In the existing Talislist, under utilities, there is the facility to “add a list name”. On the edit screen for this, a field is available for URL which (when populated) puts a link in the “List Name” header. I am very interested to find out how this URL link is being used (I really need to get out more…)

Some early feedback from PLYM is that they use this to link to the “Module folder” on the VLE, or to a related list (such as a list where the modules are optional). How are other people using this?

PS: My reason for asking is in consideration of the wider data conversion. Would it be acceptable to put this link in as just another resource on the list? Maybe by putting the link in there, you are trying to meet a specific goal which we could tackle in a better way? Looking forward to responses!

Just stumbled on this – http://www.futuremedia.co.uk/learning/?p=217 – which talks about how lecturers can use scrum to plan, create course content, etc. Thought some may find it of interest…

Over August/Sept (though this may run into October), I’d like to arrange a site visit at a few institutions to meet with academics and discuss reading lists – why they do them, benefits they bring or could bring, how they build them, how they use them to engage with students, what would make their life easier, etc. I am still mulling over the details for the visits at the moment, but remain fairly flexible in the set-up – either meeting several academics individually, or running a group workshop (with 4-6 attendees), or a mix of both.

Are any ZFG members in a position to facilitate a visit during this time period, and arrange to get me “in front of” some of your academic staff? From our recent experience at Plymouth with the student workshop, Plymouth themselves got a lot out of the day and found the effort they put in getting the group together very rewarding in terms of feedback about their services. I’d hope this would be repeated with the academics.

If you think you’d like to arrange something and get involved, drop me an email and I’ll give you a call to discuss in more depth.

I have just sent a webinar invite out to the wider focus group for a project update, on the 29th of July (10:30am). This will get into some more depth on the email chris sent out recently regarding the project over the next 12 months, look at some student discovery prototypes, and look at what we’ve done in the first 2 iterations leading to the pilot.

Its a bit tricky keeping the webinar invite list up to date – so if you have not received an invite, and would like one, drop me an email and I’ll get you added to the list. On the flip side, if you got an invite and didn’t want them in future, drop me a mail too!

Cheers
Ian

I’ve recorded the video for Sprint 7, and have split this into three parts:

Part 1: Review of Research and Development (powerpoint)
Part 2: Demo of new features added in Sprint 7 (live)
Part 3: Student Discovery, and What’s next (powerpoint)

Enjoy!

Several people have asked me for more info on the semantic web. To be honest, the Wikipedia entry is a good place to start as it also links off to sites for all levels of technical knowledge. If there is enough interest out there, maybe we could arrange a short “Semantic Web 101″ webcast for focus group members – what do you think?

One thing I’d like to highlight now though is an article in Nodalities, Talis’ own semantic web magazine which “…bridges the divide between those building the Semantic Web and those interested in applying it to their business requirements”. Called “Open world thinking” (p.10), it’s written by Nadeem, who as some of you will know is part of the Project Zephyr team. The second half of the article is particularly interesting, as it highlights the importance of ontologies, something we discussed in the last sprint (oh, videos are coming!) in relation to institution heirarchies.

So, if you have 5mins, go and take a look – it even has a fancy pdf viewer which makes a “swish” noise when you turn the page. Could life get any better, eh?

As discussed in Sprint 7, we are planning to run several student focus groups to to explore some of our ideas around student discovery. Plymouth have already signed up – are you interested in hosting a similar event?

Although we’re still in the planning stages of how to organise an event, we would be looking at up to a dozen students (who we will pay!). Depending on the stage in development, the make-up of the students and what we would be doing, is liable to change.

If you feel this is something you could put together, drop me an email.

The Sprint demonstrated two milestones:

1) The successful import of Sheffields lists from TalisList to Zephyr
2) The implmentation of new “List of Lists” and “List” management screens

Additional functionality was also shown, namely “Tag bundles” and “Citation Preferencing”

Several items of feedback were provided by advisory customers, beyond general enthusiasm for the new changes:

- Place the count of resources within a section in the section heading
- Provide a user preference for a user viewing a list to determine if it is collapsed or expanded
- Provide a “generic” template (resource-type non specific): This could also be used for data conversion where the resource type couldn’t be determined – the list maintainer would then be allowed to move metadata from a generic template to a known resource type
- Provide a “generic” citation view, for lecturers who don’t want a specific citation style initially shown
- Provide a default sort of resources within sections (none, Title A-Z, Title Z-A), defined at list level but with option to over-ride at section level. Manually moving a resource into a section, it would automatically float to the correct sort point
- Provide “Last Edited By” alongside “Last Edited Date”

We are planning, for Sprint 7, to look into the following areas:

- VLE integration (Blackboard and WebCT)
- Prototyping the student experience
- Users and permissions (“who can do what”)
- Continued analysis into citation styles and supported resource-type set

Customers are encouraged to review the latest build at http://zephyr.stage.talis.com/.

I’ve been looking at “Status” and “Process State” on Talis List, and comparing to what we have in Zephyr.

Basically, Zephyr has the states of “Draft”, “Published” and “Archived” which sits at the LIST level. Looking at Talis List (and equating functionality), it also provides the facility to put both status and processing state on a SECTION, or on a RESOURCE.

I’m keen to get a sense of how important this is, or how frequently these are used, etc. Do you have published lists but with one section in draft? Do you want to have a single resource in draft – and why/when? Do you use the “processing state”, for example, to manage a simple approval workflow?

Cheers, Ian

I’m working on various detailed specifications following on from the requests people made a few months ago on what they’d like to see as the first citation styles supported. There were lots of votes for both “numeric” and “vancouver” – are these the same? Looking into this, it seems they are, but I want to confirm that before I throw away a load of docs. Can anyone help?