On June 19 at 1:00 PM Atlantic, all Refworks accounts for Dalhousie University will be migrated to RefWorks’ main servers based in the United States. The Canadian server that previously hosted RefWorks will no longer be available after June 2015. While there are other online citation management tools available to users, none offer Canadian hosting.

One of the benefits of moving to the RefWorks U.S. servers is that you can now take advantage of some updated features that were not available on the ScholarsPortal server, including the removal of the group code for log in. RefShare is now easily accessed and viewed within your RefWorks account. You can learn more about RefShare here.

We anticipate a downtime window of several hours while account data is migrated, during which time you will not be able to access RefWorks. All of your references, folders, attachments, and shares will be fully intact.

Some changes associated with this migration:

• You will no longer need your group code to access your RefWorks account. In order to eliminate the group code, we now enforce the need for a unique login name. If your current login name is already in use by another RefWorks user, you may receive a separate email notifying you of with details on your how to access your account and adjust your username. Otherwise, your current login credentials will work.

• Write-N-Cite (now called ProQuest for Word) will need to be re-installed after the migration. Please uninstall your current version and go to Tools>> Write-N-Cite in your new RefWorks account to download the latest version of ProQuest for Word. After closing all programs on your computer please run the Word Plug-in installer and follow the online instructions.

• The RefGrab-It bookmarklet will need to be updated so it can send data to your new account. To update RefGrab-It we recommend you delete your current bookmark. You can re-install RefGrab-It by logging into your new RefWorks account and following the instructions located here.

Once everything has been migrated, you will have a new URL to access your RefWorks account, located at http://www.refworks.com/refworks. Links to RefWorks will be updated on the Library Web site.

If you do not want your data moved to the U.S., you can export all of your data for storage elsewhere, then request to have your account deleted. (Accounts can only be deleted by the RefWorks administrator.)

• Choose References > Export from the RefWorks menu. (You may do this for the entire account at once, or for each of your folders individually.)
• You may then choose an output format using the Export Format drop-down, and click Export References. Your references will appear as a Web page. Use the browser’s Save As function to save the contents as a text file (.txt)
• This exported file can be imported to other citation management systems. The Tab-Delimited format may also be stored in Microsoft Excel. Note: It will not be possible to export your attachments (files you added to any existing reference stored within your RefWorks database), such files will have to be saved individually before asking for your account to be deleted.
• Once you are satisfied that your references are stored, contact Shelley McKibbon (mckibbon@dal.ca) to have your RefWorks account deleted. You will need to provide either the username of your RefWorks account or the Dalhousie email address associated with your account. (If you have multiple accounts please supply the usernames for the accounts you wish to have deleted.)

Keep in mind that all online citation management systems (e.g. Endnote, Mendeley and Zotero) utilize servers located outside of Canada.

Please contact Shelley McKibbon (mckibbon@dal.ca) by June 15, 2015 if you have any questions about RefWorks or the migration, or if you prefer to have your account deleted before the migration.