Sakaibrary in 2.4: User Feedback Guides Development

Jon Dunn and Mark Notess

Digital Library Program

Indiana University

Sakaibrary Background

• Partnership of Indiana University (IU) and University of Michigan (UM) Libraries

• Supported by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and IU/UM

• Original grant: January 2006 – June 2007• Extended through June 2008

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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

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Additional Sakaibrary Project Partners

• Libraries at:– Johns Hopkins University– Northwestern University– Stanford University– Yale University– University of California Berkeley

Sakaibrary Core Team

• Indiana University– Jon Dunn - project management– Steve Smail - development– Mark Notess – user interface/usability

• University of Michigan– Susan Hollar - project management– Gaurav Bhatnagar, Jim Eng, Bill Dueber - development– Deborah Bracken - administrative support, QA

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Milestones So Far

• March 2006: Usage scenarios• May 2006: Requirements• October 2006: First implementation• November 2006: Usability testing• Spring 2007: Pilot testing, development for

release with Sakai 2.4

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Citations Helper: In Brief

• New functionality in Sakai 2.4• Enables users to search and retrieve

citations and make stable URLs to content with Sakai

• Uses library metasearch tools, Google Scholar, and/or manual adding of citations

• Embedded within the Resources tool

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Add Citations

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Basic Search

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Search Results

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Revise Citation List

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Google Scholar

Full text via OpenURL through SFX

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Pilot Usage Evaluation

• Spring 2007• Graduate library science course• Used first version of Sakaibrary, running on Sakai 2.3, on a

separate server• Students had five assignments to

– find a citation on a course topic– annotate the citation– post it in the course Resources

• Also, two assignments to comment on other students’ annotations

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analysis

Evaluation Designmid-semester

class visit/discussion

late semesterweb-based

survey

post-semesterinstructorinterview

issues &

recommendations

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annotation with HTML markup

displays citation details

Viewing the Citation List

OpenURL leads to SFX resolver page

Findings

• Students and instructor saw value in Sakai/library integration– for their own use– for students’ future use as librarians

• Assignments were not a great fit with Sakaibrary version 1– no advanced search– little support for collaborative use– kludgy annotation– no way to combine lists to keep for reference

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Other Issues

• Running pilot on a separate server– required extra windows and extra clicks– IE security issues kept some users out of pilot

server

• General Sakai issues– tool statefulness continues to annoy– tab management isn’t salient enough

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Key Recommendations

• Support collaborative use– provide citation search & paste within the rich text editor

(would resolve multiple issues)– support citations & citation lists as embeddable objects

within Sakai

• Improve search– database selection [done in Sakai 2.4]– fielded search [done in Sakai 2.4]– date specification, relevance ranking, indication of

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Project Next Steps

• Support pilots using Sakai 2.4 at IU, UM, and partner sites

• Help others get Citations Helper up and running• Work on improved Citations Helper functionality

for Sakai 2.5 in December 2007– Sorting/reordering of results sets and citation lists– Importing from EndNote, RefWorks, etc.– Adding citations from within Rich Text Editor

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QuickTime™ and aTIFF (LZW) decompressor

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Project Next Steps(continued)

• Explore other means of getting citations into Sakai– Search engines, browser plugins

• Create Research Guides prototype– Pages providing research support for a specific

course or subject

• DLF Aquifer project• Follow-on project?

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Subject Research Guides

• Support faculty and librarian creation of:– Constrained searches– Canned searches– Links to specific electronic resources– Help guides– Links to contact librarians: chat, e-mail, course

discussion forum– Other library sources

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Questions As Yet Unanswered

• Who will use search within the CMS?• Will metasearching ever be good enough?• Will OpenURL link resolution work consistently

enough for full text access?• How will the Sakai development model work in

libraries?– Will other institutions be able to step up to tackle other

library integration issues?

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More Information

• Project Web Site: www.sakaibrary.org– Contains a link to the project Wiki on

confluence.sakaiproject.org

• Test Server: sakaibrary.umdl.umich.edu

• Contact us: sakaibrary@umich.edu