Phase 3 Requirements Ideas
Background
Sakaibrary Phase 1 provides the ability to search licensed databases and select articles that can be added to a citation list document within the Sakai resources tool. Phase 2 advanced and improved this functionality to address more of the requirements implicit in the initial usage scenarios, while at the same time making usability and usefulness improvements.
Phase 1 & 2 Accomplishments Against Initial Requirements
Our initial synthesis and statement of requirements, based on the usage scenarios, is given below, along with comments on the extent to which we've addressed these requirements.
| Code | Description | Priority | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| U1 | Users can create citation lists consisting of references to and links (if available) to materials from licensed databases, the public web, materials uploaded within Sakai, or links to canned or constrained searches. | high | Completed, except for the ability to define and link to canned or constrained searches. Items can be added from Google Scholar search results. |
| U2 | Users can embed citation lists within other document types in Sakai, whether structured (e.g., a template-based syllabus or assignment), unstructured (e.g., a discussion posting, an announcement), or a research guide. | high | Embedding not yet possible, although citation lists, like other resource types, can be attached to other Sakai entities such as a syllabus or assignment. |
| U3 | Within Sakai and from a single search box, users can search across licensed databases or other relevant resources to locate and add citations to a citation list. | high | Completed; however, to be more useful, additional work is needed so that users can constrain their searches by picking from a set of sources based on a comprehensive subject hierarchy. Also, improvements are needed in the performance and robustness of the searches. Searches can be constrained by selecting databases from a subject hierarchy. |
| U4 | In addition to a simple search, users can specify fielded search terms and other constraints for a search, including which databases, journals, or other resource collections or resource types are searched. | high | Not done. Advanced search provides for fielded searching, but not searching by date or relevance. |
| U5 | Users can name, annotate, and save predefined (canned or constrained) searches for future modification and use by themselves or others, or for inclusion into research guides and other document types. | high | Not done. |
| U6 | Users can save citations as standalone objects (e.g., resources) within Sakai to facilitate use and reuse in a variety of contexts. | high | Assuming this means "citation lists" rather than individual citations, this is partially done. The lists can be saved, and reused to the extent that they can be attached to other entity types (e.g., syllabus or assignment). |
| U7 | Users can edit and repurpose citation lists. | high | Completed. |
| U8 | Users can add custom citations to a citation list. | medium | Completed, although it is probably necessary to add a broader range of citation types. |
| U9 | Users can import from/export to other citation management tools such as Endnote or Refworks. | medium | Citations can be exported to a standard format (RIS), but Import has not been implemented. |
| U10 | Users can test a citation list and receive a report of broken links. | medium | Not done. |
| U11 | Librarians can create research guides as a distinct document type within Sakai, associating the guides with relevant classes according to the local policy, access control, and workflow. | high | Not done. |
| U12 | Librarians can put such objects as citation lists, canned or constrained searches, and unstructured document content (text, pictures, etc.) into research guides. | high | Not done. |
| U13 | Librarians can communicate with instructors and students with the Sakai context visible (e.g., the librarian can tell what course the student "coming from", even if the student doesn't mention it). | medium | Not done. |
Ideas for Phase 3
Preliminary ideas from 3 May 2007 phone conference
- Add editor integration feature (button within rich text editor for finding and inserting an OpenURL-linked citation) into an rich-text document.
- Provide importing of RIS files.
- Provide more options for sorting/reordering citation lists.
- Allow ordering of search results based on date or relevance.
- Database improvements - use triple store?