CIL 2009 Wednesday, "Customized Content Portals"

Richard Cox, Digital Technology Consultant
Lydia Kellam, Data Services & Government Information Librarian, University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG)

"Hacking Blackboard: Customized Content Portals"
Use web services, RSS feeds, service-oriented architecture (SOA) to deliver course content through a portal created and displayed within Blackboard.
"Library Resources for my Major" is the portal title

• Push resources into dept. space, course space...
• liaisons used admin tool to choose resources
• i.e. Lexis Nexis to all PoliSci classes, or just one specific class.
  
• no db authentication necessary

Issues:
- navigation issues (nothing in BB sidebar -- students have to go to Tools, and scroll down)
- promotional issues. Had to remind subject librarians.
- getting buy-in. Remind people this is not a replacement.

Students with declared major now get top 4 resources for their major, one of which can be subject guide
"For my courses" lists courses they are enrolled in, e-reserves
meebo widget for liaison

Students without a major get general course; email form if no IM widget

Faculty get very generic stuff at present

• ASP.net application wrapped into security to verify student is logged into BB.
• use active directory to pull contact info
• pull from SCT banner (UNCG student info)
• LiveMesh Microsoft LiveMsgr - to pull in IM widget. because they were the only company at the time that would let him query their service to see if there is someone online.
  
• Blackboard /Oracle. They check to see
  
• Do eReserves exist for the class?
  
• Pull student info from Blackboard to minimize idiosyncracies

Challenges from IT perspective

• When to pull student data from Banner; finding correct data in Banner
• get liaisons to update resource pages.
• double majors
  

Librarian Liaison perspective

• how do we assess (100 hits/day according to GA - returning students)
  
• outreach and marketing
• mixed reactions from library liaisons

Future:

• assignment calculator
• rating system for student to rate the resources - he already knows if it's a staff member rating vs. student rating
• mobile app - there would be a login again to get same info

Uses web services (JavaScript, XML) to get student info; has to connect live to Blackboard to verify student is logged in currently. Load was 8-10 seconds initially. Now 2-3 with caching.