Citations Helper

Purpose and Overview of the Helper

The purpose of the Citations Helper is to provide access to library content from within the Resources tool in a course site. The Citations helper makes it possible for users to connect to their library's metasearch service to provide access to electronic content the library provides to the campus. The Sakai 2.4 implementation enables connections to MetaLib X-Server or SIRSI SingleSearch.

The helper enhances the capabilities of the Resources tool by enabling creation of a new type of resource. If the Citations Helper is enabled, users will have the option to add a "Citation List" in addition to file-uploads, URLs, Simple-text documents, etc, within the Resources tool. Upon selecting the Citation List, users can select "Search Library Resources" or "Create New Citation". When searching library resources, users will retrieve search results and add citations to their citation list. Stable links will be created using OpenURLs. When creating citations manually, an OpenURL will be generated from the available metadata. Copies of these citation lists can then be attached to other items (assignments, discussion postings, calendar items, etc.) within Sakai. In addition, users will be able to initiate Google Scholar searches and save search results as citations within a Citation List.

History

Evolving out of Twin Peaks, the Citations helper is being developed with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and is a collaborative effort of staff at Indiana University and the University of Michigan, with input from project partners at UC-Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Stanford, and Yale. Phase I development was completed in Fall 2006. Uability testing was completed on both the Indiana and Michigan campuses. Faculty, librarians, teaching assistants, and students completed a series of tasks that provided us with valuable feedback on how our users want to work with the Citations helper. This feedback has influenced designs and functionality in Sakaibrary 2.4.