Knovel,
a provider of online technical content for engineers, has added a variety of
personalization features aimed at helping users gather information more
quickly, while allowing them to efficiently repurpose material for subsequent
efforts.
The My Knovel enhancements enable engineers to better
organize and manage saved content, while providing portability so engineers can
access the digitally accumulated knowledge anywhere they have an Internet
connection. The personalization enhancements have been designed to reflect the
way engineers traditionally work. The
idea was to digitally replicate the physical binder of go-to resources that
engineers create over time from handbooks, to materials property databases,
math libraries and online searches, among other resources.
"We're setting up an infrastructure ... that is meant to
replace the hard copy of materials that engineers accumulate over the years,"
says Diana Bittern, Knovel's director of product
management. "The big driver here is to give engineers a place where they can
get one-click access to the things they use all the time."
The key to My Knovel is an updated access and authentication
system, which gives engineers entry to their customized portal. Once
authenticated, users will be taken to a Knovel landing page, which is
personalized and customized to reflect their past work, including any previous
reference book selections, interactive tables or any saved searches.
Previously, any research done on Knovel was lost once a user logged out,
Bittern says.
New to My Knovel is the My Bookshelf feature, which lets
engineers save and organize frequently-used titles into a folder; My Saved
Content, which lets engineers save and organize content in individual folders;
and My Saved Searches, which retains past search queries, allowing engineers to
re-execute them with a single click.
Engineering teams with multiple Knovel users can tap the new
customization features to better collaborate, sending links to share past
searches or other archived material. Subsequent versions of the technology will
include new social networking capabilities for expanded collaboration and
community, and engineers interested in future directions can check out Knovel Labs,
where they can experiment with the technology and provide feedback.
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