1. Institutional Portals & Delivery of Library Related Subject Resources^
Or VLEs
Institutional Portals & Delivery of Library Related Subject Resources
Malcolm Moffat
Institute for Computer Based Learning
Heriot-Watt University.

2. About me Subject Librarian EEVL Service & Projects
ICBL Research Associate

3. HW University Library c
What is an Institutional Portal?

4. EEVL Service
c. 2003
How can we get EEVL related resource used in IPs or VLEs?
Means to Embed EEVL search Functionality e.g.
- Simple HTML searchbox, Z39.50, WSRP
Provision of Subject Based RSS feeds e.g.
- New RSS feeds of EEVL Resources
- Collection of Subject Based RSS feeds
Embedding of Infoskills Training Materials in VLEs

5. PerX Project
2005-7
2 year JISC Project to develop an engineering subject based cross search pilot & investigate issues.

6. PerX Project
2005-7
Task 33 - Embed cross search functionality within VLE at HW on a proof of concept basis.
Icbltest1/icbl>Content test search>Tools>Pilot Cross Search

7. PerX VLE Embedding

8. PerX VLE Embedding

9. PerX VLE Embedding Cross search results passed in XML to VLE
Potential for results to be re-used and manipulated in VLE e.g.
Exported/Saved
ed/posted to discussion forum
Creating reference lists

10. Questionnaire (x17) Library users
PerX VLE Evaluation
Questionnaire (x17) Library users
Subject based cross search services are useful?
Agree 13, Don’t Know 4, Disagree 0
Usefulness of embedding library resources in VLE?
Useful 14, Don’t Know 1, Not Useful 2
What other elements of HW OPAC results are needed?
Loan Status, Number of Copies
Usefulness of being able to re-use/manipulate results in VLE?
Useful 10, Don’t Know 4, Not Useful 3
Which means to re-use results would be most useful?
Exporting results (15 votes)
Saving to Personal VLE Storage (14 votes)
ing/Posting Results Discussion Board (12 votes)
Adding to Assignments (9 votes)

11. Further Information
(2003) EEVL, VLEs, Institutional and Library Portals
(2007) Report on Embedding and Reusing PerX in a VLE
(2007) Building Bridges with Blocks: Assisting digital library and Virtual Learning Environment integration through reusable middleware

15. PerX Feedback Views on Pilot (n=50)
94% believed there was a need for an engineering cross search service.
79% said that they were able to find useful information using the pilot
89% thought that adding more content would increase its usefulness

16. PerX Feedback Views on Subject Based approach
Google Results are already very good - competition is high.
Need to stress that Perx is searching content sources which may be difficult/impossible to find via Google.
Work is required to increase the relevance of Perx hits.
Possible advantages of the Subject Based Approach include; efficiency/time savings, searching with subject specific terms, higher quality hits, novel content which is hard to find using search engines.