zero to hero: engaging academics and enhancing the student experience with readinglists@leicester -...
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Slides from a session by Joanne Dunham, Head of Collections & Information Systems, University of Leicester from the Talis Aspire Open Day 30 October 2013.TRANSCRIPT
Zero to Hero: Engaging Academics and Enhancing the student experience with
readinglists@LeicesterJoanne Dunham
Head of Collections & Information Systems
The Leicester Experience
From Zero….Where we started from
Implementing readinglists@Leicester
Case Study: Department of Geography
…. To Hero and beyond
Work in progress
From Zero …..
• No longer saw Reading Lists unless new course, module, lecturer
• Module Requirement Forms• Word Documents, Web pages, printed lists• No consistency on VLE (Blackboard)
Talis Aspire Reading Lists
• Why Talis Aspire?• Implementation
Kick OffMarch 2012
Rollout to academicsNov 2012
First Lists being Used
Semester 2 Feb 2013
Training, marketing & promotion more lists
Review process, Rollover
Academic Session 2013/14
Blackboard Integration
• Blackboard Integration– Upgrade – Guidelines & template– Training
Champions
• Champions– Seed Lists– Training– Targets
Case Study: GeographyGeography (Human Geography)Then – initial discussion with Liaison Librarian• Using Word documents to construct reading lists, putting links but not with prefixes to enable off-site
access, indicating where items are available via Leicester eLink (journals A-Z) or as eBooks• Uses a mixture of books, articles, Blackboard scans (digitised chapters/articles) and weblinks on reading
lists• Creating a reading list per lecture currently• Struggles to keep reading lists up-to-date: has ordered items, but not always recently• Feedback from students suggests that they have trouble locating the range of sources recommended• Feels that it’s more important for students to quickly access and read reading list items than to spend time
finding them• Feels finding materials is part of the dissertation process, rather than day-to-day modules• Noticed students have been asking for reading lists earlier and earlier (e.g. in December last year for
February module) and feels greater access would be a benefit• Interested in open access, so comfortable with lists being openly available• Liked the layout of demonstration reading lists, particularly interested in seeing the back end of the system
(sending video as follow up)• Only major concern was amount of time creating and maintaining lists would require
Case Study: Geography
http://readinglists.le.ac.uk/lists/37C7D3FD-7612-D210-2494-260C1947CAA9.html
Case StudyNOW – having created reading list for Semester 2 2012/13“As it happens we had a long debate in the Human Geography research group meeting last week about whether we would wholly embrace the system or not. There were some concerns about it, but after we had discussed it at length we have agreed to all adopt it.”
So I would say: 'We have been trialling the Readinglists@Leicester for a year now and have recently decided that all human geography teaching will use them. There were concerns as to whether we might be 'dumbing down' students by giving them 'too easy' click-through reading lists, and that that would discourage them from developing their own research skills. Some staff were also worried about the time it takes to initially establish the list. However, the feedback from students is that they love the lists for easy access to readings. We have also found that there has been a dramatic reduction in the number of emails from students struggling to find readings, we can monitor what they are reading, the library knows what is in demand, and staff are confident that students have no excuses. It is considerably easier than Blackboard. From what we can tell in their assessments students appear to be reading more. In terms of workload the lists have been relatively easy to set up (lots of is it automated via Amazon etc.), and are easy to edit (easier than finding dated word documents to update). We will be using them on all our courses for next year.'
……To Hero• Departmental Uptake – some examples
– Geology– Physics– Interdisciplinary Sciences
• Journal clubs• Supporting supervision
– History of Art– Criminology– Education
• Students Union Education Officer• Careers Service• Pre-Sessional Information
Statistics
October 2012• Visits: 687• Unique Visitors: 417• Page Views: 6,047
1st – 17th October 2013• Visits: 7,176• Unique visitors: 3,493• Page Views: 35,362
Trained 261 academic staff
Growth in Reading lists31 July 2013: 14530 August 2013: 17616 September 2013: 21124 October 2013: 310
Statistics 1/8/13 to 17/10/13
21% of visits over 10 minutes; 7.7% of visits over 30 minutes
Statistics: Mon 14th October 2013
New Processes
• New Processes– Reviews and Acquisitions Workflow• Purchasing formula• Oasis EDI
– Link Checking and Metadata
Reviews & Acquisitions
Reading List Sent for ReviewList
Reviewed Decision to purchaseView in Oasis
ORDERED
LMS‘quote’
Ordered via EDIReceived
& Invoiced
Linked to Library catalogueReading List
Purchasing Formula
Fund, loan status added
Shelf readyEbooks added; link report run
Digitised content
Non Oasis orders
The Future
• TADC• Devolved Constraints• New Blackboard Building Block• Hit our target!