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Designing, Managing, and Evaluating Web-Based Subject Guides: A Case Study

Designing, Managing, and Evaluating Web-Based Subject Guides: A Case Study. Sam Chu, Ph.D. Bibliographic Instruction Librarian The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology 4 June 2005. Outline. Reasons & Method Description of Subject Guides at HKUST Library

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Designing, Managing, and Evaluating Web-Based Subject Guides: A Case Study

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  1. Designing, Managing, and Evaluating Web-Based Subject Guides: A Case Study Sam Chu, Ph.D. Bibliographic Instruction Librarian The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology 4 June 2005

  2. Outline • Reasons & Method • Description of Subject Guides at HKUST Library • Design, Standardization, and Authoring Tools • Subject Guide Maintenance • Usage Statistics Analysis • Conclusion • Future Directions • Discussion and Q & A

  3. Reasons for the Study To Improve Reference Services • Librarians create web-based subject guides to facilitate research, study, & teaching • Improving subject guides will help students, faculty & staff do these activities better To Fill a Gap in the Professional Literature • Past research has examined subject guide design & maintenance across institutions • Few studies on how a single institution creates & maintains its guides • No published studies analyzed web-guides usage statistics

  4. Method - Case Study Describes • How librarians at HKUST Library have created & maintained about 120 subject guides • How the guides & the librarian’s practices have evolved in the past 10 years Analyzes • Usage statistics for subject guides & course guides

  5. Description of Subject Guides Subject Guides linked from Home Page • Arranged in five areas to match the 4 Schools • Business & Management • Engineering • Humanities & Social Sciences • Science • PLUS - General Reference • .

  6. Description of Subject Guides • Two Types of Guides • Course guides • - Designed for a particular course – often with a library workshop • Subject guides • - More general in nature.

  7. Description of Subject Guides Library’s First Subject Guide - Rolled out in 1995 & updated regularly

  8. Workflow of Creating Subject/Course Guides

  9. Design, Standardization & Authoring Tools:Two Architectural models Pathfinder model: • Uses multiple html pages • Covers a broad subject or collection • 2 levels: • Main page with links to the 2nd level of multiple pages • Second level pages - resources listed & described • e.g., Legal Information

  10. Design, Standardization & Authoring Tools:Two Architectural models – cont’ Subject guide template model • Single-page design with 3 sections • Finding Library Materials – classification, subject headings, etc. • Reference Tools – list of useful sources (e.g. databases, encyclopedias, etc.) • Reference Topics – sub-topics of the page • e.g., E-Commerce • Course Guides • No fixed template, but follow some of the same standards • e.g.,Effective Learning and Thinking Skills

  11. Design, Standardization & Authoring Tools:Standardization • Standards ensure guides have a coherent look - increase readability • Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) help achieve standardization • Control the fonts, colors & layout of the guides • Updates in format quick & global because changes made centrally

  12. Standards for Basic Components

  13. Previous Authoring Tool - Composer Benefits – easy to use

  14. Previous Authoring Tool: Composer – cont’ Problems • Line spacing & indentation difficult to control • Using the “publish” function to upload an html file • changed lay-out or links - Generated new coding - Changed the coding

  15. New Authoring Tool - HTML-Kit

  16. New Authoring Tool - HTML-Kit Benefits • Freeware – a user-friendly Web editor • Doesn’t generate unintended code • Allows editing on the server itself • Plug-Ins Generator: Allows shortcuts to reduce coding work Problems • Page authors need some html coding proficiency • Main window does not display Unicode properly Chinese & other non-English scripts & diacritics must be input in a separate Unicode editor

  17. Subject Guide Maintenance Two types of maintenance needed • Link checking Monthly - keeps the links on our pages functional & current • Review & updating Yearly or biannually – allows for changes in resources or approaches to topics Link checking • Easier if you use an automatic link checking program • HKUST Library uses Multi-Owner Maintenance spider (MOMspider) • We have used “MOM” since 1996 • http://ftp.ics.uci.edu/pub/websoft/MOMspider/

  18. MOMspider’s Report

  19. Link Checking MOMspider results show if links are: • Valid • Broken • Redirected • Recently modified Only need to pay attentions to the links that are broken or redirected Problems: • Many “broken” links still valid: Some sites prohibit MOMspider by using robots.txt (Robots Exclusion Standard). • Many redirected links are merely scripts used by different sites in place of the direct URL Partial Solution: • Library Support Staff help some author librarians • Checking the MOMspider reports • Identify the real broken links

  20. Usage Statistics Analysis • About 67% of the libraries keep usage statistics of these guides Few use the data for evaluation purposes (Morris & Grimes, 1999; Jackson & Pellack, 2004). “One might question the wisdom of creating and maintaining these guides without considering some hard data about their use”. - Jackson & Pellack (2004, p. 325) • HKUST Library began to review the subject guide usage statistics in 1996 • This analysis will: • Consider the usage statistics for HKUST users - Who access the guides using an on-campus computer • Examine the usage statistics for non-HKUST users (visitors) - Who access the guides using an off-campus computer • Compare the usage statistics for both user groups

  21. Usage Statistics Analysis:Chart ranking of the top 24 Guides (20%) May 2004 - April 2005

  22. Usage Statistics Analysis:Outside users access HKUST Library’s subject guides 11 times more often than HKUST users 595,689 hits between May 2004 & April 2005 - Human access: 95% - Robots access: 5% 49,809 hits (8%) from on-campus computers (HKUST users) 545,880 hits (92%) from off-campus computers (visitors) - Some “visitors” might be HKUST users who accessed the guides via the Internet off-campus. Definition of “hit” Every click on the main page or a sub-page of a guide is counted as one hit.

  23. Usage Statistics Analysis:Does the 80/20 rule apply to the Guides? "20% of your activities will account for 80% of your results" - Brian Tracy (2001, p. 1) • Table shows the top 24 guides (20% of all subject guides) - Accounts for about 70% of all guide’s accesses • This applies for HKUST users & visitors (together or separately) • General application of the rule: focus on doing well in the top 20% of our activities to maximize our overall productivity • Holds true for HKUST although it is 70% • A library with limited staff would do well to identify the top 20% of its subject guides used by its targeted user groups & give them top priority in updating.

  24. Usage Statistics Analysis:Usage Rates Indicate which Guides HKUST Users Value • Assumption: Guides with the most hits - most important to our users. • Top 24 subject guides for HKUST users sorted into 4 groups by hits per year. • Job Hunting Guide & 10 Steps to a Research Paper 4,000 - 7,000 hits • China Studies Guide, Hong Kong Information Guide, & Legal Information Guide 2,000 - 3,999 hits • High-tech Industrial Zones Subject Guide, Company Information Guide, etc. 1,000-1,999 hits • International Relations (SOSC 125), Chemistry, etc. 453 to 999 hits

  25. Usage Statistics Analysis:Top 24 guides for HKUST users sorted into 4 groups

  26. Usage Statistics Analysis:Implication for collection development Assumption: The subject guides most used by HKUST indicate the information needs of our core users • Hong Kong Information & Legal Information guides are the 4th & 5th most popular of the 119 subject guides. - HKUST Library should review its collection & ensure that it is strong enough to satisfy the users’ needs. • Other “hot topics” revealed by the high usage of the other guides should also be examined.

  27. Usage Statistics Analysis:Similarities between HKUST users & visitors The 2 groups share the 6 same subject guides in their top 7 subject guides. • These 6 same guides are all general guides • General guides are popular than course-related guides for both sets of users.

  28. Usage Statistics Analysis:Differences Between HKUST Users & Visitors HKUST users • 10 of the top 24 guides were course guides • In general, the course guides ranked higher among HKUST users than non-HKUST users Visitors • 2 of their top 24 guides were course guides • Used the more general guides more heavily

  29. Conclusion Collaboration between guide authors, the User-Ed Committee & the S&D Committee ensure guides are of high quality Standardizing the format & style through the use of templates, style sheets, & Unicode creates a harmonious look & increases readability Updating the guides on an on-going basis keeps the content & links up-to-date which increases their usefulness & use. HKUST subject guides are used by HKUST people & Visitors (who used the guides 11 times more frequently) • The 6 most popular guides among both groups were general guides • After the top 6 • HKUST users preferred course guides • Visitors still preferred the more general subject guides 80/20 rule is generally applicable & libraries should identify the top 20% of its guides & give foremost attention to & maintaining them. The frequent use by HKUST users & visitors show the effort & time spent on creating & updating these guides are worthwhile

  30. Future Directions Online survey of individual guides: Quantitative information • # of times the respondents have used the guides before • User demographics Qualitative information • How did the user get to the page (class, surfing, Google?) • How useful was the information provided • Suggestions for improvements • Suggestions for new guides

  31. Questions & Answers & Discussions Thank You

  32. References Rebecca Jackson, Lorraine J Pellack, “Internet Subject Guides in Academic Libraries: An Analysis of Contents, Practices, and Opinions,” Reference & User Services Quarterly 43 (Summer 2004): 319-327. Sara E Morris, Marybeth Grimes, “A great deal of time and effort: An overview of creating and maintaining Internet-based subject guides,” Library Computing 18 (1999): 213-216. Brian Tracy (2001), "Apply the 80/20 Rule to Everything", available at http://www.mercola.com/2001/nov/3/80_20_rule.htm (accessed May 13, 2005).

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