Library Learning services ran a survey from March 30th – April 24th asking registered Talis Aspire users for feedback on our Resource Lists @ Edinburgh service. We had some great responses and would like to thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and experience with us.
You said
The top perceived benefits of the service are that it:
- makes it easier for students to access core materials
- improves student experience
- is easy to update and manage reading lists
You also told us that you liked the “open access, allowing other institutions and/or pre-arrival students to gain an understanding of the core readings in particular programmes or courses”.
List Promotion
The most popular means of list promotion was the Resource List tool on Learn. Other popular means included promoting the resource list(s) in lectures and seminars, and including a reference to the list in the course handbook.
Additional tools you’ve been using to promote lists to students included:
- posting the link up on a private Facebook group for their course,
- emailing the link out to students prior to the start of the course,
- and placing it on the new course descriptors on EUCLID instead of the previous list of readings.
We asked: ‘Do you expect ALL of the items on your resource list to be made available by the Library, either online or in print?’
Your response to this was mostly affirmative with course organisers expecting if not all the materials to be made available, then the majority or at least the essential/key items. We are very glad that this is something we should now be able to provide via the Beta service in 15/16. (More information on this new service can be found on our website)
Continued Support / More demonstrations
You thought we could perhaps provide more demonstrations and continued support.
Over the summer period we are running a targeted series of workshops and demonstrations, both out at Schools when requested by departments, and also in at the Main Library for interested individuals.
The next two events are now bookable via MyEd:
Wed 8th July 10-12pm, Main Library, Room 1.12
Thurs 9th July 2-4pm Main Library, Room 1.08
We’re also looking into the possibility of running short webinars for course organisers unable to attend face-to-face workshops.
Our Library Learning Services team provides support via email, phone, and in-person year-round for Resource Lists @ Edinburgh. Additionally if you or anyone in your department would like to arrange a one-to-one or school workshop session/demonstration, please contact us via IS.Helpline@ed.ac.uk
Guides
A few of you were unaware of where to find our user guides, and some suggested that we could provide additional guidance in particular areas.
We have contacted those of you who were unaware of our guidance materials which include our web page, blog, PDF guides, and video tutorials.
We have also created some additional guidance to fill the gaps that were highlighted. In particular, Sharing Editing Rights with a Colleague (PDF) and Bookmarking a Chapter or Part (PDF).
Our web pages and user guides are regularly updated and we encourage course organisers, students, or anyone using the service to contact us and advise if there is something we have overlooked or could improve.
Interface and Usability
A few of you had suggestions around the interface, presentation, and usability of Talis Aspire. One of the reasons we have been enjoying working with Talis Aspire to provide the Resource List service is that they are continuing to develop and improve the platform and encourage feedback and suggestions from us their customers. We forward on all suggestions for improvement or requests for new features in the system to the Talis development team.
If you have any additional comments or ideas as to how you feel the service could be improved, please drop us a line via IS.Helpline@ed.ac.uk
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Stephanie Farley
Library Learning Services Assistant