Knowledge Management using Zotero
Using Zotero for Collaborative Knowledge Management in openEHR
Over the past two decades of working with openEHR—research, implementations, teaching, standards development, and community projects—I have continually collected papers, blog posts, videos, reports, and web resources related to openEHR. This began during my PhD research in 2005 and has steadily grown into a substantial knowledge base. To make this collection available to the community, I have organised everything into a public Zotero library:
👉 https://www.zotero.org/groups/11839/openehr
The goal of this library is simple: to provide a single, well-curated, searchable hub for all openEHR-related knowledge—whether academic research, technical documentation, implementation case studies, community presentations, or industry reports. As the openEHR ecosystem grows, and as more people contribute to implementation projects, education, and research, having a shared, structured repository becomes increasingly important. From the web browser it looks like this (it’s publicly accessible, except for the full-text files).
What on Earth is Zotero?
Zotero is a free, open-source reference manager widely used in academic, clinical, and technical domains. While many in our community may not have used it before, it offers several advantages for collaborative knowledge management:
Automatic ingestion of references from webpages, PDFs, videos, DOIs, and more
Rich metadata support (authors, abstracts, tags, publication details)
Collections and tagging for organising content into themes such as Clinical Modelling, Governance, Archetypes, Specifications, and Implementations
Full-text search, including within attached PDFs
Browser extensions for one-click saving
Group libraries enabling community-driven curation
Zotero is not only for academic writing—it’s ideal for tracking evolving standards, grey literature, working drafts, technical reports, and practical implementation resources that are essential in openEHR work.
How the openEHR Zotero Library Is Structured
The library currently includes hundreds of curated items spanning almost 20 years. Key collections include:
Foundational openEHR architecture, RM, AOM, and archetype papers
Clinical modelling and governance resources
Implementation studies and real-world evaluations
openEHR education, workshops, and tutorials
Video resources (conference talks, technical deep dives, webinars)
Specifications, community reports, and working documents
New resources are added continuously as they emerge from conferences, working groups, publications, and community contributions.
Call to Action for Fellowship Candidates and the Wider Community
This library is meant to be a shared community asset. As openEHR Fellowship candidates produce research, analyses, or implementation material, you are encouraged to:
Add your own outputs—papers, presentations, posters, blog posts, videos.
Contribute relevant resources you come across in your domain.
Join the curation effort—tagging, organising, improving metadata, ensuring completeness.
Use the library in your research, writing, teaching, and implementation work.
Collectively, we can build and maintain the most comprehensive bibliographic and knowledge index for openEHR, supporting newcomers and experts alike. Please email me if you’d like to join the curation team.
How to Join & Learn Zotero
Getting started is straightforward:
Sign up at https://www.zotero.org
Request to join the openEHR Group Library
Install the browser connector for one-click saving
If you’re new to Zotero, the official Quick Start Guide provides an excellent introduction to the essentials:
👉 https://www.zotero.org/support/quick_start_guide
This video walkthrough is an excellent starter, including using the web browser extension that allows to scrape off all meta-data including full-text papers (if available) with one click. Works like a charm!