supporting serendipitous discovery in the scholarly research process

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Beyond Search

Supporting Serendipity in the Scholarly Research Process

While we do our best to answer as many questions as we can, time constraints may not allow us to answer every question. Thank you for

understanding.

Send us your questions!Send in your questions via the Question Box on your screen. →

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#SAGETalks.

Gary PriceEditor,

Library Journal’s infoDOCKET

SAGE White PapersLettie Conrad & Alan Maloney

http://bit.ly/23Z99d4

Lettie Conrad

• Executive Product Analysis Manager• Leads Discovery & Access programs

At SAGE, we take seriously our obligation to ensure readers get to the SAGE content they need as smoothly and effectively as possible wherever their starting point and regardless of their device.

Expecting the Unexpected

What do users need beyond search?How are those needs and expectations formed? Does demography or context impact these expectations?How are publishers servicing those indirect discovery needs?What happens when users aren’t sure what they’re looking for?

Research Methods

UX research Survey Interviews

Undergraduate Students u u

Masters/PhD Students u u

Faculty u u uContent & Tech

Providers u

Defining terms

• Types of search

• Known-item searching

• Exploratory searching

• Re-finding

• Don’t know what you need to know

SERENDIPITY!

What is serendipity?

1. the finding of unexpected information (relevant to the goal or not) while engaged in any information activity

2. the making of an intellectual leap of understanding with that information to arrive at an insight.

Andre, P., Teevan, J., Dumais, S. T., ‘Discovery Is Never by Chance: Designing for (Un)Serendipity’, C&C ‘09, October 26-30, 2009, Berkeley, California, USA

Why does serendipity matter?• Students and researchers re-frame their information need as

they go

• Some useful information discoveries are unintentional

• People like serendipity: it delights users

Designing for serendipity may be the holy grail of the search experience.

Russell-Rose, T., Tate, T. (2013). Designing the Search Experience: The Information Architecture of Discovery. Waltham, MA: Morgan Kaufmann.

Beyond search

• Email alerts

• Following citations

• Human recommendations

• Machine recommendations / relatedness

Recommendations as discovery

90% faculty 78% students

Online recommendations are about as useful than those I receive from peers

Context is key!How important are the following factors when evaluating recommended content?

• Related to my field of study• Can access the full text• Recognize / trust the provider

Listed as "also read" by other users

From a recognized / trustworthy publisher

Recommended by a peer / faculty member

From a known author / expert

Uses your search terms / keywords

Titles that look interesting / compelling

Relevant to your field

Titles that appear relevant for your studies

0.00% 25.00% 50.00% 75.00% 100.00%

When presented with links to recommended content, which factors motivate you to click on one or more

such links? (check all that apply)

Faculty Undergrads

Content types – students

1. Journals2. Books3. Case studies4. Multimedia

Content types – faculty

1. Journals2. Books3. Stats / datasets4. Conference reports

Industry research

Alan Maloney

• Sr. Product Analyst, Taxonomy & Semantic Technology• Leads Interlinking & Metadata programs

Content is arguably the thing that a publisher should do best.

Unplanned discovery in context

● ‘Researchers’ expectations are being set not by improvements relative to the past but rather by reference to consumer internet services’*

* Schonfeld, R. C. (2015, March 26). Meeting researchers where they start: Streamlining access to scholarly resources. Retrieved from http://sr.ithaka.org?p=241038

● ‘Researchers’ expectations are being set not by improvements relative to the past but rather by reference to consumer internet services’

● Amazon ‘integrates recommendations into every part of the purchasing process’*

* Mangalindan, J. P. (2012, July 30). Amazon’s recommendation secret. Fortune. Retrieved from http:// fortune.com/2012/07/30/amazons-recommendation-secret/

● ‘Researchers’ expectations are being set not by improvements relative to the past but rather by reference to consumer internet services’

● Amazon ‘integrates recommendations into every part of the purchasing process’

● Spotify ‘uses playlists as the common currency’ to show users undiscovered music*

* Pasick, A. (2015, December 21). The magic that makes Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlists so damn good. Quartz. Retrieved from http://qz.com/571007/the-magic-that-makes-spotifys-discover-weekly-playlists-so-damn-good/

(Pasick, 2015)

Is academic discovery different?

• Objectives are (slightly) different• There’s not as much data• Consumer psychology focuses on retail• Academic content is more personal

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2015/04/09/academic-promotion-scholars-popular-media/

The popular-personal continuum

Popular Personal

Big data Small data

Network-driven Content-driven

mass market retail

entertainment

scholarly research

(Our) principles for serendipitous discovery

• Academic research is personal.• Content-focused, not behaviour-focused.• Point of serendipitous discovery is the current, specific

information need.• Serendipity should be unexpected.• Serendipity happens when people cross boundaries.• Serendipity is only useful when someone can make

sense of the surprise information.

• Content-focused, not behaviour-focused.• Point of serendipitous discovery is the current, specific

information need.• Academic research is personal.• Serendipity should be unexpected.• Serendipity happens when people cross boundaries.• Serendipity is only useful when someone can make

• Content-focused, not behaviour-focused.• Point of serendipitous discovery is the current, specific

information need.• Academic research is personal.• Serendipity should be unexpected.• Serendipity happens when people cross boundaries.• Serendipity is only useful when someone can make

While we do our best to answer as many questions as we can, time constraints may not allow us to answer every question. Thank you for

understanding.

Send us your questions!Send in your questions via the Question Box on your screen. →

Using Twitter? Use the hashtag

#SAGETalks.

Webinar recording, slides, and follow-up Q&A will be emailed to you and available on sagepub.com/sagetalks

Thank you!

Alan Maloney Alan.Maloney@sagpeub.com Lettie ConradLettie.Conrad@sagepub.com

Be sure to check our website for updates on our webinar series!

SAGE White Papers

http://bit.ly/23Z99d4

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