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.
