Update on Intute

Your guide to the Best of the Web

JISC RSC South West Web conference,

26 November 2008

Angela Joyce, ILRT, University of Bristol

What are Intute & the Virtual Training Suite? 2 FREE related services

• Intute is a free, national Internet service aimed primarily at higher education, providing the very best web resources for teaching, learning and research - and funded by JISC

• The Virtual Training Suite is a free service which provides online Internet tutorials, for over 65 subjects. Also funded by JISC as part of the Intute service

Intute homepage

http://www.intute.ac.uk/

Who are we?

The Intute Network is:

• A consortium of seven universities

• 70 partner institutions providing subject expertise and advice

• Created by the community for the community

How we work:

Intute is primarily funded for H.E. but all services freely accessible for F.E.

• Central management is at MIMAS, Manchester

• Distributed staff around the UK give technical support and edit the Intute database; they run additional services; authors write the VTS tutorials

Our target audiences

• Primary audience is H.E. students

and…• F.E into H.E. , F.E• Lecturers• E-learning

professionals• Researchers• Librarians

Intute catalogue

Search/browse Intute catalogue

• Over 123,000 records, each one hand selected and described by a subject specialist

• Simple or Advanced searching options with tips

• Browsing of sections - popular

Subjects offered

• Something for nearly everyone

• From music to management, or nursing to nuclear physics!

• 4 subject groups will go – move to more ‘granular’ approach at subject level, e.g.. Intute: Law

Supporting Internet Training

Virtual Training Suite - http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/

• Free online Internet training tutorials for over 65 subject areas

• Currently being updated with new template & emphasis

Supporting Internet Training (2)

Use our free support materialshttp://www.intute.ac.uk/support.html

• Quick Guides to Intute

• PPT Presentations

• Best of the Web booklets – online versions

JISC findings – library/LRCs (1)

• The JISC Attitudinal Survey 2008 pinpoints e-Resources/electronic content as key challenge in F.E. & H.E.

• Information skills/information literacy also a priority

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/publications/attitudinalsurvey2008librariansreport.pdf

JISC findings – students and ICT

Great Expectations reporthttp://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/greatexpectations.aspx

• ‘There is also an opportunity to help students understand best practice for checking the validity of internet sources used for research, something which 69% of students believe they are doing despite evidence elsewhere suggesting they may lack the critical and analytical skills to do so rigorously.’

Intute is evolving• New plan 2008-2012 - to respond to

changes in education and online usage, e.g.:– More direct marketing to students– Enhanced search system– More granular structure for resources

Recent market research & usability testing…

• FDS consultancy – market research

• Pure Usability – testing of main site and integration services

• VTS survey

Awareness of various websites - Students

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Project Merlot

OCLC Firstsearch

BUBL

EDNA

Zetoc

EDINA

Intute

IBSS

Copac

Scirus

PubMed

Institute of Physics

ISI Web of Knowledge/Web of Science

National Library for Health

Google Scholar

Google Images

BBC

Wikipedia

Google

Postgrads (51)

HE Student (61)

FE Student (105)

0% 5% 10% 15% 20%

Intute

Usability testing 2008

On-site & remote testing conducted• Liked Intute concept• Wanted some improvements• Findings will feed into website re-

design & new subject-based approach. Eg. Intute: Law, Intute: Veterinary

We also offer

Additional Services

• Intute blogs – keep updated

• Intute Repository Search for papers http://www.intute.ac.uk/irs/

• Intute Helpdesk – email us comments, suggestions

PersonaliseMy Intute • Create your own account

• Save searches and records, plus non-Intute

• Tag records with your own keywords

• Weekly email alerts

• Export data into your websites or VLEs

MyIntute tag cloud

Content for the CommunityIntegrating Intute content• Intute content and services are available for

use in your own institution or website

• Advice on how to use our content available from:

www.intute.ac.uk/integration/

• Quick Guides at:

http://www.intute.ac.uk/integrationguides/

Example of newsfeed…

http://mail.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/~cmamj/

Intute on UsPaCe…

http://www.uspace.org.uk/blog/

Intute plug-in gadget

Blackboard at City of Bristol College

MyIntute used to import dentistry sites

University of Exeter

http://www.library.ex.ac.uk/intute-i/

More Integration Examples

• See our del.icio.us page athttp://del.icio.us/angejoyce/integration/

• See our Exemplars athttp://www.intute.ac.uk/integration/exemplars/

Finally….

We welcome feedback from the community. Please feel free to contact us:

www.intute.ac.uk/feedback.html

Thank you!

Angela.Joyce@bristol.ac.uk