13 January 2014, 2:53

Hi,

I'm stumbling about the mandatory definition of 'Contribution' field in Books and Publication area of Resume. What should I fill out if I'm the full author of the publication?

Ralf

13 January 2014, 6:57

Hi Ralf,

It is odd that this field is mandatory when there is a legitimate reason to leave it blank.

According to the manual: http://manual.mahara.org/en/1.8/content/resume.html#books-and-publications the 'Contribution' field is for the title of your contribution. So in the case of a journal article the 'Contribution' will be the title of the article (not the title of the journal).

If the publication is a book that you've written then I'd put in something that reflects that. Something like 'Sole author'

Cheers

Robert

13 January 2014, 8:12

Hi Robert

thanks for your post which made it more clear for me. I think this form should be restructured.

It should be possible to add correct bibliography data in this form.

This should include:

Title of my contribution (of book or article)*
Additional authors/published with
Published in [title of book or title of journal)Date*
Edition
Location
Publisher
My contribution if not full author
URL
ISSN/ISBN

Cheers Ralf

20 January 2014, 14:42

Hello Ralf,

In my opinion the CV area in Mahara requires quite a bit of reworking as it is not very flexible. Every country has different requirements. The books and publications area alone would benefit even from an import from a standard bibliography manager to provide proper bibliographic references. It only has a very rudimentary set of features. That's why I use Zotero to export my bibliography as HTML file in the appropriate citation style and then upload and display that file as HTML. That way I can follow the standard rules required in the specific context. Alternatively, you can also have a RSS feed with items from your library. That is more control than anything hardcoded that we put into Mahara as it will not suit everyone's needs.

What do you think of using an external software to manage bibliographic information and embed it into Mahara instead of entering information twice?

Cheers

Kristina