Sakaibrary 2.2 (and Beyond) Thoughts
Mark Notess, 28 March 2006 – preliminary draft
Assumptions
For the 2.2 release, we assume that we will not have time to address most of the Sakaibraries
requirements, including
Sakai users can perform meta-searches within Sakai to locate resources.
Sakai users can specify, save, and publish canned searches.
Librarians can access course with librarian-role-specific permissions.
Focal Usage Scenario
Estelle wants to create a list of articles for next week’s class. Within the Sakai resources tool, she
creates a new ―Citation List‖ by clicking ―Add‖ in the desired folder, selecting ―Citation List‖
from the list of resource types. She then types a short introduction to the list and then, within
Sakai, searches for, annotates, and adds each resource to the list. Then, she saves it in the
resources folder. Is this too ambitious for 2.2?
Existing Design
Issues
The biggest issue with MIT-derived Twin Peaks as it currently exists in Sakai 2.1 is that it does
not search any databases meaningful to most institutions. The only database available is
―HKUST Institutional Repository.‖ For 2.2. we will address this by Steve providing an OSID for
a more generally useful database such as ProQuest.
Usability Issues
Apart from general Sakai usability issues, the following issues interfere with the successful use
of Twin Peaks. These issues are illustrated in the screen shot slideset, ―Twin Peaks screenshots‖,
uploaded to our collaboration space resources in the Twin Peaks Documentation folder.
It is not intuitive to pick ―HTML page‖ to add a library resource. What’s needed is a
unique document type, e.g., ―Citation List.‖
The preview of the document in the Twin Peaks window doesn’t work and clutters up the
screen. Remove it, have it appear when useful, and/or make it user-configurable and off
by default (―[ ] Show Image Thumbnails‖).
Clicking the document title in the Twin Peaks window doesn’t work.
If there is only one database, it should be selected by default (and consider using a
dropdown instead of a list—only use the list if multiple selection is possible).
The copyright information is not specific to each citation but can only be selected for the
list as a whole. Yet each citation might have a different IP status.
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Towards a Design
Citation Lists
What is a citation list? In the old paper-world, citation lists are not disembodied but appear as
part of a larger structured document—syllabus, assignment sheet, subject guide, or research
paper. The citations are a reading list, a set of required or suggested resources, or a list of items
referenced. As more academic activities have become digital in whole or part, various tools have
emerged to address citation lists. Most sophisticated are reference management tools such as
Endnote. Endnote provides an integrated environment for finding, annotating, formatting, and
linking to references. Endnote can locate and import citations over the internet and insert
citations directly into Microsoft Word documents. Course management systems (CMSs) tend not
to address citations per se but instead have a concept of resources or files that can be associated
with a course or document within the CMS.
A central usability problem for CMSs is linking to related materials, whether those materials are
within or outside of the CMS. Instructors often do not have the technical sophistication to
identify the best URL for a resource—if indeed one is available. Once they have a URL on their
clipboard, or scrawled on a piece of paper, they have to figure out how to insert it into the
appropriate place in the CMS and make it functional.
What, then, is a citation list within a CMS? Here are some options (see table 1 for primitive
visualizations).
1. A structureless rich-text document with embedded hyperlinks. Sakai has this today in Twin
Peaks.
2. A structureless rich-text document with embedded citation objects (to be defined below).
3. A structured list, containing only citations, which can be embedded as a unit in a rich-text
document.
4. A structured document containing one more groupings of citations, header and footer.
Table 1. Citation List Concept Options
1 2 3&4
Be sure to read this and Be sure to read this Be sure to read both
this. and this. articles below.
this
this
Note that options 3 and 4 look identical but for #3, only the smaller box is the citation list
embedded in a rich-text document whereas for #4, the box and the instructions constitute the list.
Question: Should a citation list be an embeddable object type (like an image), or should it be a
structured document type?
Probably we need both. Having a citation list as an embeddable object type gives great flexibility
for using them. The need for a larger document containing one or more citation lists perhaps
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speaks to a need for structured document templates generally within Sakai. For example, a
library might want to create a ―course page‖ template which it could use to create course-specific
reference documents with standardized format and content. Or a department might want to create
a syllabus template and require all faculty to use it. One or more citation list objects could appear
in either of these examples.
A related issue is whether citation lists should have sections.
Citations
What is a citation? In the paper-based world, a citation is reference, telling people where to find
something. In the electronic world, a citation can be a link to the item itself if the item is
available electronically, a link to information about the location of an item (e.g., an OPAC
record), or a merely descriptive citation in the traditional sense. The electronic citation can thus
perform double-duty by both describing the object and providing access to it.
There is a wide range of needs for descriptive information in the citation. In some contexts, a
title may be all that is needed. In other contexts, full bibliographic information may be desired.
In either case, users may want to add annotations. Table 2 shows a variety of examples.
Table 2. Citation Examples
Title Link Moby Dick
Annotated Moby Dick – Read this before taking the quiz.
Title Link
Full Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick, or, The Whale. Luther S. Mansfield & Howard
Bibliographic P. Vincent, eds. New York: Hendricks House, 1952. (Available online at
Citation http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/Mel2Mob.html.)
Question: How should canned or restricted searches be handled? They are not strictly a citation,
nor are they exactly a citation list (though they could produce one).
Interacting with an Embedded Citation List
If a citation list object is embedded in a document, there needs to be a way to edit the citation list
when the document itself is editable. When the document is not editable, the following actions
should be available for the citation list:
open citation – takes the user to the page/object referenced by the citation
copy citation – puts the citation object on a clipboard for future pasting (does Sakai have
a clipboard?)
copy citation list - puts the citation list object on a clipboard for future pasting
Creating a Citation List
Assuming a citation list is ―its own thing‖ rather than a structureless web page, there are various
ways to think about creating it. Take the following (real) example.
Material below is out of date or in rough form
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[I want to create a visual of what a citation list, as an embeddable object, might look like and
how one would edit it. Following the Sakai 1.5. style guide, the citation list would probably be
some sort of ―flat actionable list‖ (see below), with the citation title and annotation as visible
columns, and a way to edit the citation as a whole.]
Figure 1. Generic Flat Actionable List, to be modified to look like a citation list
everything below here is old/unchanged
Figure 1 shows a possible design for a Citation List resource tool. Things to note about this
example:
The control buttons have been moved ―above the fold‖ so that they are visible without
scrolling. Ideally, these buttons could be a bit more salient, perhaps using a 3-D look or a
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distinct color, but that is certainly a larger style guide issue. (This move of the control
buttons to the top can be done for all of the resource tools.)
Figure 1. Adding a Citation List resource.
The description field is gone. It isn’t displayed in the resource list anyhow. However, if it
is essential for list creators to have a private metadata file, we could add it back in.
The copyright information has been removed from the list as a whole. It will be specific
to each item (accessed by clicking on the ―edit citation‖ link, which should allow editing
of the display title and the copyright status). The citation has to be an object rather than
just a text string. One property of each citation should be the IP status. Another property
would be the display string (the title by default?). Are there others?
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The book icon at the start of each citation helps objectify the citation a bit and tie it in
visually with the citation tool icon.
The citation tool itself needs to be more salient, since it is the key tool for this resource
type, hence the button label and bounding box.
Issues:
Other items besides library resources should be add-able to a resource list. For instance, if
an instructor uploads a PDF of an article a resources folder, she may want to add that
article to a resource list. How does she add it? Should the citation have a different
adjacent icon?
When citations are added, what order should they be added in? How inserted into a pre-
existing list? Can the list be sorted? How interspersed with annotations?
Recommendation: within the editor window, the citation object (including icon, display
title, and – for the anyone with authoring privileges – the ―edit citation‖ link) can be
moved around like an object. But it can’t be edited directly (?).
Adding Citations
Citations can be added to the citation list by clicking the ―Add citation…‖, which brings up the
Sakaibraries search window. Eventually, this will need to be quite a bit different to support
metasearching. Meanwhile, Figures 2-4 show a possible redesign.
Figure 2. Searching for a citation.
Notes on Search
Assuming an eventual move toward metasearch, is there a need for database selection? If
so, that could be behind an advanced search option.
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Figure 3. Citation search results
Notes on Search Results (Figure 3)
Clicking on the article title should bring up the resource in a separate browser.
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Figure 4. Edit citation properties
Notes on Edit Citation Properties (Figure 4)
There may be other properties.
The ―view resource‖ link should bring up the resource in a separate browser.
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