1 / 11

A Social Science Gateway in a Shifting Digital World

A Social Science Gateway in a Shifting Digital World. Shaping SOSIG for Users’ Needs of the Future. Lesly Huxley and Angela Joyce http://www.sosig.ac.uk. Presentation Outline. SOSIG in context - some history Responses to two related challenges: Users’ needs

sloane-chan
Download Presentation

A Social Science Gateway in a Shifting Digital World

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. A Social Science Gateway in a Shifting Digital World Shaping SOSIG for Users’ Needs of the Future Lesly Huxley and Angela Joyce http://www.sosig.ac.uk lesly.huxley@bristol.ac.uk | angela.joyce@bristol.ac.uk

  2. Presentation Outline • SOSIG in context - some history • Responses to two related challenges: • Users’ needs • Sustaining a labour-intensive service • The shape of SOSIG in future • Identity, packaging, funding, user input lesly.huxley@bristol.ac.uk | angela.joyce@bristol.ac.uk

  3. SOSIG - a Short History • One of the UK’s first web-based subject gateways (1994) • Pioneering technical, metadata and other standards development work • Now part of the UK’s resource discovery network (RDN) • Diverse funding streams (JISC/ESRC) • Broad user bases (research and learning in all UK social science sectors) lesly.huxley@bristol.ac.uk | angela.joyce@bristol.ac.uk

  4. SOSIG home page, August 2003 http://www.sosig.ac.uk/

  5. Core team of technical, subject and management staff in Bristol Distributed team of c.50 ‘section editors’ contributing to the service Growth of catalogue to 25,000+ records, 17 main headings, 1000+ sub-headings ‘Community’ and personal features, additional content: courses, conferences A Significant Subject Resource lesly.huxley@bristol.ac.uk | angela.joyce@bristol.ac.uk

  6. Evaluation:the Big Questions • Content: are our selection criteria and collection management ‘right’? • Audience: who? What are their information needs? Are we meeting them? • Usability: is service design appropriate for the audience? • Service delivery: are speed and functionality appropriate? • Awareness: are we known to our target audiences? lesly.huxley@bristol.ac.uk | angela.joyce@bristol.ac.uk

  7. Input from our user communities • Workshops, focus groups, research, consultation day, usability study… some findings… - Must see users’ viewpoints - Search behaviours - Consultation day feedback - Legislation on accessibility - Size of SOSIG sections - 50 most visited sites lesly.huxley@bristol.ac.uk | angela.joyce@bristol.ac.uk

  8. Sustaining SOSIG • Collaborative research and services… some examples • European projects • Exchange and ‘wrapping’ of records • Collaborative cataloguing (LTSN) • Portalisation • Spring-cleaning exercise lesly.huxley@bristol.ac.uk | angela.joyce@bristol.ac.uk

  9. Shaping Sosig • Service design - user engagement – portalisation …In a shifting digital world… • New technologies • ‘Massification’ in higher education • SOSIG audience? • Surveys of digital library usage • SOSIG’s strengths lesly.huxley@bristol.ac.uk | angela.joyce@bristol.ac.uk

  10. Conclusions User-centred approach, Contextual drivers • Measure performance • Widen target audience • Software redesign • Selection criteria • Interface • Portalisation • SOSIG brand identity • Competition • Embedding in VLEs lesly.huxley@bristol.ac.uk | angela.joyce@bristol.ac.uk

More Related