327,316 research outputs found

    Improving Our Reference Data, or How We Killed the Hash Mark

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    All responsible academic libraries record their reference transactions. It is good practice to know how many patrons have been helped at your service points. For years we have participated in this record keeping with hash marks on paper, painstaking tallying, and manual spreadsheet entry for the purpose of saying, “we helped X patrons during Y month”. But, like most things academic, reference runs on its own calendar and requires more sophisticated tools to truly investigate and evaluate. To generate more useful reference statistics, we created a simple, online tool for recording reference interactions. The tool is accessible anywhere reference is taking place, generating normalized data in a centralized, backed up database. This design allows for more nuanced and granular analysis, in addition to streamlining the reporting process at a later date. Development of the tool has been iterative, soliciting feedback from primary users, including graduate students and librarians. A key part of this process was our decision to build a tool as opposed to purchasing a pre-made one. Our need to better understand our reference staffing needs was key, and a variety of commercial tools tout this ability. However, the barriers to developing such a tool in-house have dramatically lowered, making the creation of web-based tools more common. Similarly, the tool itself uses existing library infrastructure, as it is a simple web form and hooks into an existing database, so infrastructure changes were nil. With a custom-built tool, we have total control over its functionality and reporting. This presentation will discuss the full development and implementation of the new reference statistics tool, along with the data we have collected and the trends we have observed from the first six months of its use

    Teachers Tv annual review 2009 Dcsf-rr188

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    Coping with a changing world: the UK Open University approach to teaching ICT

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    The rapid pace of change in the ICT field has affected all HE providers, but for the UK Open University (UKOU), used to print-based courses lasting eight years or more, it has been a particular challenge. This paper will present some of the ways the UKOU has been coping with this problem by discussing the design of three courses, the first developed almost a decade ago. All three are distance learning courses that are either core or optional in a variety of bachelors' degrees, including the BSc programmes in: Information and Communication Technology; IT and Computing; and Technology; as well as the BEng (Hons) engineering programme. The first course, Information and Communication Technology: people and interactions is a level 2 (second year undergraduate) course first presented in 2002. It is predominately a print-based course with an eight year lifetime. The second course Networked Living: exploring information and communication technologies is a level 1 (first year undergraduate) course first presented some three-and-a-half years later in 2005. It is expected to have a course life of five years, and uses a mix of print-based (60%) and computer-based (40%) material. Both these courses use assignments as key tools for annual updating. The third course, Keeping ahead in ICT is aimed primarily at equipping students with advanced information searching and evaluation skills that will serve them well in professional life, and is presented at level 3 (final year undergraduate). It was first presented in 2007 and has an expected course life of 8 years. It uses much less print than in most OU courses, and has a greater reliance on third-party resources such as newspaper, conference and journal articles, websites, and other electronic resources. Some elements in each block are designed to change from year to year, in order to retain currency. Finally, the paper will look forward to the development of a new level 2 course with an expected first presentation in 2010, drawing out the lessons learned about course updating, and predicting the approach that the course team may tak

    Content marketing model for leading web content management

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    This paper is envisaged to provide the Ukrainian businesses with suggestions for a content marketing model for the effective management of website content in order to ensure its leading position on the European and world markets. Our study employed qualitative data collection with semi-structured interviews, survey, observation methods, quantitative and qualitative methods of content analysis of regional B2B companies, as well as the comparative analysis. The following essential stages of the content marketing process as preliminary search and analysis, website content creation, promotion and distribution, and content marketing progress assessment were identified and classified in detail. The strategic decisions and activities at each stage of the process showed how a company’s on-site and off-site content can be used as a tool to establish the relationship between the brand and its target audience and increase brand visibility online. This study offered several useful insights into how website content, social media and various optimization techniques work together in engaging with the target audience and driving website traffic and sales leads. We constructed and described the content marketing model elaborated for effective web content management that can be useful for those companies that start to consider employing content marketing strategy for achieving business goals and increasing a leadership position

    Information Outlook, January 2007

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    Volume 11, Issue 1https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_io_2007/1000/thumbnail.jp

    Harnessing innovations in libraries and information centres: issues and trends

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    Innovation implies the opening of new ideas, methods, and techniques applied to any organization for transformation of its operations for effective consequences. This paper focuses on the trends of innovations in libraries and information centers and addresses different core facets of library innovations. Moreover, it discusses the need of innovation in libraries, the successful factors of innovation, policy instruments, technological trends and such other related issues highlighting the significance of harvesting innovation in libraries and information centres in electronic age

    Collaboration Enabling Internet Resource Collection-Building Software and Technologies

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    Over the last decade the Library of the University of California, Riverside and its collaborators have developed a number of systems, service designs, and projects that utilize innovative technologies to foster better Internet finding tools in libraries and more cooperative and efficient effort in Internet link and metadata collection building. The open-source software and projects discussed represent appropriate technologies and sustainable strategies that we believe will help Internet portals, digital libraries, virtual libraries, library catalogs-with-portal-like-capabilities (IPDVLCs), and related collection-building efforts in academia to better scale and more accurately anticipate and meet the needs of scholarly and educational users.published or submitted for publicatio

    Harnessing Technology: analysis of emerging trends affecting the use of technology in education (September 2008)

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    Research to support the delivery and development of Harnessing Technology: Next Generation Learning 2008–1
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