Just a quick follow up to the previous post about the improvements we’re making to the interface…

As with the original interface, you initially see a list of the items on the reading list:

When you click on a reference, just as before, it expands to show you more details. The difference now is that we’re using a tabs to expose some new functionality. By default, you get the “details” tab:

If it’s available on Google Books as either a preview or an entire book, you’ll get a “preview” tab:

The “discussion” tab is still under development and will be an optional feature. The idea is to provide a social space where you and your students can discuss the item. For example, you might set a task of reading a journal article and then ask your students to critique it within MyReading. If you are keen to beta test this feature during the autumn term of 2012/13, please get in touch!

Another optional feature is to make use of the library’s analytical data to show other items that students looked at (e.g. books and journals) within a “more like this” tab:

Finally, if you have editing rights, you’ll see a couple of extra tabs. Firstly, you can now edit the reference “inline” within the web page via the “edit” tab:

And, secondly, there’ll be a number of extra “admin” style options for the reference. In the old interface, these were displayed underneath the reference, but we’ve decided to tidy up the interface and give them their own tab:

Timescales

If all goes to plan, we’ll be rolling out the new interface to students at the end of July. As we still need to retrofit some of the existing admin options into the new interface, we’re anticipating that the new interface will be rolled out to staff during August or September.

If you have any comments or question, please get in touch!

We’re planning to roll out some improvements to the interface this summer, which will include converting the reading lists to HTML5 and improving support for mobile devices via progressive enhancement.

On a desktop browser or large screen mobile device (e.g. an iPad), a reading list might look like this:

…whilst the same list on a smaller device (e.g. an iPhone) will optimise itself for a narrow screen width by hiding icons and book cover images:

As well as the improvements to the interface, we’ve also been optimising the back-end MyReading code to improve performance, particularly for larger lists (200+ items).

If all goes well, we’re aiming to roll out the new interface in early July.

In general, we’d recommend that you use the latest edition of a book on your reading list. Where newer editions are listed in the library catalogue, you should start to see a “newer edition available” message (in green) below the book references…

If you expand the reference, you’ll see the newer edition(s) listed in the “Library Catalogue – all editions and related works” section, along with an option to update the reference…

Before updating to the latest edition, we’d recommend that you review the library stock (you can do this by clicking on the title of the newer edition) — in this particular case, we have 3 copies of the 1993 edition in stock. If you do decide to update to a newer edition, your Subject Librarian will be automatically alerted and, if necessary, extra stock will be purchased.

Occasionally you might find a “false positive”, where the newer edition is a related work (such as a different volume) rather than a newer edition. Feel free to report those to myreading@hud.ac.uk and we’ll investigate.

When you click on the “update to this edition” option, you’ll see the usual “check the reference for accuracy” screen…

Once you’re happy with the new reference, click on the “Submit” button to update the reading list…

The older edition of the book will still be listed in the “Library Catalogue – all editions and related works” section.

If you run into any problems using this new feature, please leave a comment or send an email to myreading@hud.ac.uk

We’ve just added in an option for printing off a reading list:

n.b. the printed version is an plainly formatted version of the page and isn’t formatted in a citation style

Support for adding UniTube off-air recordings has been added to MyReading, with two new item reference types:

• audio (UniTube) for radio broadcasts
• video (UniTube) for TV broadcasts

For more info, see the MyReading documentation on iPark.

If you include the embed code from UniTube (go to Options > Share > Embed Code), then the programme will play from within the reading list:

As well as off-air recordings, you could easily include other recordings, such as lecture captures:

Finally, here’s a couple of examples:

• The Joy of Stats (BBC4, 2010)
• Inside the Ethics Committee (BBC Radio 4, 2010)

A big update this time, as the pages and workflow for adding items to reading lists have been fully revamped.

As part of the change, we’re starting to add user documentation to iPark: ipark.hud.ac.uk/content/myreading

Adding Items to Lists

The changes include…

• all of the screens for adding new items have been revamped and given a common “look & feel”
• items don’t need to be added to a list straight away and will remain listed on your “My Lists” page until they’ve been added to a list…
  
• you can now add multiple items to multiple lists at the same time
• if you manage a large number of reading lists (50+), you can now select multiple “working lists”
• items you’ve recently added to lists now appear on your “My Lists” page…
  

The ability to queue references (so that you can add them to a list at a later date) will make it easier to add future support for importing items from reference management software.

List/Item History

You can now view a “history” for lists and items, so you can see details of all the changes made to them…

Most of the development work since the last blog post has been in the background, but there’s a couple of cosmetic changes to the interface…

Reference Options

We’ve got plans for a variety of item options (e.g. bookmarking, exporting, reporting a problem, etc) and I’d been pondering where these should go. As a few people have commented that the “add note” icon wasn’t obvious, I’ve removed it and replaced it with a blue “options” icon (which might be equally as unobvious!)…

…clicking on the icon reveals a pop-up menu listing a couple of options (with more options to be added later on)…

Managing Notes

As well as being able to add and remove notes via the new pop-up options menu, I’ve also added it to the “item options” bar that appears if you have permission to edit a list…

MyReading Stats

Finally, just for a bit of fun, I’ve added a live “MyReading Stats” section to the blog and to the MyReading home page

Just a little update this time, but hopefully one that you’ll find useful!

Editing Items

This has been on my list of “tweaks to do” for ages but, as it wasn’t a showstopper, I’ve only just gotten around to coding it…

When you edit an item within a list, the item should now refresh automatically without you needing to manually reload the page, so you can see your changes immediately.

Headers and Footers

You can now add a free text header and/or footer to each list…

The text can contain HTML, so could include links to other web pages, images, etc.

ASIS Updates

We’re now receiving an overnight data feed from ASIS, so the following will happen on a daily basis:

• new modules will be added to the software
• module leader information will be updated
• the list of students enrolled on each module will be updated