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For Your Information: Stanford Grokker
What is Grokker?
Grokker is an innovative research and information
management tool that simultaneously searches many data sources,
and presents results in a topically organized, visual map.
Grokker is the flagship product of Groxis, Inc.; a privately held company
backed by leading investors, founded in 2001.
Where does the name
Grokker come from?
The name is a derivative of the term “grok”,
which comes from Robert Heinlein’s classic A Stranger
in a Strange Land. To grok is to understand something so deeply that
it is fully absorbed into oneself. Grokker allows users to make
discoveries and see how information is related, thus enabling them
to truly “grok” their research topic.
Is Grokker related to Grokster?
There is absolutely no relationship between Grokker and Grokster. Grokster is a peer to peer file sharing program developed by Grokster, LTD., an international software development company headquartered in Nevis, West Indies.
Grokker is an innovation research and information management tool developed by Groxis Inc., a privately held company located in San Francisco.
What is so special
about Grokker?
Grokker does 2 things that we (SULAIR) have been
looking for:
- Grokker provides “federated” or “broadcast” search
ability; that is, it provides the ability to send a search query
to several resources simultaneously.
- Grokker also returns
search results in a way that is more useful, and much easier
to navigate than the usual list format. Grokker groups the results
topically, and presents them in an interactive visual map.
The
Grokker map is easy to navigate and allows users to quickly
get to relevant results.
What is Stanford Grokker?
The Stanford Grokker
is a special version of Grokker available exclusively to Stanford
faculty, students and staff. Stanford Grokker provides a single
point of access to Socrates, HighWire Press, Expanded Academic
ASAP, Academic Search Premier, the Library of Congress,
IEEE Explore, RLG Union Catalog
and the
web. SULAIR and Groxis continue to work together to add new features
to Grokker and to expand the number of research sources that Grokker
accesses.
What is Stanford’s relationship to Grokker?
The
Stanford University Libraries & Academic Information Resources
(SULAIR) have entered into a 1-year (AY 04-05) co-development partnership
with Groxis to develop a Stanford version of Grokker tailored for
the academic environment.
What is the advantage to Stanford?
SULAIR
is in the business of helping scholars find and use information;
so we are always on the look-out for the best and most useful
information products and services. Partnering with Groxis to
develop Stanford
Grokker allows SULAIR to offer an exciting new research tool
to its users; and allows SULAIR staff to have a hand in developing
and shaping Grokker based on our understanding of the needs
of scholars at Stanford.
What is the advantage to Grokker?
The Groxis staff can gain a foothold
in the academic market by working with Stanford and getting feedback
on Grokker from the highly skilled staff of the Stanford University
Libraries & Academic Information Resources and from Stanford
students and faculty.
What have SULAIR and Grokker done to introduce
Grokker to Stanford?
The Grokker awareness campaign at Stanford
has consisted mainly of a series of workshops and training events,
combined with an innovative awareness campaign to introduce the
term “grok” to the Stanford community. Workshops and
training opportunities have included numerous workshops for library
and residential computing staff, who frequently make recommendations
to students and faculty on research technology and tools. Grokker
has also been presented in open workshops for the Stanford community
and in presentations as part of student and faculty orientations.
The “grok” awareness campaign has consisted of daily “you
grok?” puzzles in the Stanford Daily (the student newspaper),
as well as handouts of “grok” buttons and stickers.
The “you grok” puzzles present a mock-up of part of
a Grokker result map, with the user challenged to come up with
the missing subject terms. The answers are available at www.yougrok.com;
which also redirects users to the Stanford
Grokker page (http://grokker.stanford.edu)
where you can learn about and download the Stanford Grokker.
How
has Grokker been received?
As of March 2005, Grokker had been downloaded onto almost 2000 Stanford faculty, student, and staff home and office machines.
The Stanford Grokker start page is being viewed an average of 40 times per day.
Feedback from training sessions, and the Grokker on-line survey indicate that Stanford students like the single search capability of Grokker and the visual display of results. Stanford users are anxious to have even more Stanford resources made available through the Grokker research tool.
What is next
for Stanford Grokker?
SULAIR and Groxis will continue to collaborate
to improve the Stanford Grokker. We are currently working to increase
the number of SULAIR’s licensed resources available through
Grokker. Improvements and additions to the user interface are also
being made, based on feedback from the Stanford community.
For
more information:
Please visit the SULAIR
site or
contact:
Chris Bourg, mchris@stanford.edu,
650-724-9899
Last modified:
May 15, 2006 |
