“Gloriously straightforward”: Removing barriers to resource discovery

Suzanne Tatham, Academic Services Manager Chris Keene, Technical Development Manager

Background

• Push from students

• Complaints from academics

• NSS - “not enough copies of core texts”

Issues: students use other systems

• Students and academics saw Reading lists as a separate system

• Students use Study Direct (Moodle) and Module Handbooks for information

• Needed a fully integrated approach (at least for students) to hide separate system

Study direct

• Moodle

• Small team in IT Services

• Very strong focus on student/tutor feedback and needs.

• Regular user testing and monitoring to discovery pain points and confusion.

• http://blogs.sussex.ac.uk/elearningteam/

Study Direct

• Led to the removal of blocks, boxes and Moodle modules down the side of the screen. Students found them confusing. Found no one was using them.

• This included previous library block which included a basic link to the reading list.

Process

• Sat round table with e-learning team. Set context, explain reasons.

• Made it clear it was something students and staff had raised, not a library pet project. Plus other benefits of increased use of reading list system such as acquisition of relevant materials.

Process

After much discussion…

• …core code developed quickly by e-learning team.

• Some tricky bits to think about around the roll over of both Moodle modules and Aspire lists, and allowing users to access historical information.

• Testing, and then live summer 2013.

• http://vimeo.com/61188252

Workflow: tutors add a resource

Workflow: pick a section

Workflow:

give it a title

Behind the scenes

Study Direct Aspire

Study direct asks for the html for the list (just like a web browser)

Aspire sends html back

No APIs used (didn’t provide information required) Use Aspires ‘nice urls’ which include the module code and year.

Student feedback

• Interviews held with History, Philosophy, Psychology and Sociology undergraduate students

• Asked about their use of their online reading lists and the choices they make about what to read

How have you found the integrated

online reading list?

Do you think having your list integrated within the

VLE has made it easier to access the items on the

list?

How useful do you find it being able to link

through directly to the item on the list, including

print books in the Library?

What influences your decision on which item you

choose to read?

Do you use ebooks often?

Do you feel that having an online reading list

makes any difference to you to how you approach

your reading?

How are we measuring success?

• Interviews with academics and students

• Google analytics to get page views – adding student numbers

• Looking for knock-on effect on print use

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MeasuringSpoons.jpg

Increased use of resources

• So far, only 7% of reading lists have been integrated into the VLE but 35% of the top 100 items viewed are on an integrated list

Item Title Pageviews Integrated?

Av item

views per

student

Student

numbers Format

No. of

items

on list

Copies

history

The economics of money, banking and financial markets 186 5.03 37 Book 4 198

Letters from an American Farmer - Jean de Crèvecœur: Letter

III 'What is American?' 447 4.56 98 Webpage 60

Algeria: France's undeclared war 219 Yes 3.65 60 47

Killing as Punishment 61 Yes 3.59 17 Book 101 12

The first modern society: essays in English history in honour

of Lawrence Stone 58 Yes 3.41 17

Digitised

extract 101 2

The Cultural Lives of Capital Punishment 57 Yes 3.35 17 Book 101 44

Business and its environment 110 Yes 3.24 34 Book 175 30

Family therapy: first steps towards a systemic approach 56 2.24 25 Book 1 17

The handbook of global companies 75 Yes 2.21 34 Book 175 37

Business, politics, and society: an Anglo-American 74 2.18 34 Book 175 6

The making of economic society 70 Yes 2.06 34 Book 175

Nation, Society and Culture in North Africa 104 Yes 1.73 60 Book 167 27

How Brown Changed Race Relations: The Backlash Thesis 58 1.71 34 Article 86 1

Men in wonderland: the lost girlhood of the Victorian gentleman 675 1.68 402 Book 189 9

Photography in Print: Writings from 1816 to the present 308 1.47 209 Book 82 40

Philosophy of Perception: A Contemporary Introduction 62 Yes 1.44 43

Digitised

extract 122 32

Contemporary security studies 86 1.43 60 Book 166 25

Laughter out of place: race, class, violence, and sexuality in a

Rio shantytown 85 1.42 60 Book 166 33

The Israel/Palestine question: a reader 80 Yes 1.33 60 Book 167 28

Security beyond the state: private security in international

politics 79 1.32 60 Book 166 0

American Identities 76 1.27 60 Book 89 1

The Arab state 73 Yes 1.22 60 Book 167

Towards a new American nation?: redefinitions and 87 1.21 72 Book 272 21

Tracks 261 1.19 220

Digitised

extract 60 5

An introduction to the anthropology of Melanesia: culture and

tradition 69 Yes 1.15 60

Digitised

extract 40 57

Average views per item (top 100 items)

0.00

0.50

1.00

1.50

2.00

2.50

3.00

3.50

4.00

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

Items on integrated lists

Items on non-integrated lists

Feedback from academics

Learning Technologist, Dr Anne Hole, carried out a series of interviews with academics. • Benefits of integration from academics’ points of view:

▫ Very easy to embed sections of the reading list into the VLE ▫ Section-by-section integration increases students’

engagement with the reading ▫ It keeps all resources for the module in one place ▫ Increased accessibility of online resources ▫ Requires time investment but off-set by student benefit –

they’re likely to do more reading

“Some colleagues are a little apprehensive that providing clickable links to readings is making it too easy for students and risks failing to develop their research and library skills. On the other hand, removing obstacles to finding readings for increasingly time-poor students has the potential to increase the amount of reading that they can do.”

https://rustleblog.wordpress.com/2014/01/13/putting-reading-at-the-heart-of-study-direct/

Student engagement

• If lists are used and updated in a dynamic way, do students get an insight into scholarly communication?

“He’s bothered to engage with you and you feel you’re more part of an academic dialogue. He’s building the course and it’s still an area that’s of interest to him.”

Spoon-feeding?

• Do you agree with the argument that locating items on a reading list is an academic skill that students should learn?