Library Services is working on developing tailored services based on what we know about your interests and your previous use of the library. For instance we've developed a tool that shows you full text items you've opened to read.
We recently ran a survey asking 201 OU students about their preferences for tailored services. Of the 134 respondents 80% indicated that they find the types of personalisation offered by retailers such as Amazon somewhat useful or very useful.
The survey has helped us identify seven tools that at least 90% of respondents thought were a good idea. These 6 tools will be discussed further at student focus groups to establish what sort of functionality and presentation they should have. A selection of the most popular tools will then be developed as prototypes and tested with a group of 60 students, then improved and tested again through this site.
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Your favourites - journals, authors and ebooks you've bookmarked, which allow you to return quickly to the most recent issue of the journal, return to the ebook or see all works by the author. |
95% |
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News for you - new ebooks or articles that are related to items you've viewed previously. |
95% |
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Skills for you - recommendations for skill building activities and online training sessions, based on what you're studying, what stage of study you're at and which skills resources you've already used. |
93% |
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Recommended for your course/module - selected resources chosen by Librarians. |
93% |
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Your recent items - a list of full text articles, ebooks and other items you've viewed. |
93% |
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My course resources - list of resources from your module/course (i.e. Course bibliography). |
92% |
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My References - save references for books/articles you've read and will want to reference in your assignments. |
92% |
The next step in this work is running two focus groups with students who offered to take part. We will ask students to help us flesh out the functionality of the six tools with the highest rating from the survey. These tools will then be prototyped and students will be invited to test the prototypes through a private blog. The blog will also be used for further discussion of new personalisation ideas identified through the comments on the survey.
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