Contents
Scenarios of current use
Scenario of a web savvy research student
Student Z logs in to his e-mail on his laptop. Today he’s been sent two e-mails from SARA telling him that the contents of the “British Journal of Educational Research” and “Studies in Anthropology” have been updated. He scans the contents list and follows the direct link to a particular article on race relations in British schools. Scanning the abstract he decides that the article may be useful for his doctoral lit review and follows the link to the full text pdf. He saves the article to his memory stick to print out at his college computer room (where printing is free) and also bookmarks the article for future reference. Next he decides to download the citations to some articles he’s been looking at lately from the ISI Web of Science database. He types in his search criteria for each article and exports the citations straight into the bibliographic software installed on his machine. Through this software Student Z then connects to the University library system and downloads the references to a number of books into his bibliography.
Scenario of an academic creating a reading list for a new course
Prof. X wants to create a reading list for a new module he’s teaching on Old English Literature. In a word processing programme he writes a list of the bibliographic details of each book and journal article he wishes to include. Some references he imports from his bibliographic software. For a number of other items he performs a search in the university library system, and manually types the relevant references into the document. When the document is complete he e-mails it to the departmental librarian to put in the departmental area of the VLE and include in the module handbook.
Book Mark Manager
Dr. S uses furl to save useful articles that she reads on the web. Via RSS she can make these articles accessible to her students via her web page alongside other relevant course materials.
Scenario of a Computer Science Undergrad Student
Student Q studies Computer Science. At the start of term he is given a course pack for each module that he takes. In each module there is a reading list of 7 or 8 relevent books. Most of these are reference books, one of which is the "course text" that is the main and often the only book that her need sto refer to. In the first lecture of term the lecturer goes through the reading list and makes some comments about each item on the list- what the book is particuarly good for, areas it may not cover so well ect. ect. Student Q writes some comments next to the items on the reading list.
When student Q needs to find a book on the list he goes to his college library. He knows where the computer science books are kept and heads strait for that area, the books are organised alphabetically by author so it's easy to find the book he wants. If it's not there he goes to the main Science Library, here he uses the library catalgoue to find where the book is kept.
Scenarios from Librarians
Collected during the Reading Lists Workshop
WS Scenario 1
Each summer Laura Morgan in the Medical School sends an email to all academics,in charge of departmental reading lists, asking them to update their lists. The academics print off their section of the reading list from the web and annotate the changes. These can be new editions of books already on the list, deletions of existing titles and the addition of new titles. These lists are forwarded to me and I check that all the bibliographical details are correct. I order any new books required. I inform Laura or the course leader directly if I find any of the information is incorrect, i.e. books are out of print or new editions are available. We update the reading on our web page to reflect the changes. During the year the list is updated if I discover a new edition had been published or a book has gone out of print. This information is passed to the course leaders.
WS Scenario 2
The point at which we (library staff) become involved in lists is once they've been drawn up by the academics , typically as per the Prof X scenario. We view them on the web, print them off and check them against olis. Our role is enabling access to those books and jnls, by checking that for each title relevant libraries have sufficient copies (and latest editions). If lists are on line, some libs also make links to olis.
WS Scenario 3
We receive semi-formatted reading lists from faculty - probably formatted by their course co-ordinators or secretaries. These generally just list of citations. I don't know if these citations are imported or downloaded - or just typed into the word document.Library staff then mark up lists with holdings information from OLIS for books. We do not link to OLIS for book citations. For journal articles we search our ejournal databases - via TDnet - and make a hyperlink to the html and pdf of the article. When the list is complete we pdf it and post it on the Business School Intranet. Students can access this with the userna,e and password they are given to access the intranet as a whole. We update lists throughout term and repdf / repost them.
WS Scenario 4
The academics produce reading lists and these are included in course handbooks. The Library gets an electronic copy of the reading lists and mounts them on the library web-page with an indication of the copies held and links to the location of the material. This gives us the opportunity to order material needed and to check the references. See http://www2.ouls.ox.ac.uk/edstud/aboutcol.html#Reading%20Lists
WS Scenario 5
Lecturers may rely on paper copies - they make the reading lists, if we're lucky they give it to the library in advance, sometimes first we see is when the student turns up with it in hand.. We will endeavour to make sure everything is avialable and if not advise the lecturere to recommend something else. Some lectureres now put reading lists on weblearn but do not always advise library staff and we may not have access the course pages where they've put it - so checking is even more difficult
WS Scenario 6
Sarah is a lecturer with too many students. In two weeks time she is running a neuroanatomy session in which her group of 150 students won't all fit into the wet lab at the same time. Consequently she has arranged to split the group into two so that 75 work in the wet lab while the other 75 work on computer based materials in the ajacent CAL lab. Her online CAL materials contain a list of links to further reading resources that was compiled several years ago and has moved, largely unchanged, from one CAL session to another. Sarah is able to update the reading list using a WYSIWYG editor, but is slightly technophobic, and often chooses not to. The CAL materials are primarily designed for use in the CAL session, but are often used by students for revision outside the session.
Undergraduate use cases (supplied by Yemi)
Law (Jurisprudence)
- Obtain reading list (either online or from Lecturer)
- With journals available online, click to get the material in digital format
- Journals available only in hardcopy can only be obtained from the Bodlean Law Library
- For Textbooks and Casebook, she checks the College Law library first and if unsuccessful, the Law Bod
- If the books prove very relevant to the course, then she purchases the book
Medicine
- From bedroom, checks on OLIS to see which library (college or Hooke) it is in
- If neither have the book and it is a really good book then she checks on Amazon to purchase the book
Classics
- Gets reading list from lectures
- Checks on OLIS to locate the books
*The Classics library states which journals are online
- If this is the case, she just goes online to obtain the text.
Engineering and most other science courses are similar to that of Medicine.
How do people use the Oxford Library Systems in relation to reading lists?
Finding a Journal Article using OLIS
Level: User goal
Context of use: Find a specific journal article
Primary actor: User (student/staff)
Preconditions: User has access to OLIS
Trigger: The user has been given a reading list which lists a journal article which theyneed to read
Success Guarantee: User finds article adn accessed full text of article
Minimal guarantee: Nothing happens
Main Success Scenario:
1. User navigates to System
1. User selects “Search OLIS via the Web”
1. User selects “Start”
1. User selects “Oxford OLIS”
1. User types in name of journal into search box
1. User returns search results
1. User selects Journal title
1. System returns journal holdings
1. User selects relevant holding
1. User selects “electronic resources”
1. User is taken to journal website
1. User browses to relevant volume, issue no.
1. User selects full text article
Extensions:
User is not logged onto the university network and Journal is not accessible outside of university IP
User logs in via ATHENS
User can not access journal at this time – use case ends.
User wants hard copy journal rather than electronic version
User finds appropriate holding and finds hard copy
Using search details system could not find journal
User enters new search details
User performs web search for article
User asks another for assistance
User gives up – use case ends.
User navigates to TDNET rather than OLIS
User navigates to Journal homepage instead of OLIS
Finding a Journal Article via TDNET
Context of use: Find specific journal article
Primary actor: User (student/staff)
Preconditions: The user knows the article they want to find
Trigger: User needs to read article
Success Guarantee: User gets full test of article
Minimal guarantee: Nothing happens
Main Success Scenario:
1. User navigates to TDNET
1. User types in name of journal into search box
1. System returns search results
1. User selects Publisher of Journal
1. System returns publisher’s website
1. User browses to relevant volume, issue no.
1. User selects full text article
1. User downloads / bookmarks article
Extensions:
User is not logged onto the university network and Journal is not accessible outside of university IP
User logs in via ATHENS
User can not access journal at this time – use case ends.
Using search details system could not find journal
User enters new search details
User asks another for assistance
User gives up – use case ends.
User searches via “article” rather than journal
User navigates to OLIS rather than TDNET
User navigates to Journal homepage instead of TDNET
Finding a Journal Article via TDNET (2)
Context of use: Find specific journal article
Primary actor: User (student/staff)
Preconditions: The user knows the article they want to find
Trigger: User needs to read article
Success Guarantee: User gets full test of article
Minimal guarantee: Nothing happens
Main Success Scenario:
1. User navigates to TDNET
1. User selects “Search TDNET”
1. User types in article title
1. System returns search results
1. User selects “Full Text”
1. System takes user to article provider
1. User selects full text link
1. Article provider returns article
Extensions:
User is not logged onto the university network and Journal is not accessible outside of university IP
User logs in via ATHENS
User can not access journal at this time – use case ends.
Using search details system could not find article
User enters new search details
User uses browse functionality rather than search
User asks another for assistance
User searches via “journal” rather than article
User navigates to OLIS rather than TDNET
User navigates to Journal homepage instead of TDNET
<strong>System Limitations:</strong> TDNET is rarely successful in searching for specific articles and google type seach is poor. Linking to full text only seems to be available in the article is From EBSCO ( Business Source Premier ) and another few providers. The number of steps to take the user to the full text are too many.
Finding Items in OLIS using Endnote
Level: User goal
Context of use: Update Endnote library with OLIS holdings
Primary actor: User (student/staff)
Preconditions: The has a list of items that they want to add to their endnote library
Trigger: User needs to create bibliography
Success Guarantee: User updates endnote library
Minimal guarantee: Nothing happens
Main Success Scenario:
1. User opens Endnote
1. User connects to University of Oxford Library System
1. User enters search terms
1. System returns search results
1. User downloads results
1. User deletes irrelevant results
1. User saves remaining results to endnote library
Extensions:
Using search details system could not find article
User enters new search details
User asks another for assistance
User gives up – use case ends.
There are no irrelevant results for user to delete.
User does not delete irrelevant results
<strong>System limitations: </strong> URL to OLIS record not included, Search functionality poor, Only searches for Books and Journal titles, not specific articles
Creating a Reading List from OLIS holdings
Level: User goal
Context of use: Create reading list for website
Primary actor: User (departmental librarian)
Preconditions: The user has a list of items to add to a reading list
Trigger: User has to make reading list accessible for the start of term
Success Guarantee: User publishes reading list
Minimal guarantee: Nothing happens
Main Success Scenario:
1. User navigates to OLIS
1. User finds book/article in OLIS (see use case 1)
1. User “Mark’s Record”
1. User notes number of holdings in local library
1. User e-mails record as “reading list” to themselves
1. User creates html reading list in text editor from individually e-mailed bibliographic references and noted holdings.
1. User marks up the number of holdings for each item as a link to its record in OLIS.
1. User uploads reading list to web.
Extensions:
Using search details system could not find article
User enters new search details
User uses browse functionality rather than search
User asks another for assistance
User gives up – use case ends.
User creates reading list for course handbook rather than website.
User e-mails marked record as “HTML email”, “Bibliographic data only” or “Normal”.
User does not create link to OLIS record.
User makes another part of the record the link to the OLIS record (e.g.Title).
User wants to add journal article, web document or other item to the list rather than a book.