DDT/ Metasearch Analysis Group

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• 8/12/03
• 8/25/03
• 9/15/03
• 9/29/03
• 10/14/03
• 12/8/03
• 12/22/03
• post 1/20/04
  
  

8/12/2003

Agenda:

*Welcome
*Charge of the team
*What is a Database Discovery Tool?
*What are functional requirements
*Brainstorm task list for the team

Task list:

Information Gathering

- Go over the ACRL poster session (next meeting)
- General non-library wizard hunt (Nicole)
- Literature review (Sarah)
- Look at other academic library web sites for good database wizards/pathfinders, etc. (all)
- Send a message to library lists asking for good examples of database finding wizards, pathfinders, etc. (Sarah and Tracy)
- Send out Wei Ma/Tim Cole JASIST article link (Tracy)
- Contact Maggie Bartley and Kate McNeill-Harman about a list of BDA requirements (Tracy)
- Discuss the MIT user community and its potential use of this tool (future meeting, all)
- Discuss the kinds of questions we might want to ask through this type of tool and reflect on the implications of these questions for a system (future meeting, all)

Creating the list of requirements

- Brainstorm a list of criteria
- Determine logical groupings
- Paper prototyping
- Devise/schedule methods of getting feedback

Evaluating the list of requirements

- Do a rough cut/narrow the list
- Prioritize the list (Essential, Highly desireable, Desireable)
- Get feedback
- Modify prototypes

Prepare for handoff

- Create the report
- Present the report to key stakeholders

Next meeting: 8/25. Topics: Review ACRL poster session, discuss dates for the above timeline, review progress on action items.

8/25/2003

Agenda:

- Review ACRL poster session
- Discuss progress on homework
- Discuss the timeline

Discussion on homework:

The group found a variety of web sites that offered food for thought. Several are included on the team's links page.

Timeline:

We estimated the amount of time we thought it would take for each of the major tasks we outlined in our previous meeting.

- Information Gathering: expect to be largely completed by 9/15.
- Creating the list of requirements: approximately 6 weeks (requires face-time with the committee and a few longer meetings)
- Evaluation: approximately 6 weeks
- Prepare for handoff: approximately 4 weeks.

Plotting this all on a calendar brings the conclusion of the group firmly in January. While this seems long, the group thought there was certainly potential for bringing the finish into December.

More homework:

Tracy will schedule a few longer meetings in September for the major brainstorming sessions.

Sarah will complete the literature search.

Next meeting: 9/15/03, 10am-12:30, Barker

- Discussion of the users of a DDT. Each team member will bring whatever we know about the needs of the MIT community with regard to the DDT (e.g. surveys, usability results, etc.)

- Discussion of potential questions we could ask in a DDT.

9/15/2003

Agenda:

- Discuss what we know about the MIT community and how they could use the DDT.

Discussion about the MIT community:

Nicole shared some relevant results from the Usability studies done last November which showed that our users have a hard time finding the right database from the subject lists in Vera. They almost universally do not read the descriptions given with the databases. They tend to make their decisions solely based on the database name and/or publisher name.

Tracy shared results from the Undergraduate survey collected last spring. Generally the user comments show some frustration with navigating our resources and would like a very simple search interface to access everything. The survey results show that MIT undergraduates are less likely to ask a librarian for help than their peers at similar institutions.

We discussed the differences between the undergraduate and graduate student populations. While each needs help getting started in finding the right databases, their starting questions may require different levels of resources to be presented to them.

Given the possibility of more complex scenarios between various groups of users we talked about how to capture the knowledge of librarians in figuring out how to define a DDT. To that end we will do a short study with a group of reference librarians over the next few weeks to see how they answer real questions about database selection. Tracy and Sarah will write down sample scenarios during their reference desk times this week and Tracy will craft a form that can be used to capture a reference librarian's thoughts as they decide which database to recommend. Nicole will create a web-based form for librarians to use and we will link it from our team web site. Sarah will take all the info to the next Reference Committee meeting and solicit volunteers (at least one from each divisional library) who would be willing to be our guinea pigs. Some possible questions to be asked on the form:

• What was the user's question?
• What clarification did you ask from the user?
• What thought process did you use to determine what database to recommend? (please be thorough!)
• What was the user really asking?
• Did the recommended database meet the need?

  We also talked about knowledge-based systems and case-by-case reasoning systems. Sarah will do a literature search about knowledge-based systems and will send the results to us. Rebecca will go through these articles and sum up for us what is relevant.

Next meeting: Monday, September 29, 10am-1pm, Barker

- Discuss our findings from the reference librarian forms
- Begin discussion of possible questions and metadata for a DDT.

 

9/29/03

Agenda:

- Review feedback from reference committee on database selection form
- Discuss findings from lit review on knowledge-based systems
- Brainstorm list of possible questions for DDT
- Discussion on the questions
- What metadata is necessary to build those questions?
- What requirements can we find in these questions/metadata?

Database selection form discussion

The form is up and ready to use. Sarah will email all reference librarians to begin getting input.

Discuss findings from lit review on knowledge-based systems

Rebecca shared what she has learned from reading a variety of articles on knowledge-based systems. Summary.

Brainstorming a list of possible questions for the DDT/Discussion

We had a great brainstorming session, coming up with many possible questions. The questions generated a discussion about the guiding principles or philosophy of the DDT, which, we decided could be summed up as follows:

Overall purpose/philosophy

· Self-teaching interface
· Simulates the reference interview
· Single starting point within DDT for all audiences, with different paths (flowchart, tree).
· Assume that this is implemented while vera and barton exist
· More than just electronic resources will be included

What metadata is needed

Next the group started discussing what metadata would be needed to enable a user to answer the brainstormed questions. We got about halfway through the list and will continue at our next meeting. Both the list of questions and metadata needed will be shared in minutes for a later meeting.

Discussion of requirements

This agenda item will be covered in future meetings, as we ran out of time.

Next meeting

Tuesday, October 14, 9:30 - 11am, Hayden conference room

Agenda:

- Finish metadata assignment
- Discuss what housekeeping metadata is necessary
- Begin narrowing down the list of questions/metadata
- (if time) Begin paper prototyping

10/14/03 and 10/28/03

Over 3 to 4 meetings the group brainstormed a variety of lists. The results of the meetings are summarized in this file. Draft 2 of the file from 10/28.

12/8/2003

Agenda:

• Further narrow/prioritize list of possible questions
• Begin paper prototyping

First the group went through our list of possible questions and discussed the feasibility of each that we rated 2 or three. We then discussed whether they would appear on a basic discovery form or an advanced version.

Basic Questions:

• Subject (drop-down menu)
• Subcategories (at least 2 levels, the number of levels and content will vary by subject area) (drop-down menu)
• Scope (type of project, will vary by subject area) (drop-down menu)
• Types (material type, will vary by subject area) (drop-down menu)
• Option to list only resources that are available off-campus (check box)
• An option called "more options" that would be another way to link to the advanced questions.

Advanced Questions:

• Sort by: (radio buttons)
• Date Range of information needed (pull-down menu a la Proquest)
• Languages (drop-down menu)
• Fast facts versus in-depth questions (checkbox)
• Filter for free resources (checkbox)
• Filter by community - resources available to Lincoln, Haystack, etc. (drop-down menu)

We then divided into 2 subgroups to discuss in more detail both the questions and the results display. We got partially through this exercise and will discuss it further at our next meeting. Away from the meeting Sarah and Rebecca will discuss wording of the questions and Nicole and Tracy will mock-up possible results list configurations.

Next meeting

Monday, December 22, 9:30 - 11am, Lewis Music conference room

12/22/03

Agenda:

• Review questions and results prototypes
• Discuss next steps

The group reviewed progress made thus far with the questions prototype. Several comments were made and Nicole will mock up our current thoughts into a web page. Significant discussion revolved around how to use the date range question effectively.

The mockup for the results page was also discussed (http://web.mit.edu/hennig/www/temp/ddt/results.html). A couple of comments were made and will be incorporated into the mockup by Nicole.

The group will now review the responses received thus far in the Librarian Thought Process Survey to assess whether our mockups will work or not. Based on this assessment we will modify our prototypes.

Action items:

• Create a web page mockup for the questions - Nicole
• Update the mockup for results display - Nicole
• Review DDT survey responses against the mockups - Tracy, Sarah and Rebecca

Next Meeting: Tuesday, January 20th, 2004, 9:30 - 10:30

Agenda:

• Review the mockups
• Discuss analysis of DDT survey responses against the mockups
• Begin requirements writing

Post January 20th

Since January 20th the group has been creating and evaluating requirements. Current mockups can be seen here.