1. Sakaibrary Project Update: Subject Research Guides
December 6, 2007

2. Background
Collaborative project of Indiana University Libraries and the University of Michigan Library
Funded by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Project partners
Northwestern, UC-Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, Yale, Stanford

3. Sakaibrary Project Goals
Build tools to provide seamless integration of content from licensed library databases within Sakai for instructors
Leverage existing library technology infrastructure
Prototype functionality for librarians to present content in Sakai and students to discover licensed content within Sakai
Engage librarians, students, and faculty in the design and testing
Mellon-funded grant project

4. Project Focus Citations helper - new features in 2.5
Working prototype of Subject Research Guides (SRG) by June

5. Milestones Usage scenarios – March 2006
First phase implementation – October 2006
Citation list as Sakai resource
Searching library resources through OSID connector to metasearch tools
OpenURL linking
Usability testing – November 2006
Reworked designs - Dec thru Feb 2007
Quality Assurance - March thru April 2007
Released citations helper in Sakai May 2007
Mention what Sakai is - backend for CTools.
List the partners: Northwestern, Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, Yale, Stanford - March meeting.

6. Example: Usage Scenario
Summary:
Dr. Smith teaches an introductory course in the History department. For the course research paper, he wants to point his students to scholarly resources available via the library, rather than have them use Google. Dr. Smith also wants his students to have easy access to reference librarians for research help, as well as understand the basics of plagiarism.

7. The Research Process and Student Learning
Librarians regularly teach sessions on information research within a course
Faculty to develop course assignments which require it
Librarians provide reference services and support for the process 7

8. The Subject Research Guide
Research guides lead a new researcher to the best sources and research tools for a discipline or topic
Teach the process of information discovery and selection
Vary greatly in level of depth and specificity 8

9. The Subject Research Guide
Offer resources and services to for continued exploration or support
Offer asynchronous instruction to users at their convenience
Typically delivered through library web sites 9

10. Course-specific Research Guides
Faculty requested
Developed as part of a Web CMS
Pre-Sakai integration
Post-Sakai integration
Sample Courses
Page visits
Page visit
Increase
Public Speaking (100 level)
4783
5670
26%
Basic Composition (100 level)
2799
6177
65%
Advanced Writing (300 level)
290
319 9%
Social Science (300 level)
333
405
18%
Total
8205
12571
34% 10

11. SRG Examples Psychology – University of Michigan Graduate Library
Accounting – Rutgers University Library
Language & Literature – Oregon State University Library 11

12. 12

13. 13

14. 14

15. SRG Data Elements Title and other metadata
Citations and citation lists
Links to library databases
Canned search link for Web, database, or library catalog
Constrained search box for Web, databases, or library catalog
RSS feeds
Links to arbitrary web sites
Links to people (e.g. subject librarian)
Freeform rich text
Audio files
Comments and annotations

16. SRG Organization
Various ways to organize guides and components of guides:
Type of resource
Subject and sub-area
Course and coursework (syllabus, assignments)
Information need
Type of user
Document structure needs to be flexible
Storage as XML document
Potential interchange format with other systems

17. SRG Authoring Need to support: Creation Editing Sharing
Using existing guides as templates
Authoring by librarians and others (instructors, students)

18. SRG Authoring Authoring interface should be flexible and interactive
Use of AJAX/DHTML
Probably based on RSF and Dojo
Looking at Fluid toolkit
Learn from other similar UIs:
LibGuides
Google Notebook
Probably implemented as Sakai tool

21. SRG Timeline
Goal: Develop initial version by Summer 2008 Sakai Conference
Mellon grant ends June 2008
Seek additional funding to complete development

22. SRG Issues
Sharing
Organization
Content ownership

23. More Information Project web site: Contrib:Sakaibrary Confluence site:
Contrib:Sakaibrary Confluence site:
display/SLIB/