2012 SLA-SD Fall Seminar
October 5, 2012
Spotlight on the User: Enhancing Value
through User-Centric Design and Innovation
leveraging student data to create
website personalization
Ian Chan
Web Development Librarian, California State University San Marcos
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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, 1998
developed at NCSU & Notre Dame and imlemented by VCU, LeHigh, others
MyLibrary – Cornell, 1998
More Examples
MyLibrary – Univ. of Minn. Libraries, leverages campus CMS
National University of Singapore – Nexus (CMS)
Karolinska Institutet University Library – Drupal
PennPortal – Libraries – campus CMS
Dublin City Public Libraries – Netvibes
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 new approach
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similar goals, different approaches
customization
personalization
User drives content selection &
layout
System drives content selection
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personalization
Personalization 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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users 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 users with individual librarians
 Personalize the research experience
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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/institutional authentication
 Secure
UX
 Don’t bother the user
 … but add value
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we use…
Drupal
Minimal, custom PHP scripts
Data export from ILS
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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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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.
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