As the new academic year is starting, we decided it was the perfect time to introduce the brand new and improved version of colwiz. We’ve been working hard on improving colwiz to make it the best research software out there, and in addition to making the existing tools better, we’ve also introduced lots of new features that we hope will make the lives of researchers easier.

Listing all the improvements in the new version would make a very long list, so to give you a taste of the main stuff, our new features include:

  • An all new interface where you can see research activity from your colleagues, groups, projects, calendar, tasks and publications in one place;
  • A unified search box to search across publications, groups, projects and colleagues;
  • The ability to attach files in discussions with colleagues, and with project and group members;
  • A completely revamped Tasks application to keep track of your own to-do list, as well as to manage collaborative tasks across groups and projects. You can now also create subtasks and attach files;
  • A more intuitive and versatile publication library with improved citation manager integration for MS Word (Windows, Mac), Open Office and Libre Office;
  • Various improvements to the PDF Reader, Calendar and online Research Profile.

The new version of colwiz will be released to all existing colwiz users on Wednesday 3 October. To kick off the academic year at Oxford, we will also be offering the new and improved version to students at the Oxford University Freshers’ Fair, who will have the special opportunity to preview and use this new version before we launch it to the rest of the research community. The Freshers’ Fair will be held on 3-5 Oct at the university’s Examination Schools and will be attended by more than 10,000 Oxford students.

We’ve got some really exciting things coming up in the next few weeks and there are some great new features to talk about, which we hope will help make your research life more organised, so you can do research more effectively. We’ll be discussing these features in the near future, so stay tuned!