Presented at CONUL conference, June 2016, Athlone, Ireland by Monica Crump.

1. Embedding a reading list
management system -
Collaboration or Coercion?
Partnership or Persuasion?
MONICA CRUMP
NUI GALWAY
CONUL Conference, Athlone,
1st – 2nd June 2016

2. Reading List System – a Bridge!
The Water Lily Pond after Monet Painting
by Barbara Crump

3. A bridge between stakeholders
Reading List
System
Library Staff
Academic Staff
Students

4. Benefits for the stakeholders
Reading Lists
System
Library
Academic Staff
Student
• Single authoritative source of
required readings
• Can evolve throughout
semester and library and
student will stay informed
• Easy to give reading guidance
to students on what to read
and why
• Reports of student
engagement with lists!
• Easy to quickly review lists
to see new material that will
be needed
• Class size information allows
decisions on how many
copies/loan status etc.
• Direct linking to vendors
• Direct access to lists via Blackboard
• Live library availability information
• Direct links to online content
• Guidance on what to read when and why

5. A bridge between systems
Reading Lists
System
Library
Systems
Blackboard -
VLE
Module Manager
Book Vendor
Systems

6. A bridge between systems
Reading Lists
System
Library
Systems
Blackboard -
VLE
Module Manager
Book Vendor
Systems
• Direct import of
information on modules
underway in given
academic year
• Blackboard Tool enables
direct link from Blackboard
module to the relevant
Reading List
• Pulls in information on
alternative editions
• Pushes book information to
vendor system to enable
speedy ordering
• Live information on
availability and location
of material
• Direct links to e-content,
configured for off-
campus access
• Alerts where no/
insufficient copies of
material are held

7. Bridges need Collaboration!
Bangor Pier, Photo by Monica Crump

8. Persuasion of Academic Staff
 Lots of chats over cups of tea
 Lots of persuasion
 “What’s in it for me?”
 Calling in favours
 Lots of positive reactions
 Not so much action!

9. Coercion of Academic Staff
 Go on, go on, go on, go on, go on!
 Following up on initial
conversations to ensure action
 Link budget and ordering priorities
to submission of reading lists?
 Only purchase multiple copies
from submitted reading lists?

10. Partnership with Learning
Technologists
 Great buy-in from Centre for Excellence in Learning and
Teaching
 Despite major other project going on, they made the time to do
the Blackboard integration work
 Integration widget well defined and documented
 Working to their timetable of course!
 Invited us to present at the Blackboard Fair to aid roll out

11. Cooperation with Academic Records?
 Major project at University level to
implement module management system
 Had suffered lots of delays so timing was an
issue
 Didn’t need the headache of another
system and really didn’t want to know!
 So…
 We took the plunge without full
cooperation!
Blackrock Diving Board,
Photo by Monica Crump

12. Year 1 – Early Adopter Pilot
 Presented to:
 Individual academics
 Staff of academic programmes
 Staff of entire discipline
 Centre for Adult Learning
 Internal Work in Parallel:
 Team formation
 Workflow design and configuration
 Learning, learning, learning

13. Success?
 Some academics very active
 Lists enabled in their Blackboard
modules
 New lists created
 Lots of student engagement
 Very positive feedback
 SP689: 20 students
498 views, 332 click-throughs
16 annotations
 GA213: 10 students
112 views, 41 click-throughs
 Child protection: 50 students
346 views, 217 click-throughs
15 annotations
 Tort law: 100 students
436 views, 245 click-throughs.

14. Next Steps
 Keep building bridges
 Formal launch and marketing
campaign
 Targeted advocacy department by
department
 Starting to get requests from
academics!
 Hope that positive student experience
will create demand and momentum

15. Thank You!