Intute Update

Update on Intute

Your guide to the Best of the Web

JISC RSC South West Web conference,

26 November 2008

Angela Joyce, ILRT, University of Bristol

What are Intute & the Virtual Training Suite? 2 FREE related services

• Intute is a free, national Internet service aimed primarily at higher education, providing the very best web resources for teaching, learning and research - and funded by JISC

• The Virtual Training Suite is a free service which provides online Internet tutorials, for over 65 subjects. Also funded by JISC as part of the Intute service

Intute homepage

http://www.intute.ac.uk/

Who are we?

The Intute Network is:

• A consortium of seven universities

• 70 partner institutions providing subject expertise and advice

• Created by the community for the community

How we work:

Intute is primarily funded for H.E. but all services freely accessible for F.E.

• Central management is at MIMAS, Manchester

• Distributed staff around the UK give technical support and edit the Intute database; they run additional services; authors write the VTS tutorials

Our target audiences

• Primary audience is H.E. students

and…• F.E into H.E. , F.E• Lecturers• E-learning

professionals• Researchers• Librarians

Intute catalogue

Search/browse Intute catalogue

• Over 123,000 records, each one hand selected and described by a subject specialist

• Simple or Advanced searching options with tips

• Browsing of sections - popular

Subjects offered

• Something for nearly everyone

• From music to management, or nursing to nuclear physics!

• 4 subject groups will go – move to more ‘granular’ approach at subject level, e.g.. Intute: Law

Supporting Internet Training

Virtual Training Suite - http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/

• Free online Internet training tutorials for over 65 subject areas

• Currently being updated with new template & emphasis

Supporting Internet Training (2)

Use our free support materialshttp://www.intute.ac.uk/support.html

• Quick Guides to Intute

• PPT Presentations

• Best of the Web booklets – online versions

JISC findings – library/LRCs (1)

• The JISC Attitudinal Survey 2008 pinpoints e-Resources/electronic content as key challenge in F.E. & H.E.

• Information skills/information literacy also a priority

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/publications/attitudinalsurvey2008librariansreport.pdf

JISC findings – students and ICT

Great Expectations reporthttp://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/greatexpectations.aspx

• ‘There is also an opportunity to help students understand best practice for checking the validity of internet sources used for research, something which 69% of students believe they are doing despite evidence elsewhere suggesting they may lack the critical and analytical skills to do so rigorously.’

Intute is evolving• New plan 2008-2012 - to respond to

changes in education and online usage, e.g.:– More direct marketing to students– Enhanced search system– More granular structure for resources

Recent market research & usability testing…

• FDS consultancy – market research

• Pure Usability – testing of main site and integration services

• VTS survey

Awareness of various websites - Students

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Project Merlot

OCLC Firstsearch

BUBL

EDNA

Zetoc

EDINA

Intute

IBSS

Copac

Scirus

PubMed

Institute of Physics

ISI Web of Knowledge/Web of Science

National Library for Health

Google Scholar

Google Images

BBC

Wikipedia

Google

Postgrads (51)

HE Student (61)

FE Student (105)

0% 5% 10% 15% 20%

Intute

Usability testing 2008

On-site & remote testing conducted• Liked Intute concept• Wanted some improvements• Findings will feed into website re-

design & new subject-based approach. Eg. Intute: Law, Intute: Veterinary

We also offer

Additional Services

• Intute blogs – keep updated

• Intute Repository Search for papers http://www.intute.ac.uk/irs/

• Intute Helpdesk – email us comments, suggestions

PersonaliseMy Intute • Create your own account

• Save searches and records, plus non-Intute

• Tag records with your own keywords

• Weekly email alerts

• Export data into your websites or VLEs

MyIntute tag cloud

Content for the CommunityIntegrating Intute content• Intute content and services are available for

use in your own institution or website

• Advice on how to use our content available from:

www.intute.ac.uk/integration/

• Quick Guides at:

http://www.intute.ac.uk/integrationguides/

Example of newsfeed…

http://mail.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/~cmamj/

Intute on UsPaCe…

http://www.uspace.org.uk/blog/

Intute plug-in gadget

Blackboard at City of Bristol College

MyIntute used to import dentistry sites

University of Exeter

http://www.library.ex.ac.uk/intute-i/

More Integration Examples

• See our del.icio.us page athttp://del.icio.us/angejoyce/integration/

• See our Exemplars athttp://www.intute.ac.uk/integration/exemplars/

Finally….

We welcome feedback from the community. Please feel free to contact us:

www.intute.ac.uk/feedback.html

Thank you!

[email protected]