with no restrictions.

On that basis Paperpile sounds the closest to what you're describing, as long as the users don't mind using Google accounts.

I have a high regard for Plone, but agree that some development work would be necessary. Albeit probably fairly minor, or not much more than what you'd have to do to standardise your system - given that it's a collaborative system - in any case.

You could use something like FileMaker Pro, too, of course, but that would be quite expensive and certainly need preliminary development!

Take a look at hackpad.com, too
It is insanely powerful yet easy to handle even for not very techie people. What I like most about it is that it also looks easy, and thus is as little intimidating as I can imagine.
You'll have to figure out if the functionality is to your liking or if you'd be missing something important.
HTH
Prion

Prion, thanks for the heads up on Hackpad. As far as I see it is the first time it is mentioned in this group and I find it quite impressive. Probably the most intuitive wiki-like environment that I have seen. It's not what I am looking for in the context of this particular project (classification fields are essential) but I will definitely be trying it out further.

Dr Andus, Paperpile looks indeed good, but it only works with Chrome. We have a significant diversity in respect to browsers in our project group, and I am quite certain that some of the organisations don't use Chrome for security reasons.

Bill/MadAboutDana, I'm taking the plunge with a test installation of Plone in order to assess its potential in practice.

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

some of the organisations don't use
Chrome for security reasons.

Out of curiosity, what are those security concerns?