Exporting references from BibDesk to Stud.IP

I maintain a significant BibTeX database with all the scientific literature that I ever come across. Recently, I needed to publish a list of recommended literature for a course I was teaching at the University of Passau.

As many other German universities, Passau is using an online platform called Stud.IP where teaching staff can maintain course material and provide easy access for students. (As a side note, this system is very mature and user friendly, quite the opposite to certain other systems with similar intentions like PAUL).

Anyways, uploading a list of publications is a breeze if you have the list in the right format already. Unfortunately, Stud.IP doesn’t like BibTeX files, but it is happy to accept XML.

So I installed the following template

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
        <xml>
	  <$publications>
          <eintrag>
            <titel><$fields.Title.stringByRemovingTeX/></titel>
            <autor><$fields.Author.stringByRemovingTeX/></autor>
            <beschreibung></beschreibung>
            <herausgeber><$fields.Publisher.stringByRemovingTeX/></herausgeber>
            <ort></ort>
            <isbn></isbn>
            <jahr><$fields.Year.stringByRemovingTeX/></jahr>
          </eintrag>
	  </$publications>
        </xml>

in in the BibTeX preferences under “Template Files”. Then I could select all the publications I wanted to recommend to my students, right-click, select “Copy Using Template -> My Stud.IP XML Template” and was all set.