A mashup of News + Zotero + Wallabag

A Nextcloud App needed for large organisations
I work for a large organisation (Aprox. 30.000 staff), and I believe there is one App that could make Nextcloud very useful for this and other large organisations.

Information collection, processing and sharing
One of the key elements for any organisation is how we collect, process and distribute (open source) information. Most of the time this comes in the from of news items, reports, etc.

In my opinion, most organisations underperform in this area. Nextcloud can be a key element in making this an efficient task and a useful process.

News App + Zotero + Wallabag
Some (most?) pieces of the puzzle are there, but need to be brought together. All three apps are open source.

News App
The news app offers an excellent way to subscribe and organise RSS feeds. It is basic and simple.

Zotero
Zotero is a tool for referencing and bibliography that works extremely well. It allows for easy collection of items (webpages, documents, etc.) and scraps and organises the bibliographic metadata so it can be used easily for referencing.

Pieces of information can be shared with others and included in shared groups.

Wallabag
Wallabag works similarly to Pocket or Read it Later by making easy to save webpages. Well integrated with Android and good and simple GUI. Zotero can also do this, but through an bookmarklet. Mobile access to the Zotero database is less developed.

In addition…
One of the most useful apps I have used for information collection and analysis is DevonThink. I recommend you have a look at it. It allows for the easy collection of information and its editing (highlighting, commenting?), but more importantly, it sifts through the information collected to provide hidden connections and insights.

The App I propose …
The App would (Information Collection Processing and Sharing -ICPS-, just
to give it a name) would:

  • allow RSS subscriptions (like the News App)
  • when one piece of news is starred, the app would download the full article in the background and scrap the bibliography and other metadata (like Zotero) for later reading and/or storage and processing.
  • It would allow for easy integration in mobile platforms, (like Wallabag) and offer mobile access to the database
  • it would allow for the editing (highlighting, commenting) and sharing of the items.
  • in addition, it would allow the post-processing of data (like DevonThink) to analyse for word patterns, connections between documents, etc.

Who could be interested in the App, or in developing the App?
Apart from organisations where information and knowledge management is central to their roles, OwnClud / NextCloud providers may be interested in developing this App.

Most nexrCloud providers offer a free tier (say 1Gb) and then paid tiers of
greater capacity (2Gb, 5Gb, etc.). In over 1 year of using Zotero, I have
collected about 2Gb of news and information items. By supporting the
development of this App, Hosts would also create a good reason (need?) for users to upgrade to paid tiers. A win-win for both sides.

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Great idea, I fully agree that this would be great in the fields of consultancy, research and academia. That said, I remember that an integrated wallabag app was in discussion some time ago.

In general, I am wondering if it might not be the best route to aim for better integration between those apps under a nextcloud umbrella rather than a fully integrated new app. Zotero in particular is a highly complex product - it can be used as a simple reference collector or as a collaborative reference engine. I m sceptical that the depth of features can be replicated easily - why reinvent three wheels when a tighter integration achieves the same result?

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Two Year Update on this: there is now a PHP-based webdav integration available for Zotero, so some interested soul might be able to turn it into an app we can all use. Also, the Nextcloud Bookmarks app can now generate RSS / Live Bookmarks and is planning to add Wallabag API integration.

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This type of application certainly has some merit. I can imagine numerous possibilities and opportunities.

Another three years later (and lots of purchases of the big Science publishing players) Zotero is one of the few remaining independent and Foss options for citation management.

It’s looks like even their data server is written in PHP, so it might be possible too directly integrate that with NC?

/S

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