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Customized Library Resources for Learners
Educause Midwest Regional ConferenceMarch 18, 2008
Library Course Pages
Marc Boucher, Patricia Fellows, Mark Robson
Copyright UW Board of Regents 2008. This work is the intellectual property of the author. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the author.
University of Wisconsin Colleges
Institutional Overview
Who we really are!
• Geographically dispersed institution
• Autonomous campuses and libraries
• One institution with governance bodies for departments and units across the institution
• Common course management system
In the beginning…
• UW System Libraries created a committee in January 2006 to investigate better integration with CMS
• University of Rochester and UW Madison models– http://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?page=courses– http://www.library.wisc.edu/lcp/
• Independent development of UW Colleges model began May 2006
• Committee recommendation included Colleges model as one of four potential models
Initial Goals
• Provide library/research materials to students at the point of need
• Integrate tools from different library platforms to create a ‘One Stop Shop’
• Course specific content
• If instructors do not choose to participate, students still receive customized service.
• Provide a useful tool to organize library instruction sessions
Access methods
• Link from library web page
• Integrated into Course Management System (D2L)
• Links provided by teacher directly to students
Features
• Library Contact Information (Hours, Phone etc)• Class Information (Instructor, Meeting Dates/Times)• Syllabus and Course Comments• Citation Guides• Reserves (Traditional and E-Reserve)• Research Databases (Individual and Aggregator)• Library Catalog Search Box• Research Tutorials• CourseCasts• Recommended Websites• Library Announcements
Library Information
• Campus branding - Logo
• Library name
• Default library staff contact
• Photo
• Contact form
• Hours
• Chat (if available)
Class Information
• Imported from Course Catalog
• Course Name (Ex: Anthropology 100)
• Course Description (Ex: General Anthropology)
• Instructor name
• Meeting date/time
Course Comments and Syllabus
• Instructor’s personalized message to class
• Used to remind students of research requirements
• Syllabus can be uploaded – we currently put them in pdf format
• Both of these fields are optional and are not included by default
Citation Guides
• Indicates the preferred citation format
• Links to locally produced citation guides
• Links to other campus’ guides for more obscure formats
• This is a departmental selection, but may be changed by the instructor
Reserves
• Traditional reserves provides links into the online catalog to display what is available
• E-Reserves provides a direct link to the article through a copyright acceptance page
• If reserves are used by a teacher, they are automatically incorporated into the LCP
• Imported from Voyager library catalog system
Research Databases
• Links to subscription research databases
• Relevant to course content
• The UW Colleges libraries subscribe to over 100 databases – can be overwhelming
• These are set by academic department for the default page, but can be (and often are) customized at the section level
Database Aggregator
• Uses Ex Libris’ Metalib
• Allows faculty to create a customized search across multiple databases
• Faculty can choose to integrate a search box that will search chosen databases directly from the LCP
• Due to the specific nature, these are not set by default – must be requested by instructor
Library Catalog Search
• Provides a text box to directly search the online catalog for books or other library holdings
• Students can select keyword, author, subject etc…
Research Tutorials
• Most commonly these are Flash based tutorials created in Captivate
• Colleges Libraries are working on creating a larger collection from which faculty can pick and choose
• Independent library/research concepts such as
– Determining Scholarly Sources
– How to access E-Reserves
– Requesting materials from other campuses
CourseCasting
• If the instructor participates in the UW Colleges CourseCasting program, lectures are automatically integrated into Library Course Pages
• Pulls data from the CourseCasting program
Recommended Websites
• Provides links to subject specific websites
• Placing these in their own fields differentiates them from the subscription databases
• Set at the departmental level
• Can be customized by the instructor
Library Announcements
• Provides an area for a library to disseminate information across all classes on campus
• Often used to promote upcoming library events
• These are set at the campus level
Design Considerations
• Branding
• Consistency
• Minimize scrolling
• Group contact info on sidebar
• Group research information together
Setting the Defaults
• Library Level Settings
– Link to home page
– Selection of default librarian
– Contact information (joint email account)
– Library hours
• Department Level Settings
– Citation guides
– Research databases
– Recommended websites
Desire2Learn Integration
• Since 2003 we have worked to integrate library services with our CMS
• With Library Course Pages we provide an embedded link to the library on our course homepages
Promotion
• Summer 2007: Correspondence with Department Chairs to gather feedback regarding defaults
• Summer/Fall 2007: Emails to faculty to make them aware of Library Course Pages
• Fall 2007: Relied almost entirely on student self-discovery and faculty promotion
• Spring 2008: Email to students on the Washington and Online campuses. Encouraged other library directors to do the same.
Statistics
Semester Total Classes
Page Hits
Outbound Links
Entry method
Fall 2007 2488 32335 15842 31.6% CMS68.4% Direct
Winterim 2008
47 329 1771 13.0% CMS87.0% Direct
Spring 2008(1st 7 weeks)
2276 21959 14931 33.4% CMS66.6% Direct
Feedback
• Survey conducted in Spring 2008 semester
– Only 50% of students were aware of LCPs
– Students are interested and want more promotion
– 100% of students who used an LCP found them to be useful
– Roughly 20% of faculty have integrated LCPs into their instruction
How does this all work?
• ASP web pages to provide dynamic content
• SQL database stores information related to each class (and the defaults)
• Imports data from:
– Students Registration System
– Library Catalog (Voyager)
– CourseCasting program
Creating the page
• Each field has its own variable
• As the page is loaded, the page builds by filling in the data for each field that is assigned to that class
• If there is nothing assigned to a class, the page uses departmental defaults
• Faculty work with campus librarians to customize their pages
What do you need to do this?
• Web Server
• Database Server
• Course Catalog information
• Library Catalog information
• Staffing:
– Committee for layout and defaults
– Programmer to create/maintain project
– Librarians to work with individual instructors
Contact Information
• Marc Boucher
• Patricia Fellows
• Mark Robson
