1 Out of the Question!... How We Are Using Our Students’ Virtual Reference Questions to Add a Personal Touch to a Virtual World Pascal Lupien Lorna Rourke.

1

Out of the Question!... How We Are Using Our Students’ Virtual Reference Questions to Add a Personal

Touch to a Virtual World

Pascal LupienLorna Rourke

Academic Liaison LibrariansUniversity of Guelph, Ontario, Canada

CIL —24 March 2006

2

What We’ll Do Today• Background--about our project

• What the questions told us

• How we’re using students’ questions to enhance our library services

• Adjournment (off to the bars!)

3

In Other Words We’ll Talk About

• What we did

• What we learned

• What we did with what we learned

4

An Overview of Our Project

• Using Docutek Virtual Reference software

• Analysis of transcripts—examined the questions our users are asking… in order serve them more effectively

5

…Our Project…• Opportunity to use transcripts to analyze the

words students use—are they the same words libraries use?

• Using transcripts with other methods—Q&A board, anecdotal ref. desk, relationships with faculty and students, etc. Much not written down … these complement everything else we do

6

Background Information…• About the University of Guelph

16,748 Full-time Undergraduate and Graduate Enrolments; 16,000 Distance Education course enrolments

7

…About Our VR Service:

• Offered since 2001• 10 staff—Librarians and Library Associates • Monday to Friday, daytime• Just added MSN chat to Docutek

8

Literature Review

What has been written so far:

• Types of questions asked in VR vs. traditional Ref. Desk

• Identifying types of users, resources

• Quality of responses based on ACRL Standards

9

Literature Review

How our focus is different:

• VR transcripts provide a record of the LANGUAGE / WORDS students use

• We wanted to use the students’ words to create a knowledgebase that would be searchable using the students’ language

10

Work of John Kupersmith…(U. California, Berkeley)

• Want to acknowledge Kupersmith’s work regarding “Library terms that users understand”—based on usability testing of websites, focus groups, etc.

• http://www.jkup.net/terms.html

11

*Now…the Details of Our Project

Methodology:

• Reviewed and analyzed over 600 Virtual Reference questions

• Reviewed entire transcript only if clarification of what the user wanted was needed

12

Results of our Analysis—What We Found Out

13

Categories• Sears, J. Chat reference service: An

analysis of one semester's data. Issues in Science & Technology Librarianship, 32.

• Katz, W.A. Questions and Searches. Introduction to Reference Work, Volume I: Basic Information Sources. 8th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill.

14

What Types of Questions?

• Directional

• Policy and procedure

• Ready reference

• Specific search

15

What Types of Questions?

Directional

Policy &Procedure

ReadyReference

SpecificSearch

Specific Search

41.7%

Directional

14.8%

Policy and Procedure

39.4%

Ready Ref.

4.6%

16

Top 5 Recurring Questions

1. How to find journal articles

2. Questions about general search strategies

3. Off-campus access

4. Locating library web resources

5. Library accounts

17

These 5 Questions..

• Reinforced our perceptions—provided empirical evidence—not possible with traditional reference desk

• Emphasized areas in which students need assistance

18

Subject Specific Questions

Top 5 subjects:

1. History

2. Geography

3. Food Science

4. Leadership

5. Zoology

19

Who Are Our Users?…

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

Continuing Ed. Faculty Grads No info Other Undergrads

Percentage

47%

13%15%17%

5%

0.18%

20

Where Are Our Users?

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

In

Library

On

Campus

Off

Campus

Percentage

21

Where Are Our Users? Why We Care…

• Majority in library

• Why are they using VR and not

the reference desk?

• Should market to offices, residences, DE students?

22

And what about

words?

23

How Do Students Ask For These?

24

Terms Students Used!Articles - 27

Journals (often used when they really mean “articles”) - 22

Journal article - 17

E-journals (ejournals, etc.) - 8

Online journals - 7

Peer reviewed articles - 6

Research articles - 6

Academic journals – 5

Scholarly journals - 4

Scholarly articles - 3

Academic journal articles - 2

Empirical articles – 2

Full text journals – 2

Magazines - 2

Refereed journals – 2

Empirical research articles - 1

Journal entry - 1

Periodicals - 1

Popular articles - 1

Scientific articles -1

Scientific journals -1

25

What words don’t students say?

I N D E X

D A T A B A S E

26

Don’t Assume!

• “Scholarly Journals” ? …or…

• “Academic Journals”

27

So… based on what we learned from this…

• Doesn’t it make sense to use students’ words when developing a website…?

• We can use student words for creating metadata for our knowledgebase

28

*So… We Are Using Our Students’ Questions to Enhance Library

Services….

29

…In Five Areas:

1. Enhancing our online services

2. Enhancing our collections

3. Enhancing our relationships

4. Enhancing our skills

5. Enhancing the library as place

30

Enhancing Our Online Services

a. Knowledgebase• Purpose—for users and for staff• Software options—Docutek, IntelliResponse,

and homegrown

31

A Brief Demo of the Knowledgebase Options…

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

Whatever option we choose…

Criteria—User friendly, searchable, “natural language”

43

Enhancing Our Online Services Continued…

b. Online tutorials, pathfinders, etc.

--e.g.— “Finding journal articles”—changed name from “Journal indexes” based on transcripts

--e.g.— Created GEOG 2210 research guide

44

45

• Screen shot example

46

Enhancing Our Online Services…more…

c. Improving the library website

--Student-friendly language

--Off campus access—put a link on our homepage

47

*Enhancing Our Collections

• How VR transcripts help us identify gaps in our collections:

– e.g. Business journals and resources—can prove that resources are needed

48

Enhancing Our Relationshipsa. For Liaison Librarians / Information Literacy:

– Courses or difficult assignments causing problems for students—need for library instruction, working with faculty to plan courses, drop-ins, online tutorials

– Problems/Errors within assignments themselves

– Difficulty creating bibliographies—RefWorks sessions

49

Enhancing our relationships…• For Reference Services:

– Starting Roving Reference—since so many students are not coming to the Reference desks, we’ll come to them!

– Offered “Customer service” training for all staff

50

Enhancing Our Skills

Staff having difficulty with some questions, e.g. Government Publications, GIS…

So…. We are offering cross-training, workshops for staff, clarifying referrals and contact information

51

Enhancing the Library As PlaceBetter signs:• to reflect what students are

looking for—e.g. in-library printing

• …and to reflect students’ words—e.g. they say “Journals”, but signs say “Periodicals”

52

So to Conclude…

• “Listen” to what students are really saying when they ask their questions online…

• Written record of VR questions enables us to examine students’ words and requests in order to enhance the library and its services…

53

Questions?

54

Who Are We Again?– Pascal Lupien

• [email protected]

– Lorna Rourke• [email protected]

55

Thank You!