Consultation Events

The following is a list of some of the features currently included (or planned to be included shortly) in the software:

  • easily add items to a list from the library catalogue and Summon (done!)
  • allow multimedia content to be embedded directly into the reading list — e.g. UniTube recordings, YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, SlideShare, podcasts, etc (done for UniTube, YouTube & Vimeo)
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The following is a list of potential features, suggested by staff and students during consultation events in 2010, for the software. If you have any comments or ideas, please email them to myreading@hud.ac.uk

  • API interface — to allow the reading list data to be exposed and repurposed (done!)
  • widgets — allow sections (or individual items) to be easily embedded in other interfaces (e.g. Blackboard)
  • the widgets could be done using embed code
  • usage stats for items on a list (done!)
  • RSS feed of changes made to each list
  • generate a list of core reading for a course (by collating together essential reading for the mandatory modules on a course)
  • allow students to bookmark/comment/export/annotate individual items on a list (partially done)
  • when viewing a book in the library catalogue (or a journal in Summon?), show which reading lists use that item (done!)
  • import items from ref management software, LibraryThing, etc into a reading list
  • can we include article abstracts? (done!)
  • use bookmarklet to add items from sites like Amazon and LibraryThing
  • include book/journal/article recommendations (done!)
  • alerts for academic staff to let them know when extra copies of books on a their reading lists arrive in the library
  • embed videos from http://www.teachers.tv (done for YouTube, Vimeo and UniTube)
  • add an item to multiple lists at the same time (done!)
  • facility to play just a section of a UniTube recording
  • links to reading lists from Wisdom
  • allow students to add/suggest items that they think should be added to a reading list

5 thoughts on “Consultation Events”

  1. Ok ideas so far:
    1) Have a toggle hide from onclick, using maybe an ontogglefocus function, instead of having to hide it only using the + thing. You can click an area around the title to open it, why not again to close it?.

    2)Also, pretty sure your going to need a page checking for enabled javascript first, redirecting them saying it to be enabled or not blocked to work. Otherwise if its disabled, all functionality dies.

  2. 1) Sounds good :-) I did have a problem with the onclick around the title getting triggered by the +/- icon (even tho the icon was outside the div containing the onclick), but I’ve managed to fix that. Having the whole thing toggle might be easier tho, as it wouldn’t need separate JS for the icon :-)

    2) Just finishing off setting up the templating for the code, so there’ll be a version that doesn’t use any JS or Ajax (e.g. clicking on a item will take you to a separate page, toggling a section will refresh the entire page, etc)

  3. 1)What about when all the sections are hidden, and then clicking on “Test Subsection” have it automatically open and anchor to that section?. Or have you done this way to not do that when the section is hidden?

    2)Also, what about having a toggle close all? Which closes all open toggles on each book journal etc for each section? Rather than just having to then click each toggle individually to close each one.

    3)Also, is there anyway to put these references in and list alphabetically by surname for each source type?

    Just going from a lazy student perspective point of view :P

  4. Any of my comments above useful?

    Also, where on the items in the reading list does the digitised chapters go?

    Also the text for the details of each book looks quite bad not very “aesthetically pleasing” to the eye and not very clear. Thats both IE and FF.

    I have also noticed, some characters in the titles are not rendered correctly.
    Dave

  5. • Can the relevancy radio buttons default to the last entry the same way the module and section do?

    • Copac is our first port of call for out of stock items – is it possible to scrape data from there? Virtually every published book of an academic nature is on there.

    • Can you have a way for each student to know which references they have already looked at? Some kind of check box?

    • Filtering or ordering by reference type would be useful even for small lists.

    • Filtering to exclude items not held in the library or articles not subscribed to.

    • Filtering by relevancy.

    • A search box for each list so you can easily find something you’ve looked at before.

    • As mentioned in our meeting a star based rating system for each reference to indicate how useful students have found it.

    • Then have a sort option to sort the list by rating in descending order.

    • When adding audio as a multimedia item is implemented, embeddable players like the one Soundcloud uses could be useful.

    • A nifty GUI could be a shelf of books, reference information on the spines, have those little alphabetical letter markers…probably a bit much.

    • As Dave W has mentioned before, a button to expand/hide all items.

    • A printer friendly version.

    Mike