Getting Started Guide
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QUOSA INFORMATION MANAGER:

Getting Started






QUOSA Information Manager
Getting Started

QUOSA Information Manager (QUOSA) enables researchers in the life sciences to retrieve full articles, organize them, and perform powerful full-text searching. It also has many other features that automate and accelerate literature searches and management.
Downloading QUOSA Information Manager

If you haven’t already done so, take a moment to go to www.quosa.com/downloads.html and download QUOSA. Follow the instructions in the installation wizard to install it.

Registering QUOSA Information Manager

After installing QUOSA, you will be asked to register in order to get an authorization code. When the registration dialog box appears, do the following:
  1. Click Proceed.
  2. Complete the short registration form to receive your authorization code. It will be emailed to you after you register. (You do not need to enter this code in anywhere.)

Before starting QUOSA, you may find it helpful first to watch one of the brief Flash demos available on the QUOSA website (www.quosa.com), such as "Full Article Retrieval" or "Short Introduction to QUOSA with Ovid."

Starting QUOSA Information Manager

A QUOSA icon should be on your desktop. Double-click on it to start.

Note that the instructions that follow are for searching in PubMed. When you are ready to use QUOSA on your own, select the “channel” appropriate for accessing full articles at your institution. Some channels are customized for particular institutions. Select the one you need (click Channels on the Main Menu bar to select one).

Taking a Quick Tour of the QUOSA Information Manager User Interface

There are three panes in the QUOSA window, as shown in Figure 1:

graphicFigure 1: QUOSA Window: Three Panes (Results in upper right; Browser in lower right; My Article Organizer/Document Summary on left)


Browser Pane. This pane has an embedded Internet browser and is always visible when you start QUOSA. It is where you start searches in PubMed, Ovid, and other channels, and where QUOSA displays a list of article references that match your search terms; it is also the pane where you review abstracts or full-text articles. The Retrieve button ( ∑ ) on this browser’s toolbar is used to retrieve the references of interest to you.

Results Pane. This pane, located above the Browser pane, will appear and displays new results after you click the Retrieve button or when you work with previous results.The columns (No., Type, Authors, Title, and so on), can be moved around by dragging. Note the toggle buttons at the upper left of the QUOSA window for showing or hiding the Results and Browser panes.

Organizer Pane. This pane is on the left-hand side, and includes the following tabs:

My Article Organizer: This tab shows your searches (My Searches), listing the searches you’ve made today, yesterday, and so on; your alerts (My Alerts), listing the alerts you’ve set; your folders (My Folders), containing any full-text articles or abstracts you’ve saved; and your citations (My Citations), the repository of full articles linked with your citation manager.


graphic
Figure 2: Document Summary Tab (on left)

Document Summary: This tab shows any passages extracted from the article currently displayed in the Browser pane that contain the search terms used in your search. These extracted passages are in colors (usually one color when the entire search term is found and another color when part of a search term is found). Clicking on a color-coded passage will scroll the Browser pane to the place where the passage appears in the text. In Figure 2 above, note the blue extract in the Document Summary on the left and the passage in blue on the right in the Browser pane. 

Searching in PubMed Using QUOSA Information Manager

To begin a search in PubMed, do the following:
  1. Type “socs 3” (or an alternative search expression) in the PubMed “for” search box.
  2. Click Go.
    PubMed will return a list of references by title, author(s), journal, and so on.

Retrieving Articles in PubMed Using QUOSA Information Manager

To retrieve the references you want, do the following:
  1. Either check the checkbox of each article of interest in the PubMed list of references or enter the number of articles you want to retrieve in the text box next to the Retrieve button. For example, enter “35.”
  2. Select the format you want (abstract, PDF, or HTML). For example, select “PDF.”
  3. Click Retrieve to retrieve the articles.

The green “clock” (at the top of the QUOSA interface) turns blue during the retrieval process, and then green again when the retrieval is done. The Results pane opens (if it was closed) and displays the list of retrieved articles. If you chose PDFs, QUOSA will retrieve them; if PDFs were not available, QUOSA will retrieve HTML versions. Abstracts will be retrieved if neither full-text format is available. Icons in the Type column indicate whether the article is a PDF, HTML version, or abstract.

During the retrieval, QUOSA creates an entry for the search under My Searches in My Article Organizer on the left. For example, Figure 1 shows the “socs 3” search under “Today.”

Sorting Article References in the Results Pane

You can sort the Results list by title, author, source, and so on. A click on a column header will sort the rows by the contents in the column. The order of the columns can be rearranged by dragging the column headers to the left or right
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Opening Articles in the Results Pane

You can open an article by double-clicking on the reference (the text will be displayed in the Browser pane below). If the complete article is not available, the abstract will appear instead. To display the next article in the list, click on the Open Next button (see Figure 2) or just double-click the reference.

Reviewing Articles

You can quickly review an article as follows:
  1. Click the Document Summary tab. As noted earlier, it will show color- coded excerpts from the article currently in the Browser pane. When you have multiple search terms (for example, “omega protein AND liver,” the excerpts with both parts of the search expression are colored yellow; when only one part is found, the passages are shown in blue.
  2. Click on one of the excerpts. The Browser pane will scroll to the section in the full text where the excerpt occurs.

Searching in Results

You can also do a full-text search of the articles in the Results pane. Do the following:
  1. Click Search in Results on the Results pane toolbar.
  2. Enter the search parameters in the Search in Results dialog and click OK. QUOSA will perform a search on the results. (Complete search options and information on syntax can be viewed by clicking on the Help button in the Search in Results dialog.)

Saving Results in QUOSA Folders

QUOSA folders are not the same same as regular Windows folder. They are specifically designed to support features such as exporting references to citation managers; they’re also indexed for faster searching.

To save selected articles into a QUOSA folder, do the following:
  1. Flag the desired articles (by clicking in the column with the flag icon).
  2. Click the Select Flagged button on the Results pane toolbar.
  3. Click the Save button.
  4. From the Save Document dialog, choose an existing folder or create a new folder, and click OK.

To save all the articles in the Results pane:
  1. Click Ctrl-A before clicking on the Save button.
  2. From the Save Document dialog, choose an existing folder or create a new folder, and click OK.

The saved results will appear in My Folders in My Article Organizer on the left.

Exporting References to a Citation Manager

You can easily export citations to EndNote©, Reference Manager©, or ProCite©. Before you start, however, you first need to select your citation manager in QUOSA. Do the following:
  1. Go to Settings on the Main Menu bar.
  2. Click Citation Manager.
  3. Click Select Citation Manager.
  4. Select your citation manager. 

Now, to export selected citations, do the following:
  1. Flag the articles of interest in the Results pane.
  2. Click To Citations on the Results pane toolbar. Your citation manager will launch, and you will be prompted for the library or database where you want to save the citations.
  3. Select one and click Open. QUOSA will export the citations, which you will see listed in your library/database. When you click on a citation, you will also see a link back to the full article.

To export all the articles to your citation manager, click Ctrl-A before clicking To Citations on the Results pane toolbar.

Setting Automatic Search Alerts

You can have QUOSA automatically search PubMed for newly published articles and notify you when this happens. Close your citation manager if it is still open and do the following:
  1. Click on My Article Organizer, then My Searches, and then click on the “socs 3” search performed earlier.
  2. Click Set Alert on the Results pane toolbar. It will bring up the Configure Search Alert dialog.
  3. Set the parameters you want, and click OK. Be sure to check Send E-Mail Notification to have QUOSA send you an email when new results are found.

Note that your computer must be on and connected to the Internet for search alerts to work. This is one reason for setting Enable Startup Accelerator when installing QUOSA (set from Settings on the Main Menu bar).

Finding More Information on Using QUOSA Information Manager

For additional information on using QUOSA, go to www.quosa.com and click Demos. You’ll find an array of demos on basic and advanced features as shown in Figure 3 below. For complete instructions on using QUOSA, click on How Do I … on the Main Menu.

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Figure 3: Available Demos on QUOSA Website


System Requirements for QUOSA Information Manager

The following are the recommended requirements for QUOSA Information Manager:

 Mac Platform:

PC Platform:

 
Supported Software:
Note: As other software is tested with QUOSA Information Manager, the information will be added to this guide.