VirDO: A virtual workspace for research documents

Abstract

We report the design of a system which integrates a suite of tools to allow scholars to manage related documents in their personal digital stores. VirDO provides a virtual workspace in which pdfs can be placed and displayed, and which allows these documents to be manipulated in various ways that prior literature suggests to be useful. Particularly noteworthy are the various maps that support users in uncovering the inter-relations among documents in the workspace, including citation relations and flexible user-defined tags. Early evaluation of the system was positive: especially promising was the increasing use of maps by two participants who used VirDO for their own research over a period of a week, as well as the extensive use by all participants of sticky notes. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.