Agenda
April 18, 2005
4:00 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.
Goldberg Conference Room
- Discussion of the library's new role managing OAK.
- Discussion of a possible new interface for the Acorn Catalog.
- Discussion of a possible e-journal guiding committee.
- Brief report on using LOCKSS software to preserve Electronic Dissertations and Thesis.
Minutes
1 -- Discussion of the library's new role managing OAK.
The direction in which OAK should take was discussed among professors and library staff. Questions and issues raised were:
- How to integrate the library further into the OAK system
- Reconstituting academic advisory into OAK making it more seamless and user friendly. There was a basic consensus among everyone at the meeting that it is fairly basic now and there is a definite need to make it more flexible for the user.
- Ideally, having one environment that integrates the library’s resources and coursework into one system would be most beneficial.
How do we put things together?
- Blackboard is used by faculty, but they are not using all its features. They find some aspects to be inconvenient.
Some suggestions for OAK:
- Peer-review
- Portfolios for students to post their work
- Collaborative space (for writing)
- Group discussion boards
Students’ problems with OAK:
- A lack of continuity between classes on OAK, which is confusing.
- Menus aren’t set up for how people actually use OAK.
Professors’ problems with OAK:
- Training unclear
- Associated booklet unclear
- Have to figure it out for yourself
Suggestions:
Possibility of professors calling bibliographer for help with OAK, creating continuity among professors’ coursework, which will cut down confusion on the students’ behalf.
2 -- New ACORN Interface Possibility of new search interface which is all-encompassing in searching functions. Some suggestions made were:
- EX-LIBRIS’ Primo – one place for research. This would search all of Vanderbilt catalogs to bring more information to the user
- Catching up to Amazon.com-like search engines for presentation
- Everyone was in agreement that the ACORN is “clunky”
3 -- LOCKSS
The project , which is the electronic journal access preservation system, was discussed with meeting attendees, as a possibility for further use in the future. LOCKSS has partnered with 8 Southeastern school to see if it would work with ETD projects. Thus far, it seems to be working.
4 –- Miscellaneous topics discussed: Center for Academic Life development • Integrating all academic support systems
E-Journal Guiding Committee
- New journals online? – Journals that we use in-house
- Making it easier for the Vanderbilt community to publish
- Is a committee necessary?