Referencing Rescue: developing an interactive referencing service at the University of Portsmouth

Slide 1: Referencing Rescue: developing an interactive referencing service at the University of Portsmouth Judith Stamenkovic & Lisa Jeffery Faculty Library Team Portsmouth Business School

Slide 2: Background • Library seen as trusted provider of guidance on using Harvard APA  Short printed guide published for 10 yrs  Common queries published as FAQ on Library Website  Students and staff ask librarians for advice • Sliding scale of penalties introduced in one faculty • Increasing number of students asking for help • Increasing questions about reference types not covered in APA manual – needed wider consensus on format to be used

Slide 3: The R@P Project • Bid to University Learning & Teaching Committee - Summer 2005 • Small group to drive things forward • Plan for authority group to rule on formats not covered in APA manual • Crucial early decisions on where content should reside • Bulk of time then taken with finding suitable examples to use and inputting them

Slide 15: Promotion of R@P • Presented first to Heads and Course Leaders’ Conference Sept 2006 • Flyers and post-it notes • Demonstrated during student induction and re- induction sessions • Link on the Library homepage

Slide 16: Lessons learned • Bid for University money - it gets official seal of approval and raises Library profile • A small compact team with direct experience of answering referencing queries got things moving • Having University Authority Group a good idea but difficult to get off ground • More publicity needed!

Slide 17: Hits on R@P Site 40000 35000 35562 30000 20900 25809 25000 20000 10829 15000 10000 3195 5000 0 Sep-07 Oct-07 Nov-07 Dec-07 Jan-08 06/07 1099 3706 7938 6146 7761

Slide 18: Student views: Easy to use? 7 14 Very Easy 72 Easy Not easy 89 Not v easy N=182

Slide 19: Student views: Does it meet needs? 4 12 Everything I need Mostly what I 88 need Not much I need 74 Nothing I need N=178

Slide 20: What do the students say? • Very useful, found it invaluable when stuck on how to reference • An easy to use helpful guide for something that is really important to academic work What do staff say? • Has made my responses more efficient, I can in some cases simply point the enquirer to it  Academic Skills lecturer • I think it is particularly useful for international students  Public Administration lecturer

Slide 21: Benefits of R@P • Time saved on referencing queries – faculty librarians, enquiry staff, lecturers, students • Single authoritative source available 24/7 – for students, lecturers and library staff • Agreed new formats instantly available to all • Good publicity for the Library