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Phase 2 Requirement 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. The goal of phase 2 is to advance and improve 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 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.
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	Not done.
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.
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.
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, but reuse within other Sakai contexts is not supported.
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 2

Constrained Search Support

Provide a mechanism for users to define, save, and reuse constrained searches. The definition should permit selection from among sets of databased grouped by subject, as well as the ability to limit by specific publications.

Fielded Search

Provide the ability to search within specific fields, e.g., author, title, name of publication, etc.

Document Templates

Implement document templates within Sakai so that citation lists and canned/constrained searches can be embedded within large documents such as research guides, course pages, syllabi, assignments, etc.

Research Guides

Implement research guides as a document type within the resource tool (instead of doing a more general document templates implementation).

More Citation Types

Support more predefined citation types.

Citation Import

Support importing citations from RIS.

Performance and Robustness

What can we do here?

Usability

based on results of user testing

Librarian Communication in Course Contexts

Provide a librarian role within Sakai that permits librarians to communicate with the course context visible and permits librarians to make research guides available to applicable courses.

Google Scholar Integration

Integrate Sakaibrary with Google Scholar so that users can add Google Scholar search results to Sakaibrary citation lists.

Native Interface Access

Provide a way for users to access and use native search interfaces from within Sakai and add results from those searches to citation lists.

Contrib: Sakaibrary

Phase 2 Requirements