Information Services

Choosing a reference manager

A self-enrol Learn course produced to support the Introduction to Reference Managers classroom course. The course will help you learn more about the different reference managers available and choose the one that is right for you.

The course starts with some reasons why you should use a reference manager. It has learning resources for 4 of the most popular reference managers - Mendeley, Zotero, EndNote and Citavi. At the end there is a section of frequently asked questions.

We have another self-enrol course that may also be of interest: Thesis Hub: Producing your thesis or dissertation in Word.

The content from the Choosing a Reference Manager Learn course is also available as a PDF, which can be downloaded from our Documents Catalogue: Choosing a Reference Manager course resources (University login needed).

Enrolling on the course

This is an online self-paced course, open to staff and students at the University of Edinburgh. To enrol, please follow these steps:

  1. Log-in to Learn at www.learn.ed.ac.uk or through MyEd.
  2. Select Course Catalogue in the top right corner.
  3. The Search Catalogue options will load. Type“Choosing a reference manager” (no quotes) in the search catalogue section and select Go.
  4. Expand the options menu next to the zu_Choosing_a_reference_manager Course ID (you’ll need to hover over it to see the menu). Select Enrol
  5. The self-enrol overlay will load, providing further course information. Select Submit. An enrolment success screen will load, select OK to access the course.
  6. The next time you log-in to Learn the course will appear in your Current Courses list. Click on the course name to access it.

If you experience any access issues, please contact the IS Helpline.