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 they�d used the "accpeted with modifications" option yet, Paul said that they hadn�t yet and didn�t 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 don�t 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.