University of Leeds Academic Services PORTOLE Project - Providing Online Resources to Online Learning Environments Tracey Stanley and Mina Sotiriou University.

University of Leeds Academic ServicesUniversity of Leeds Academic Services

PORTOLE Project - Providing Online Resources to Online Learning Environments

Tracey Stanley and Mina Sotiriou

University of Leeds

University of Leeds Academic ServicesUniversity of Leeds Academic Services

Scope

A resource list/discovery tool which enables tutors to:– Search for information from the web and their

local library catalogue.– Bring records across into a course module

within a VLE.– Add annotations and other contextual

information.– Present the resource list to their students

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PORTOLE: Project Partners

University of Leeds (lead partner)– University Library– Learning Development Unit

University of Oxford RDN

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Key drivers

To encourage wider use of the RDN and other information resources through the development and use of tools which enable tutors to discover quality-assured information resources.

To encourage integration of RDN resources within a local digital library environment.

To provide an enriched learning experience for students through the use of annotations etc.

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VLE Environment

Working with the University of Leeds VLE (Bodington).

Bodington is an open source project.

In use at both Leeds and Oxford. Built on Java, Java Servlet platform Building based metaphor Tutors can add buildings and

rooms– (represented internal as

directory structure) Tutors can add resources (web

pages, “quizzes”, meeting places, etc.)– (represented internally as

objects within directories)

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JAFER

Oxford-based project - funded under JISC 5/99 Java based Z39.50 client/server toolkit for

cross-searching of databases JavaBeans for querying Z39.50, SRW, JDBC

databases JavaBeans for handling cross-searching

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Demonstration of results

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Issues raised by the project

Academics don’t use the RDN:– Awareness of the RDN is high, but on the

whole, academics prefer to use Google.– Academics feel able to judge the quality of

resources for themselves, and don’t feel the need of an intermediary service which does this for them.

– They do have concerns about their students’ use of the web in relation to quality.

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Issues (2)

Resource discover for reading lists:– Some tutors claim that they don’t need to

search for new resources as they already know what to put on their reading lists (eg: favourite web sites, core texts etc).

– This view differs widely from subject to subject.

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Issues (3)

Student interface:– The tool could be used by students to discover

resources and recommend these to their peer group.

– Issues relating to quality cause concern amongst some academics.

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Issues (4)

Need for inclusion of other information sources:– The tool would only be truly useful if it also

included the ability to search for journal articles etc.

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Issues (5)

Relevance ranking:– Difficult to achieve as different databases use

different algorithms.– Many of the source databases we used don’t

perform relevance ranking themselves.

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Impact evaluation

Portole has been released as a test service. Evaluation with small number of academic staff,

who will create resource lists for ‘real’ modules. Follow-up with their students on their experience

of using the list. Will lead to further development and full release

of the tool.

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Possible future developments

Use of OpenURL to enable resource discovery from journal article databases, and other additional search targets.

Student searching interface. Development of a standard XML schema

for resource lists. Additional functionality – eg: alerting for

library staff.

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Key lessons learned

Unlikely to be of interest/relevance to all subject areas. Those who rely heavily on ‘classic’ texts are less likely to be interested than those where the subject is changing rapidly.

Little recognition of the value of the RDN, but we hope that improved visibility through Portole will help to address this.

The system needs more search targets to be truly useful. Project acted as a useful model for how cross-institutional

collaboration could work in relation to development of an open-source VLE.