Tabbloid #5: 22 Oct 2010

Open publication - Free publishing - More lmsmash

This weeks round up of news from the JISC LMS blogosphere includes a couple of 'final project blogposts':
#ENCLAVE: http://enclave.lib.ed.ac.uk/?p=129
#AQUABROWSERUX: http://lorrainepaterson.wordpress.com/2010/10/20/aquabrowserux-final-project-post/

There's also a trio of thoughtful and thorough posts from the #COVPRIMO project sharing the outcomes of their usability testing.

My favourite post this week is the one from the #VUFINDKEVEN blog which shares what they found when they did a google search for their project name: http://blogs.kent.ac.uk/vufindkeven/2010/10/21/goggling-at-keven-on-google/ It is heartening to know that their project impact has already spread beyond the borders of the JISC LMS programmes and been picked up by CILIP’s Multimedia Information Technology Group.

Perhaps for the remaining projects it might be worth taking a few minutes to set up Google Alerts (http://www.google.com/alerts) so that you can monitor what is being said about your project and join in the conversations as they are happening.

Tabbloid #4: 15 Oct 2010

Open publication - Free publishing - More lmsmash

One blogpost of note which just missed being included in the round up of news from last week was #YOCALCAT's final report blogpost which Helen Westmancoat valiantly managed to finish before heading off for a well-earned break. It will of course be included in next week's Tabbloid but here's a link just in case you can't wait: http://yocalcat.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/yocalcat-final-progress-post/

There are some really useful reccomendations and conclusions for other institutions who might go down the WorldCat Local route in the future. Some of those lessons will be equally useful for any project which involves change that impacts on the library e.g. "Ensure that all staff are involved with the processes whether on the acquisitions and cataloguing side or are involved in preparing material for induction."

Being relatively diminutive in terms of their size has clearly been a major challenge for York St John so it will be interesting to see how other larger libraries get on with adopting WorldCat Local in the future.

Pondering the One Minute Pitches

I've been thinking about the 'One Minute Pitches' that each project was asked to complete following the Glasgow event. Given that I did a (short) Three Minute Pitch at the event it only seems fair that I give the One Minute Pitch a go too.

I felt that Cambridge Uni used imagery very effectively to explain their #CULWIDGETS project in Glasgow so I'm having a go at that approach too:



Just in case you need a hand with the visual metaphors, here's what I think we're aiming to do with our project synthesis liaison work:
- look at things from a different angle and share that view with the programme.
- adjust our lense so that sometimes we're picking up on detail and sometimes the whole picture.
- share any external messages which seem appropriate (however tangentially).
- and, at the risk of getting a bit deep, to 'look through a glass, darkly' across the programme strands and within each project to reveal the gems that you're all unearthing as your projects progress.

I am a big fan of Wordles as a method of getting to the heart of what is being said ... the wordle below was made by taking the text from all the One Minute Pitches that were featured in the Tabbloid in my last post:


It's possibly not an artefact that should be subjected to hours of academic scrutiny and analysis to distil its hidden depths but the things that stand out at first glance are interesting - I'm taking it as a good sign that 'students' feature so prominently, given the user centred nature of the programme

Initial observations and noticings {HH}

I've started the, ever so slightly daunting, task of looking through all the JISC LMS projects so that I can start synthesising with alacrity. I'm starting to get into the habit of logging everything I do on the project website change log and I'm tagging relevant web content on Delicious with a little note to remind myself why I thought it was worth tagging. If there's anything that I think is relevant to a specific project then I'll highlight it to them directly but I'll also try and remember to add those links to Delicious so that it builds into a useful source of information.

Here are the project websites that I've commented on so far:

• http://yocalcat.wordpress.com/2010/08/12/usability-update/#comment-8
• http://enclave.lib.ed.ac.uk/?p=94
• http://covprimo.blogspot.com/2010/07/naming-our-primo-installation.html
• http://lorrainepaterson.wordpress.com/2010/07/30/user-research-and-persona-creation-part-1-data-gathering-methods/

Some very early observations/possible themes I've identified for me to explore over the coming weeks:

• I'm wondering whether the short project descriptions for each project could be stripped back so that they would genuinely be understandable to someone without specialist LMS domain knowledge/an understanding of JISC. If projects can really get to the heart of what their projects mean for users then it will make it easier for them to talk to others about what they're aiming to do.
• There are some good tips for successfully engaging users in surveys and usability studies being captured in the project blogs - I'm interested in distilling some of those tips to share among the projects and the wider world.
• Where a project has some heavy lifting to do in terms of the review and analysis of usability data and additional cataloguing I'm wondering whether co-opting students in a 'citizen scientist' could help by providing the project with additional resources (at the same time as further increasing the engagement of students in the project and giving them a 'living' information literacy learning experience).

In response to a request from Owen Stephens I've been keeping a look out for any projects which are using or planning to use JUICE - I haven't spotted any yet so please let me know if your project is.

Je suis une synthesiser

Hello world, my name is Helen Harrop and I am a synthesiser. More accurately, I am carrying out the 'Synthesis Liaison' role on the JISC Library Management Systems (#jisclms) programme. I officially started this role two days ago so I'm currently in start up mode and feeling my way around the project website. To help me get my head around the role and the various strands of the programme I drew a diagram:



My role is shown by the chevroned hoop running around the outside. If I had more time and my artistic skills were up to the task then I'd probably have drawn it as a 3d model with lots of connected ribbons weaving to and fro between the strands. This will have to do for the moment but I might try and make something with plasticine and shoelaces at some point in the future. Suffice to say that my role is a kind of serendipity stimulator ... all will become clear in the fullness of time but, for now, this is just a quick post to say 'hello, I have arrived'.