The document discusses the integration of online reading lists into the study direct system at Sussex University, addressing student and academic feedback to improve resource accessibility. Through user testing and collaboration with the e-learning team, a seamless workflow was created, enhancing the ease of locating reading materials. The integration has shown potential benefits in resource use and student engagement, despite concerns about students over-relying on readily accessible links.

1. “Gloriously straightforward”:
Removing barriers to resource
discovery
Suzanne Tatham, Academic Services Manager
Chris Keene, Technical Development Manager

2. Background
• Push from students
• Complaints from academics
• NSS - “not enough copies of
core texts”

5. Issues: students use other systems
• Students and academics saw Reading lists as a
separate system
• Students use Study Direct (Moodle) and Module
Handbooks for information
• Needed a fully integrated approach (at least for
students) to hide separate system

6. Study direct
• Moodle
• Small team in IT Services
• Very strong focus on student/tutor feedback and
needs.
• Regular user testing and monitoring to discovery
pain points and confusion.
• http://blogs.sussex.ac.uk/elearningteam/

7. Study Direct
• Led to the removal of blocks, boxes and Moodle
modules down the side of the screen. Students
found them confusing. Found no one was using
them.
• This included previous library block which included a
basic link to the reading list.

8. Process
• Sat round table with e-learning team. Set context,
explain reasons.
• Made it clear it was something students and staff
had raised, not a library pet project. Plus other
benefits of increased use of reading list system such
as acquisition of relevant materials.

9. Process
After much discussion…
• …core code developed quickly by e-learning team.
• Some tricky bits to think about around the roll over
of both Moodle modules and Aspire lists, and
allowing users to access historical information.
• Testing, and then live summer 2013.
• http://vimeo.com/61188252

10. Workflow: tutors add a resource

11. Workflow: pick a section

12. Workflow:
give it a title

13. Behind the scenes
Study Direct Aspire
Study direct asks for the html
for the list (just like a web
browser)
Aspire sends html back
No APIs used (didn’t provide information required)
Use Aspires ‘nice urls’ which include the module code and year.

16. Student feedback
• Interviews held with History, Philosophy, Psychology
and Sociology undergraduate students
• Asked about their use of their online reading lists
and the choices they make about what to read

17. How have you found the integrated
online reading list?

18. Do you think having your list integrated within the
VLE has made it easier to access the items on the
list?

19. How useful do you find it being able to link
through directly to the item on the list, including
print books in the Library?

20. What influences your decision on which item you
choose to read?

21. Do you use ebooks often?

22. Do you feel that having an online reading list
makes any difference to you to how you approach
your reading?

23. How are we measuring success?
• Interviews with
academics and
students
• Google analytics to
get page views –
adding student
numbers
• Looking for knock-on
effect on print use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MeasuringSpoons.jpg

24. Increased use of resources
• So far, only 7% of reading lists have been integrated
into the VLE but 35% of the top 100 items viewed are
on an integrated list

25. Item Title Pageviews Integrated?
Av item
views per
student
Student
numbers Format
No. of
items
on list
Copies
history
The economics of money, banking and financial markets 186 5.03 37 Book 4 198
Letters from an American Farmer - Jean de Crèvecœur: Letter
III 'What is American?' 447 4.56 98 Webpage 60
Algeria: France's undeclared war 219 Yes 3.65 60 47
Killing as Punishment 61 Yes 3.59 17 Book 101 12
The first modern society: essays in English history in honour
of Lawrence Stone 58 Yes 3.41 17
Digitised
extract 101 2
The Cultural Lives of Capital Punishment 57 Yes 3.35 17 Book 101 44
Business and its environment 110 Yes 3.24 34 Book 175 30
Family therapy: first steps towards a systemic approach 56 2.24 25 Book 1 17
The handbook of global companies 75 Yes 2.21 34 Book 175 37
Business, politics, and society: an Anglo-American 74 2.18 34 Book 175 6
The making of economic society 70 Yes 2.06 34 Book 175
Nation, Society and Culture in North Africa 104 Yes 1.73 60 Book 167 27
How Brown Changed Race Relations: The Backlash Thesis 58 1.71 34 Article 86 1
Men in wonderland: the lost girlhood of the Victorian gentleman 675 1.68 402 Book 189 9
Photography in Print: Writings from 1816 to the present 308 1.47 209 Book 82 40
Philosophy of Perception: A Contemporary Introduction 62 Yes 1.44 43
Digitised
extract 122 32
Contemporary security studies 86 1.43 60 Book 166 25
Laughter out of place: race, class, violence, and sexuality in a
Rio shantytown 85 1.42 60 Book 166 33
The Israel/Palestine question: a reader 80 Yes 1.33 60 Book 167 28
Security beyond the state: private security in international
politics 79 1.32 60 Book 166 0
American Identities 76 1.27 60 Book 89 1
The Arab state 73 Yes 1.22 60 Book 167
Towards a new American nation?: redefinitions and 87 1.21 72 Book 272 21
Tracks 261 1.19 220
Digitised
extract 60 5
An introduction to the anthropology of Melanesia: culture and
tradition 69 Yes 1.15 60
Digitised
extract 40 57

26. Average views per item
(top 100 items)
0.00
0.50
1.00
1.50
2.00
2.50
3.00
3.50
4.00
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Items on integrated lists
Items on non-integrated lists

27. Feedback from academics
Learning Technologist, Dr Anne Hole, carried out a series of
interviews with academics.
• Benefits of integration from academics’ points of view:
▫ Very easy to embed sections of the reading list into the VLE
▫ Section-by-section integration increases students’
engagement with the reading
▫ It keeps all resources for the module in one place
▫ Increased accessibility of online resources
▫ Requires time investment but off-set by student benefit –
they’re likely to do more reading

28. “Some colleagues are a little apprehensive that
providing clickable links to readings is making it too easy
for students and risks failing to develop their research
and library skills. On the other hand, removing obstacles
to finding readings for increasingly time-poor students
has the potential to increase the amount of reading that
they can do.”
https://rustleblog.wordpress.com/2014/01/13/putting-reading-at-the-heart-of-study-direct/

29. Student engagement
• If lists are used and
updated in a dynamic
way, do students get
an insight into
scholarly
communication?
“He’s bothered to engage with you and you feel you’re
more part of an academic dialogue. He’s building the
course and it’s still an area that’s of interest to him.”

30. Spoon-feeding?
• Do you agree with the
argument that
locating items on a
reading list is an
academic skill that
students should
learn?