Today Lutie Sheridan and I presented our webinar on Summon: “Web-scale discovery: the user experience brought” which was organised by Richard Levy from Serials Solutions. The subject of the webinar was the findings of our user studies on Serials Solutions' Summon conducted at Edith Cowan University Library during 2010 and 2011.
We had about 33 people online from all around the place, mainly in Australia. I think it went quite well, but it is a somewhat unreal experience talking into the phone to 30+ people.
You need to be skilled at multitasking to do one of these things. The speaker-phone did not work, so we had to pass the phone back and forth to present the slides, and then later to answer questions. The questions appeared as text in the chat box and Richard repeated them to us as well.
Lutie commented that it was like talking on the phone when you get no "ah-ha" comments coming back at you...no verbal or visual cues. Another colleague mentioned having once done a phone job interview with a panel of interviewers firing questions and you have no visual cues.
Later I found out that some people were unable to log in. It’s always tricky with the technology in these events.
Richard Levy of Serials Solutions recorded the whole presentation including questions and responses. I believe he will be making it available at some stage.
My advice if you decide to do a webinar as presenter: prepare, check out the technology before hand and try to RELAX and have fun with it!!
Showing posts with label Summon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Summon. Show all posts
Thursday, 23 June 2011
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
Webinar on Summon this week
This blog post is just a little plug for our upcoming webinar on Thursday 23rd June 2011 at 11am Sydney time.
The topic of the webinar is the findings of our user studies on Serials Solutions' Summon conducted during 2010 and 2011
Web-scale discovery: user experience brought to you by Serials Solutions and Julia Gross and Lutie Sheridan from Edith Cowan University.
This is a free event and you can register at http://tinyurl.com/3tuwq6x
Fingers crossed the technology will work. We have had a few runs though and all is go position.
The topic of the webinar is the findings of our user studies on Serials Solutions' Summon conducted during 2010 and 2011
Web-scale discovery: user experience brought to you by Serials Solutions and Julia Gross and Lutie Sheridan from Edith Cowan University.
This is a free event and you can register at http://tinyurl.com/3tuwq6x
Fingers crossed the technology will work. We have had a few runs though and all is go position.
Saturday, 4 June 2011
Students use of Summon, article in New Library World
My colleague and I have had an article published in the Emerald journal New Library World. This is based on a study we did where we observed students using the Serials Solutions webscale discovery tool, Summon.
Gross, J. & Sheridan, L. (2011). Web scale discovery: the user experience. New Library World, 112 (5/6) 236-247.
The DOI is: 10.1108/03074801111136275
Purpose – This study aims to look at how a small group of university students used the new library web scale search discovery tool, “Summon”, and whether they encountered any difficulties pertaining to navigation, ease of use and the quality of the search results.
Design/methodology/approach – Researchers conducted a series of usability studies in which students were observed as they conducted some typical library resource searches using the new discovery search platform.
Findings – The paper analyses the data, describes and reports the findings of the usability tests. The study found that the new homepage design of providing a single search box was an effective interface for users. The students found a single search box discovery solution was simple to use, and seemed to deliver satisfactory results on a selection of typical library search tasks. The study confirms some of the promise for web scale discovery, but points to new lines of enquiry in relation to the nature of assistance that students will need in the future, particularly in relation to their need to evaluate information.
Originality/value – Web scale discovery searching is an innovation in the online searching of library collections. The study revealed how a small sample of end-users experienced the new type of searching and serendipitously identified a new issue that warrants further investigation
Gross, J. & Sheridan, L. (2011). Web scale discovery: the user experience. New Library World, 112 (5/6) 236-247.
The DOI is: 10.1108/03074801111136275
Purpose – This study aims to look at how a small group of university students used the new library web scale search discovery tool, “Summon”, and whether they encountered any difficulties pertaining to navigation, ease of use and the quality of the search results.
Design/methodology/approach – Researchers conducted a series of usability studies in which students were observed as they conducted some typical library resource searches using the new discovery search platform.
Findings – The paper analyses the data, describes and reports the findings of the usability tests. The study found that the new homepage design of providing a single search box was an effective interface for users. The students found a single search box discovery solution was simple to use, and seemed to deliver satisfactory results on a selection of typical library search tasks. The study confirms some of the promise for web scale discovery, but points to new lines of enquiry in relation to the nature of assistance that students will need in the future, particularly in relation to their need to evaluate information.
Originality/value – Web scale discovery searching is an innovation in the online searching of library collections. The study revealed how a small sample of end-users experienced the new type of searching and serendipitously identified a new issue that warrants further investigation
Thursday, 19 May 2011
CCA-EDUCAUSE Australasia presentation on Summon
Many of the presentations from the recent CCA-EDUCAUSE Australasia Sydney conference are now on the Conference program website.
The full list of presentations, posters and so forth is here
We gave a presentation on the usability studies conducted during 2010 and 2011 of the Serials Solutions Web scale discovery product, Summon. One key finding was that although students found the product easy to use, their skills at sifting through the results screens were not so good.
There is no full paper of the Summon presentation, however an article will be published this month's New Library World. More of that soon.
The full list of presentations, posters and so forth is here
We gave a presentation on the usability studies conducted during 2010 and 2011 of the Serials Solutions Web scale discovery product, Summon. One key finding was that although students found the product easy to use, their skills at sifting through the results screens were not so good.
There is no full paper of the Summon presentation, however an article will be published this month's New Library World. More of that soon.
Discovering Scholarly Resources
View more presentations from Julia Gross
Friday, 27 August 2010
Our students take to web scale discovery
Library OneSearch
Earlier this year we did a usability study of our new web scale discovery product, Summon.This is a very brief presentation I did on the study's findings during ECU Research Week in August 2010.
The full paper detailing all the findings, has been submitted by Lutie Sheridan and I and is expected to be published by Emerald Publishing later in 2010
Earlier this year we did a usability study of our new web scale discovery product, Summon.This is a very brief presentation I did on the study's findings during ECU Research Week in August 2010.
The full paper detailing all the findings, has been submitted by Lutie Sheridan and I and is expected to be published by Emerald Publishing later in 2010
View more presentations from Julia Gross.
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