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Evaluating the Content of Your Collection



John Saylor, Cornell University

Paul A. Craig, American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology


Sebastian Uijtdehaage, University of California at Los Angeles


Siva Kumari, Rice University


Frank Settle, Washington and Lee University


Recorder: Carolee Barber, ENC/The Ohio State University


Collection Development Policies that direct the work of the Core Integration as well as individual collections will be shared. An overview of the research on users needs and digital libraries as well as ideas on how to track use of your library will also be shared. Examples of online surveys and how to hold focus groups will be shared.


Notes - Evaluating the Content of Your Collection


10/14/03

Paul A. Craig presentation: Development and Implementation of a Peer Review System. Challenge for their project: an all volunteer staff except one already-busy administrator. Trying to bridge into undergrad and industry with their work.

Question from attendee: What if a reviewer decides changes need to be made to a resource? Do they get back in touch with the author/s of the resource?
Answer: They have options in their review process that include accept with modifications or a full accept.
When asked if theyd used the "accpeted with modifications" option yet, Paul said that they hadnt yet and didnt have a sense of how it will be received.



John Saylor suggested that the question-asker (see above) talk to MERLOT. Flora with MERLOT (in audience) said the most common experience they have had is a "null." They usually dont get much response from authors. Someone had had a positive experience with the review process. Purpose of MERLOT review process is to benefit the end user not the author.


Q: what about when you go out and find sites? Answer from presenter: They contact author and ask her/him to submit.



Paul Craig shared that accepted objects get an abstract in their journal. Hope that this will affect promotion and tenure process. Someone asked if there is a threshold for which types of objects can get the abstract (in terms of size of the learning object)? Answer: No. The length of abstract will correspond to the size of the object included.



Siva Kumari Discussion of the Quality of Resources Allowed to be a Part of the Collection
They have a process for reusing rejected records (a University of Texas branch is going to repurpose theirs). Q: Do they start with a suggested curriculum as their framework? A: College Board puts out an AP curriculum outline that has been fortunate/helpful for them. Siva showed the Bio outline from her site. Teachers are very familiar with this outline. Q: Is it meant to be sequential in time? A: No--teachers use the outlines in different ways but are familiar with the outlines & what they cover. Siva showed a resource (audience member asked to see). Their records aren't quite ready to go live (few technical bugs to work out).



Frank Settle Preliminary Results from the Server Side (also involved in this project are Elizabeth Blackmer and Thomas Whaley + 35 undergrad workers who annotate resources + review board) They are linking science to many areas (interdisciplinary nuclear issues). Alsos has about 1000 references that have cleared the review process. Project is 4 years old. Based on their experience, Frank thinks that two-year funding from NSDL does not get you where you need to be. When gathering usage data, they view printing as a sign of an engaged user (measure of engagement). They are getting very few hits from NSDL. They embed links in sites like chemcases.org. Alsos is a bibliographic record site only; they are not providing content. Their advisory committee is an eclectic group (historians, scientists, poet, etc.). If you are going back for funding, need these types of data (eval from the server side/usage statistics).



Sebastian Uijtdehaage Collection Development: Assessing the Needs and Concerns of Library Concerns With their focus group studies (to assess if faculty will submit their resources), they discovered issues like faculty not understanding if the material they developed is theirs or their institution's or both. Another obstacle is that faculty do not remember what they have 'borrowed' from another source. Largest obstacle they found is faculty time to submit and catalog/describe resource. Institutional red tape also takes time. So HEAL has staff do the cataloging because of the time factor.




Discussion after presentations


Comment from former DLESE collections coordinator: he found that strategic partners are key for collection development. You can add value to existing collections (win/win situation).

Question that prompted much discussion: How to motivate reviewers? Responses: Frank Settle's reviewers have passion for what they do (they don't get paid). He found the people (board of 24) through a lifetime of knowing people. Siva: recommends doing a lot of homework and to tune into what the reviewers need, too. They are going to set aside some funding for their content outline (for use in their presentationstheir reviewers' names get attached to what they review). Recognition as an important reward. Paul Craig: they get reviewers from the usual suspects. They are motivated to get it to work b/c they want to use the end product. Sebastian: they pay their managing editor. Flora from MERLOT added that one thing they do differently is have paying partners that give them money and people (ex. faculty release time). Also, she reinforced the importance of passion.

Q for Siva Kumari: K-12 different from undergrad. How many of Sivas resources are contributed by individuals vs. large projects? Are teachers just users or also contributors? A: Teacher contributed resources are not usually sophisticated enough for their audience. Q: How to get teachers to cross over from practitioner to also become contributors? Siva: from her experience in other projects, it helps to bring teachers in and give them experience with the instructional technology. Can take many iterations but worth it in end.

Q for Paul Craig: How do they deal w/ copyright? A: Author gets it or has to provide release if it isn't their own material. Ongoing issue of resources becoming obsolete was mentioned.

Q for Frank: Can webcrawlers find records (annotations) created on the fly? A: Frank's records are probably static. Answer from others: Depends on how the data is being held? People don't think info created on the fly can be crawled (hidden web). Q: Should we be concerned about this? John Saylor brought up the advantages of OAI.

Draft NSDL Collection Development Policy will be discussed at Content Committee. Also available for review.




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NSDL thanks DLESE for hosting the swikis for the NSDL Annual Meeting 2003.

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