what do universities need to know?
Briefing from CIBER regarding the Deep Log Analysis Study
- What determines what universities get back in terms of data?
1) SURVEY DATA (Work Package 2): CIBER will be sending questionnaires out to all librarians and their users. The better the response the better able CIBER is to provide quality data, especially in regard to matching-up log and questionnaire data and placing the log data in context.
2) LOG DATA (Work Package 3): CIBER will aim to provide all subscribed HE institutions with the full analysis of deep-log data as in Work Package 3.3 However, it is likely that CIBER will have to select a sample of institutions for the user analysis (3.4) that allows CIBER to identify a user’s academic status, a user’s department and their geographical location. This is because universities differ in their practice of sub-network labelling. If a university allocates meaningful/accurate labels to their sub-networks then CIBER can readily identify academic status (staff/student) and subject characteristics from these sub-network labels. CIBER will need the help of institutions in terms of translating what the labels mean. If an institution does not have a working practice for labelling their sub-networks then CIBER will not be able to do the in-depth user analysis BUT the institution will still receive all the other data as in 3.3.
3) INTERVIEW DATA (Work Package 5, 6 and 7): A representative sample of eight universities will be selected taking into account amount/quality of the data returns. Institutions that would like to be a case study institution can submit themselves for selection as CIBER will require case study institutions to commit.
- What does CIBER want from the subscribed universities?
1) Numbers of copies of each observatory title in hard copy and their status (e.g. loan, short loan, reference) - otherwise CIBER can’t interpret the circulation data.
2) Circulation data for each of the above during the experiment and, perhaps, for 3 calendar years (2005-2007). CIBER would like this in MS Excel format with as much fine division as the records allow (i.e. daily / weekly / monthly). However if not available it is just the fact that the hard copy equivalents have been borrowed that CIBER require.
3) If a university already has/had an e-version of any of the e-books included in the national e-books observatory CIBER needs to know which ones, how long the institutions has had access for, and on which platforms. CIBER also needs to know if the institution has summary COUNTER e-book compliant data for those e-books. This data can be supplied in MS Excel format - for 2007 at the least.
4) Similarly, if an institution is planning to continue to run existing e-book subscriptions to any of the same titles as in the e-books project (perhaps they are already running some of the e-book titles but on different platforms), then CIBER needs to know this.
5) If an institution has already done any research or evaluation on e-books, it would be very useful for CIBER to be informed of this.
6) A named contact and email address for a single frontline person in each institution with whom we deal direct (in a multi-site library, this can get complicated, so they need a 1:1 relationship at the institutional level). This contact is requested on the sub-licence agreement forms.
7) To help CIBER collect sales data they will need to know at the very minimum, which chain runs the university bookshop.
8) If an institutions would like survey results, then CIBER will require the institution to distribute a survey database link EITHER through appropriate all-student email lists OR by placing a link on the library website for ongoing data collection.
9) CIBER would also like to know if an institution has catalogued the e-books, which ones and when and if they are included in a Federated search.
10) To ensure that CIBER can monitor the usage effectively, they needs to document key promotional activities and events that have taken place within the institution, therefore the deep log analysis content should let CIBER know about these and other useful information such as if there are things like online recommendations