TALIS ASPIRE AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE BIRMINGHAM

ABOUT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE BIRMINGHAM

v UCB is based in Birmingham City Centre, there are over 8,000 students on Higher Education, Postgraduate and Further Education programmes including 1100 international students from 65 countries.

v UCB is a specialist institution for Undergraduate management programmes in the fields of Hospitality, Tourism, Events, Culinary Arts, Business, Sports Therapy, Spa Management, Marketing, Childhood and Education. 

v We also offer a range of Postgraduate opportunities.

v  Approximately 800 modules.

WHY? THE DECISION MAKING PROCESS

v  Improve our existing reading list system.

v  The existing system was only enabled for book content, with no ability to include other material.

v  The ability to link to online content, therefore giving improved access and discovery for students.

v  E-Books become better integrated within the virtual library.

v  Much easier to manage a reading list - instant editing enabled.

PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT

v Review and evaluation of product considering: ●  Costs of admin time ●  Ease of use ●  Integration with our existing library management systems

(inc authentication) ●  Support from provider ●  Product costing

v Formal proposal to internal committees to secure funding.

v Agree a time frame for implementation.

v Planning meetings with Talis.

v Demonstrations to lecturing staff.

IMPLEMENTATION

v Go ahead May – formally agreed July 2013.

v Existing system in place so concept wasn’t alien.

v Kick off meetings – ensuring compatibility and integration with UCB systems.

v Exporting data from existing system was challenging!

v IT support needed.

v Integration with VLE was complicated because it required technical expertise.

IMPLEMENTATION CONTINUED

v Urls for eBooks were historically not in our Marc records, so we had to contact all our eBook suppliers for our url’s.

v These were then input into the Aspire metadata ensuring

online resource links were intact.

v Updated current lists to meet the data upload deadline. v Portal placement.

ROLL OUT

v Should we have a trial group of modules or go for the BIG BANG?

WE WENT FOR THE BIG BANG OPTION. WHY?

v We had invested heavily in the project.

v Two systems would only have led to confusion.

v Let’s get the students used to Talis from the get-go.

v We had the time from July to late September to prepare.

v Why not?

ROLL OUT

v Specialised staff training and Q+A sessions.

v Putting Aspire onto the catalogue PCs – reading list access in library.

v Replaced the existing reading list system.

v Put links in place in our VLE so the students were familiar with access points.

v Fresher’s Fayre, informal ‘Meet and Greets’.

v Set up meetings with lecturers and organised some informal 1 to 1 sessions.

ISSUES

v The previous system allowed students to print their reading list with Dewey numbers and pictures.

v This lead to some staff resistance as initially Aspire was seen to complicate the existing process.

v Lecturers – slower/reluctant to embrace Aspire. Misplaced fear that it will lead to a greater workload.

v Tidying up existing data in our catalogue to ensure eBooks are picked up in Aspire.

ONGOING TASKS

v Monitoring the Talis website for reading list updates.

v Taking part in product webinars.

v Checking into the Reading List Forum – suggesting and voting for ideas.

v Recently in preparation for Rollover, we realised that half

of our lists hadn’t got a date period assigned to it.

v Attaching the Hierarchy to modules.

FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS

v Lecturers need to take ownership of their own lists rather than the Library doing it for them.

v Using Aspire for book requests and ordering.

v Decision taken to arrange lists in Aspire to replicate the existing Module Delivery Schemes and organise reading into a weekly format.

QUESTIONS Contacts: d.findlay@ucb.ac.uk