Data for the People: Exploring Zotero’s Capabilities as an Open Data Interface
This poster was presented at the University of Manchester Open Research Conference, 9-10 June 2025.
Social science often works to make sense of complex policy contexts, the results of which are often disaggregated across platforms, obscured by complicated public interfaces, or require technical knowledge to access and understand. This poster presents the result of a project exploring the capabilities and useability for curating and hosting open data on Zotero, an open-source citation management software. We explore Zotero’s usability beyond citation management, as an interface for public-facing qualitative researchers to present curated collections of open data, bridge academic and policy datasets, and facilitate public interaction with research data.
Using a policy dataset derived from a UKRI funded project, we invited researchers, policy makers, and service providers to explore two policy libraries on Zotero: Homelessness & Housing First, and Social Prescribing. We asked participants to complete tasks to engage Zotero, and then surveyed their experience, using a mixed-method analysis of responses. A range of stakeholders, from healthcare workers to decision makers can benefit from a more open and curated engagement with policies affecting their work. While Zotero provides a promising interface for engagement with data policy sets, there are also challenges associated with database sustainability and digital accessibility for those in government and non-profit sectors.
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