Linking Courseware to Library
Resources Using OpenURL:
Experience, Possibilities, and
Future Directions
David W. Lewis, IUPUI University Library
Oren Beit-Arie, Ex Libris
Chris Awre, Program Manager, JISC
CNI, April 28, 2002
Defining the Problem
David W. Lewis
IUPUI University Library
[email protected]
Defining the Problem
• What do faculty, students, and librarians
want?
• What does the course management and
information environment look like?
• What are the components of a solution
What Do Faculty Want?
“Faculty want access to local resources
(electronic reserves), database subscriptions,
web materials, etc. all accessible through and
easy to use citation creator. I know that I’m
not telling you anything you don’t know…
What Do Faculty Want?
… this should, of course, be managed by a
CMS that has single authentication and
appropriate authorization to materials based
on their role in the enterprise.”
— Jay Fern, Enterprise Services/Systems
Liaison, UITS, Indiana University
What Do Faculty Want?
• To be able to locate or identify materials
relevant to their courses
– Known items
– Items found by searching or browsing
• Capture a link to these items
• Insert the link into a CMS (or other web
pages) so students can easily link to the
material
What Do Students Want?
• One click access to all of the required
readings from the course management
system
• With no additional authorization required
• Access from anywhere
What Do Libraries What?
• Maximum use of previously purchased
electronic content
• Minimize labor use for electronic reserves
and minimize the cost of copyright fees for
electronic reserves
• Recognition of library’s contribution —
Branding
Environment
• Course Management Systems
• Library Resources
– Purchased Content
– Electronic Reserves
• Open Web Resources
– Web pages
– Documents in Databases (Repositories)
Purchased Content
• Most important because:
– Large institutional investment
– The best stuff - what the faculty want to
use
Purchased Content
• Many vendors/systems - No common
interface or standard linking protocol
• Some systems have persistent links, some do
not
• Content is unstable
• Established mechanisms of bibliographic
control - the catalog - do not help much
Environment
Environment
Key Question
For purchased content, how do we
make a citation work as a link?
Citation/Link
• Should definitively identify the object the traditional role of a citation
• Should find the “appropriate copy” in a
given domain - challenge of the current
purchase content environment
• Should be in open - useable from any
web page
Answer: OpenURL
• Citation/Link is an object which has a
visible component which looks like a
traditional citation
• Embedded in the object is an OpenURL
which can be used to retrieve full-text in
a specific domain
Citation/Link - What You See
Maryam Alavi; Bradley C. Wheeler; Joseph S.
Valacich , “Using IT to Reengineer Business
Education: An Exploratory Investigation of
Collaborative Telelearning,” MIS Quarterly,
Vol. 19, No. 3, Special Issue on IS Curricula
and Pedagogy. (Sep., 1995), pp. 293-312.
Citation Link - Underlying
OpenURL
http://sfx.ulib.iupui.edu/sfx_local?gen
re=article&issn=02767783&title=MIS%20Qu
arterly&volume=19&issue=3&date=19950901
&atitle=Using%20IT%20to%20reengineer%20
business%20education%3A%20An%20explorat
ory%20investigation%20of%20collaborativ
e%2E%2E%2E&spage=293&sid=EBSCO:afh&pid=
%3Cauthors%3EAlavi%2C%20Maryam%3BWheele
r%2C%20Bradley%20C%2E%3C/authors%3E%3Cu
i%3E9512120051%3C/ui%3E%3Cdate%3E199509
01%3C/date%3E%3Cdb%3Eafh%3C/db%3E
Answer: OpenURL
•
1. Faculty member uses
citation/link creator to search
library databases
•
2. Citation/Link Creator
captures OpenURL citation
•
3. OpenURL citation/link
embedded in CMS web page
•
4. Student clicks on
OpenURL citation/link
•
5. OpenURL Resolver
find full-text
Purchase Library
Database
Course
Management
System
1
Citation/Link
Creator
3
Purchase Library
Database
2
Purchase Library
Database
4
OpenURL
Resolver
CampusDomain
5
Purchase Library
Database
Web
Complexities
• Acquiring citation is done in different
ways
– Know Item - Use OpenURL Resolver or
Federated Search Engine
– Subject Searching or Browsing
• No standard for citation/link