The PORTOLE (Providing Online Resources To Online Learning Environments) Project was

a JISC-funded project which sought to produce a range of tools for tutors which could be used

to enable them to discover information resources and to embed these into their course modules

from within a University Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). The VLE in use at

Universities of Leeds and Oxford is the Bodington system. A key deliverable of the Project was

to produce tools that were designed with ease of incorporation into other VLE environments

in mind. This paper discusses the background to the project and the key outcomes. Aworking

service has been developed and is now being tested and evaluated with academic staff

Sotiriou, Asimina

Stanley, Tracey

English

White Rose Research Online

This is a repository copy of The PORTOLE Project: Supporting e-Learning.White Rose Research Online URL for this paper:http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/81/Article:Stanley, Tracey and Sotiriou, Asimina (2003) The PORTOLE Project: Supporting e-Learning. New Review of Academic Librarianship. pp. 141-147. ISSN 1361-4533 https://doi.org/10.1080/136114530410001692095eprints@whiterose.ac.ukhttps://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/Reuse Unless indicated otherwise, fulltext items are protected by copyright with all rights reserved. The copyright exception in section 29 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 allows the making of a single copy solely for the purpose of non-commercial research or private study within the limits of fair dealing. The publisher or other rights-holder may allow further reproduction and re-use of this version - refer to the White Rose Research Online record for this item. Where records identify the publisher as the copyright holder, users can verify any specific terms of use on the publisher’s website. Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing eprints@whiterose.ac.uk including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. The Portole Project: supporting e-learningTracey Stanley* and Asimina Sotiriou$*Head of E-Strategy and Development and $E-Strategy Support Assistant(and PORTOLE Project Officer), Leeds University Librarye-mail: t.s.stanley@leeds.ac.ukThe PORTOLE (Providing Online Resources To Online Learning Environments) Project wasa JISC-funded project which sought to produce a range of tools for tutors which could be usedto enable them to discover information resources and to embed these into their course modulesfrom within a University Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). The VLE in use at theUniversities of Leeds and Oxford is the Bodington system. A key deliverable of the Project wasto produce tools that were designed with ease of incorporation into other VLE environmentsin mind. This paper discusses the background to the project and the key outcomes. Aworkingservice has been developed and is now being tested and evaluated with academic staff.INTRODUCTIONThe PORTOLE Project was funded by the Joint Information SystemsCommittee (JISC) as part of the DiVLE Programme (LinkingDigital Libraries with Virtual Learning Environments / JISC07/02). PORTOLE was a consortial undertaking of the Universities ofLeeds and Oxford and the Resource Discovery Network (RDN). POR-TOLE was a 10 month Project which started on 1 October 2002 andcompleted on 15 August 2003. The University of Leeds was the lead site forthe Project.The Project sought to produce a range of tools for tutors, which could beused to enable them to discover information resources and to embed theseinto their course modules from within a University Virtual LearningEnvironment (VLE). The VLE in use at the Universities of Leeds andOxford is the Bodington system. A key deliverable of the project was toproduce tools that were designed with the ease of incorporation into otherVLE environments in mind.BACKGROUNDAccess to high quality online information sources is essential for bothstudents and tutors. A key role for the tutor has always been to guide theirstudents to resources that support their learning / whether in traditionalprinted book form or in online format. Students rely on their tutors toidentify relevant resources, provide a context in which they can beunderstood and put a quality stamp on these resources. However, it canThe New Review of Academic Librarianship 2003 141DOI: 10.1080/13614530410001692095often be time-consuming for the tutor to find quality-assured resources torecommend, and in some cases, suitable resources may be difficult to trackdown (for example, multi-media materials). Information resources are alsooften fragmented / for example; a tutor seeking materials in social policymay need to navigate a complex set of different web resources. Each ofthese will have a different search interface and may require the awareness ofdifferent search query languages.Increasingly, when tutors find relevant resources to recommend to theirstudents, they want to do this through a Virtual Learning Environment(VLE). The VLE provides the ideal environment for bringing together linksto supporting resources with other teaching materials such as lecture notes,online tests and discussion areas. However, it is often difficult for the tutorto embed information resources into the VLE environment in a coherentand cohesive way as output formats and link structures may differconsiderably from resource to resource. Tutors also face problems withkeeping their links up to date. A tutor managing a number of modules mayfind it difficult to ensure that links to external sources remain current, andmay struggle to find the time regularly to check and update links. Onlineresources may also lack the required sign-posting which explains contextand relevance for the student. For example, a tutor might want to pointstudents to a certain section of a web site, which might be relevant forlectures in a specific teaching week.It is widely recognised that these difficulties inhibit the potential take-upand use of online resources in teaching. PORTOLE was conceived as a toolwhich would enable tutors to access the JISC Information Environment viathe VLE in order to find and utilise appropriate content in support oflearning. The intention was also to integrate access to JISC IE resourceswith local digital resources.The Project initially identified a number of key resources which would beintegrated into the tool:. The Resource Discovery Network (RDN). The University of Leeds Library Catalogue and other librarycatalogues (eg: University of Oxford, COPAC). The University of Leeds Library ROADS databaseThe RDN provides access to over 50,000 quality-assured internet resourcesacross a wide range of subject areas. All resources have been selected bysubject specialists in partner institutions and carefully indexed. Detailed142 The New Review of Academic Librarianship 2003resource descriptions are provided. The inclusion of the RDN in theproject enabled us to provide access to quality-assured content which isbeing externally maintained.The University of Leeds Library Catalogue provides access to biblio-graphic information about the 2.6 million plus resources in print andelectronic format held by the University of Leeds Library. The inclusion ofthe Library Catalogue in the project enabled us to provide access to thewealth of resources held by the Library, including information about printand electronic journal holdings.The University of Leeds Library ROADS database is used to provideaccess to subject-based listings of electronic subscriptions and external websites of particular relevance to University of Leeds staff and students. Over4000 resources are included in the database. The inclusion of the ROADSdatabase enabled us to provide access to information about subscriptiondatabases and links to other specialist resources. All resources are quality-assured and maintained by University Library staff.The Google search engine was also added to the list of key resources.Google was included as it is a key resource used by a large number ofacademic staff to locate resources on the web. Google uses a highlyeffective relevance ranking algorithm, although resource quality issues arestill evident.The intention was for tutors to be able to cross-search these resources andretrieve an integrated set of links which would then be selected for inclusionin the VLE. A tutor would enter the VLE and utilise a search interface tocross-search the selected databases. An integrated, de-duplicated results setwould be returned to the tutor, who would then be able to review and selectsuitable resources from those listed. Selected resources would be down-loaded to the VLE for display as a dynamic web page within the VLEenvironment. Custom annotations could then be added by the tutor tosupplement or replace the resource descriptions provided from the RDN orother databases. The metadata for each record would be maintained by thesource database, so that link checking and maintenance would beperformed externally on centrally or nationally supported resources, andthe tutor would not need to be concerned with this. Finally, students wouldview the resources with their associated annotations.PORTOLE utilised the JAFER client developed by the University ofOxford with JISC DNER funding, to provide a java-based toolkit forbuilding a Z39.50 client. The Z39.50 search and retrieve protocol is one ofThe New Review of Academic Librarianship 2003 143the key components of the JISC Information Environment and acts as aprotocol between middleware and the content providers.PROJECT RESULTSThe Project has successfully produced an interface which can be used tocross-search a number of databases. The search interface is shown below:(Figure 1)The search interface can be used to search simultaneously across theLibrary Catalogues at the Universities of Leeds and Oxford, in additionwith the RDN and Google. It was not possible to include the LeedsUniversity Library ROADS database during the project as this databaserequired additional technical development which was outside the immedi-ate scope of the project.Once a search has been performed, the results are then presented to thetutor (Figure 2).The tutor can select items and then add annotations to provide context forthe student.FIG. 1: Screenshot of PORTOLE Search Interface.144 The New Review of Academic Librarianship 2003When the tutor is happy with the list, he or she can then save it so thatstudents can access a read-only version of the list. The tutor can modify thelist at a later date.A number of key lessons have been learned from the project. Focus groupswere undertaken as part of the Project, and the following key issuesemerged:. The PORTOLE system is unlikely to be of relevance to all coursesand subject areas. Some subjects tend to have a greater reliance on‘classic’ texts than others; consequently, reading lists for thesesubjects tend to be static and not subject to change over time.PORTOLE is most likely to be of value to those subjects which aredeveloping and changing rapidly, and where a large number of newresources are being produced either in paper or web format. Webelieve that there is a role for PORTOLE alongside other toolsintended for the management of more ‘static’ reading lists.. Academic staff do not seem to value the resources provided by theRDN, and instead prefer to use search engines such as Google. Wehope that the improved visibility of the RDN through the PORTOLEproject may lead to increased recognition of the value of this service.FIG. 2: Screenshot of PORTOLE search results.The New Review of Academic Librarianship 2003 145. PORTOLE will only be of true value to users if we are able toexpand the system to incorporate additional search targets. Usershave particularly flagged the need for the inclusion of journalarticles. Potential exists to take these requirements forward, butadditional thought would need to be given to the informationarchitecture of the system. Consideration would also need to begiven to other projects currently underway at Leeds, in particularplans for the implementation of a ‘Library Portal’. We need toestablish where and how PORTOLE fits into these developmentsbefore taking forward any additional development in this area.FUTURE DEVELOPMENTSA number of long-term issues exist in relation to further development ofthe system. A number of suggestions for further development have alreadybeen raised, and whilst these were outside of the scope of the originalproject, the project team believes there would be some value in investigatingthese further.1. The ability to provide the Library with alerts when new items areadded to resource lists. This was requested by the Library staffwho were involved in the project. There are a number of alertingand reporting tools within Bodington which might be used for thispurpose. However, a fuller requirements analysis is requiredbefore this development can be taken forward.2. The addition of further search targets has also been requested. Itis possible to add new Z39.50 targets quite easily, and the Leedsteam will undertake a scoping exercise to establish a priority list.The Leeds team also intends to investigate the utilisation of anOpenURL resolver to provide functionality for direct linking tojournal articles. The University of Leeds will be implementing anOpenURL resolver in summer 2004. Once this is implemented, itwill be necessary to review how metadata is being stored inPORTOLE in order to establish how best to link to the OpenURLresolver.3. The Project has also touched on the issue of relevance ranking.Relevance ranking is a complex area, and very difficult to achieve,as different databases use different ranking algorithms. Combin-ing these is technically impossible without a substantial under-standing of the algorithms used. Many of our source databases,such as library catalogues, do not perform relevance ranking.4. The project also aimed to explore the transferability to other VLEplatforms of the model for resource list creation. As both146 The New Review of Academic Librarianship 2003institutions are using the Bodington system, the project has notexplored how the model could be used within other VLEplatforms. Bodington does not currently interoperate well withother VLEs. Further funding would be required to extend themodel to other VLE systems, and work in this area would be mostlikely to focus on the area of metadata standards for resource lists.Developments in this area would create significant added value from theProject for the wider higher education community.CONCLUSIONThe PORTOLE project has been successful in producing a working system,and positive feedback has so far been received from the focus groups andfrom those staff involved in testing. A full assessment of the success of theproject requires a period of ongoing evaluation, and the project team aimsto take this forward over the coming academic year.The project has assisted in the development of working relationshipsbetween the key players; particularly between the VLE Teams at Leeds andOxford. This can only be beneficial for the ongoing partnership of the twoinstitutions, and for our shared commitment to develop Bodington as anopen source VLE. There will be an ongoing requirement for cross-divisional and cross-institutional collaboration in promoting and dissemi-nating the system.The New Review of Academic Librarianship 2003 147

The PORTOLE Project: Supporting e-Learning

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The PORTOLE Project: Supporting e-Learning

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