This is a bit technical towards the end, but quite exciting to see the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) publishing this article on Zephyr and the semantic web.
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/sweo/public/UseCases/Talis/
Cheers
Ian
I’ve put together a video to help explain the project to lecturers. This is primarily for those institutions currently preparing for the pilot with their academic staff, but I saw no reason not to share this more widely.
You can watch the video here
It runs for just under 10mins, with a short introduction and a demonstration of both the student interface and the early development work on the “lecturer” view, building and editing a list.
Ian
Hello everyone,
As discussed previously, Ian has recorded some videos to update ZFG on development activities for Release 2. Please find the links below:
Part 1: Agenda, Theme/Scope, Background and Discussion
Part 2: Demo
Part 3: Next Steps
Please watch these at your leisure, and distribute them internally as required. A webinar has been arranged in one weeks time (15th Dec, 14:00) to give you the opportunity to provide feedback to the team, and ask questions.
If you can, please email these to either the ZFG mailing list or myself. Ian is away in Bruges for the Christmas market until the 15th, so any mails direct to him might not be answered until then!
Thanks,
Chris
Following comments in the last update, I have been considering how we update the group about the project/development through our webinars - specifically, providing time for advisory partners to provide more considered feedback (compared to doing a demo and asking “so, what do you think!”).
To tackle this, I am going to record the demo and make it available via the blog. I will then schedule a webinar for a few days after. This will provide everyone the chance to watch it in their own time, gather comments from interested parties within the institution and then join the webinar armed with feedback and questions.
This should have a couple of benefits. You will only need to have one representative on the call (though more always welcome). In addition, should you not be able to make the call, you can provide me feedback prior to the webinar and I can share that with the group.
To ensure this works, it will be necessary for you to ensure the video gets watched and feedback gathered.
So, I will aim to distribute the next update video on Monday Dec 8th. This will be a round-up of the first THREE iterations of Release 2. I will schedule the webinar for the Monday after this (15th).
We will try this, and discuss in the teleconference if it worked better for people or if we can improve the process.
Cheers
Ian
This year, I attended the Charleston Conference on serials and acquisitions, presenting an introduction to Zephyr. I looked at how lists had moved into the library domain, the problems they solved and opportunities they could now present. This included a demo of the pilot at University of Plymouth, and some early insight into the impact on libraries.
I’ve recorded a post-conference video which is available in three parts. These should all play directly in your browser - just click the play icon when it displays. Hope you enjoy them!
Part 1: Introduction, understanding the problem domain, introducing the pilot.
Part 2: Demonstration of the pilot at University of Plymouth
Part 3: Understanding the lecturer and library viewpoint, conclusions & contact information
Ian
All,
I have captured the video for the last presentation, and converted it into several parts for easier downloading/viewing.
Part 1: Roadmap review
Part 2: Demo of Plymouth “live”
Part 3: Plymouth team discuss their “pilot” experiences
Part 4: Whats Next
Part 5: Feedback from call attendees (the last 5 mins are missing due to recording problem)
I have recorded these as .wmvs this time rather than flash. We will need to see how it goes with this approach, both the .wmv’s and slicing it up (which took a LONG time). Next time I may just provide as a flash video in the web again, but provide the time-stamps for each area so you can skip to the bit you want.
Any questions or queries, please drop me a line
Is anyone aware of any quantitative information/reports regarding the use of mobile devices by students to access library or university services via the web? Alternatively, have you (or the institutions IT team) looked into this or monitored it via your server logs?
I am more than aware that we have been quiet recently. I just want to reassure everyone that this is not a result of “nothing happening”. In fact, I can confidently say its been because the reverse has occurred!
Over the last 10 weeks, the team have been working closely with Plymouth to prepare for the pilot release of the student interface for the start of term. We are on track to achieve this goal, working with a small subset of lists (covering 22 modules) serving around 1000 students. The pilot itself is focusing on what I will term “core” functionality, though there are one or two “nice things” in there which I hope you will like! More in the demo…
…which I will be scheduling in around 2-3 weeks, once we have gone live, to cover project progress in more detail and provide a run-through of what we have delivered.
If there are any immediate questions, please email or ring me.
Yesterday, I mentioned in the webinar we would like to collate a bit more information about ZFG member’s z-targets. As well as potentially being of use in future for release 2, we are looking at this as one means of performing an availability query. So…
1. Assuming everyone has a z-target, have you opened this up and made it publically available?
2. If so, do you have the connection details to hand (or could you send me a mail with them)
3. Do you know if it supports holdings/availability information - if you’re contributing to COPAC, you may very well be providing this info, or found a way to?
Thanks in advance,
Ian
All,
As I stated in the webinar yesterday, I am very keen to find the opportunity to meet academics at your institutions, and discuss the role reading lists plays in the learning process, and what a tool like Zephyr should provide them with to achieve this.
At this point, only two institutions have indicated they would be able to help with this and I would like to arrange at least half a dozen site visits to get a representative view from this important class of users.
I would like to arrange visits ideally in August/September, but can push this out to October (and even early November, though this isn’t ideal as this work is for Release Two). I do recognise we have a lot of people on holiday, and lecturers are will also be winding up to the beginning of a new term, but anything you can do to find academics who are (or, even more interesting, are not!) interested in reading lists / Zephyr would be really appreciated.
Thanks in advance, Ian
