building a user-centric website by integrating course enrollment data

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leveraging student data to create website personalizationIan ChanWeb Development Librarian, California State University San Marcos

2012 SLA-SD Fall Seminar Spotlight on the User: Enhancing Valuethrough User-Centric Design and Innovation

October 5, 2012

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why did we do it?

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make life easier for our users

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get to know our users & vice versa

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we have (big) data

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low cost

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first, a look back…

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customized start pages 1998 ~ ?

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customization & library websites

MyLibrary – Notre Dame/NCSU, 1998developed at NCSU & Notre Dame and imlemented by VCU, LeHigh, others

MyLibrary – Cornell, 1998

More ExamplesMyLibrary – Univ. of Minn. Libraries, leverages campus CMS

National University of Singapore – Nexus (CMS)

Karolinska Institutet University Library – Drupal

PennPortal – Libraries – campus CMS

Galter Health Sciences Library – self-developed

derived from Aaron Tay’s 2010-06 blog post titled “Customizable library portal pages”

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a growing trend?

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similar goals, different approaches

customization

User drives content selection & layout

personalization

System drives content selection

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personalizationPersonalization is a process that ‘‘changes the functionality, interface, information content, or distinctiveness of a system to increase its personal relevance to an individual’’ (Blom, 2000, p. 313)

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assessment of a library portal

Galter Health Sciences Library studied the use of their portal from 2003-2008

“The automated application of specialty-based, personalized HSLs was more frequently adopted than manual customization by users” (Shedlock et al., 2010).

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students want smart systems

“Student and faculty groups both expressed a desire for systems that know the individual better and that behave “more like Amazon” in remembering who they are, what they like, and where they left off in their work” (Jafari et. al. 2006).

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what we’d like our site to do

Expedite access to our resources

Connect students with individual librarians

Personalize the research experience

idea

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how we did it

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project requirements (highlights)

Technical

Leverage existing user data transfer

Integrate login with EZproxy/campus authentication

Secure

UX

Don’t bother the user

… but add value

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we use…

Drupal

Small, custom PHP scripts Match subjects to user course selections Generate XML data to sync guide info into Drupal Generate personalized course reserve listings

Data export (for now)from campus enrollment management system and viable library ILS [Integrated Library System]

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connecting users with resources

CCK [D6] / Fields [D7]

User Profile

Views

Database

Taxonomy

Similar by Terms

Guide

Panels

PersonalizedWebPages

Content Profile

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essential, non-core modules

Content Profile http://www.diigo.com/item/image/qxh8/13jv?size=o

EZproxy

LDAP Integration

Similar by Terms

Viewshttp://www.diigo.com/item/image/qxh8/rgq4

CCK

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(really) nice to have

Panelshttp://www.diigo.com/item/image/qxh8/i50r?size=o http://www.diigo.com/item/image/qxh8/v6np?size=o

Context

Flag

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user data prep

Simple PHP scripting to analyze course data and cross-reference with subjects

Data prep - about 15 minutes of staff time for each load

But the above is all going away!

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user data load

User Import Module Batch import for account

Node Import Module Batch import for user profile

Data load occurs once a week – more often at semester start

But the above is all going away!

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InterestsAccountsAuthentication

user data interactions

User ImportLDAP

IntegrationNode Import

User Accounts

Recommendations

EZproxy Integration

Campus LDAP

User Profile

User Data

Source

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After login, users can flag databases as

favorites

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Assessment

Click tracking – CrazyEgg

Web Analytics – Google Analytics, Piwik

Talk to users… in person!

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4 days into test, we inserted the “Sign-in to access databases…” help

bubble and login button clicks jumped significantly…

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Upcoming developments

Query user data in library catalog directly and instantly update course data

Integrate saved articles from Summon Discovery Service

Provide dynamic, course-specific library widgets to learning management system

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Discussion / Q&A

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References

Blom, Jan. 2000. “Personalization: a Taxonomy.” In , 313. ACM Press. doi:10.1145/633292.633483. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=633483.

Jafari, A., McGee, P., Carmean, C., 2006. Managing Courses Defining Learning: What Faculty, Students, and Administrators Want. EDUCAUSE Review 41, 50–52,54,56–58,60,62,64,66,68,70.

Shedlock, James, Michelle Frisque, Steve Hunt, Linda Walton, Jonathan Handler, and Michael Gillam. 2010. “Case Study: The Health SmartLibrary Experiences in Web Personalization and Customization at the Galter Health Sciences Library, Northwestern University.” Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA 98 (April): 98–104. doi:10.3163/1536-5050.98.2.003.

Sundar, S. Shyam, and Sampada S. Marathe. 2010. “Personalization Versus Customization: The Importance of Agency, Privacy, and Power Usage.” Human Communication Research 36 (3) (July): 298–322. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2958.2010.01377.x.