Creating Interactive
Course Assignment Pages
The OSU Libraries ICAP Project
Coalition for Networked Information
Fall 2007 Task Force Meeting
Kim Griggs, Jane Nichols, Margaret Mellinger
ICAP Starting Points
• Needs:
– provide clear path to resources that help
students complete their assignments
– enable librarians to quickly create and
manage course web pages
• Solution:
– Interactive Course Assignment Pages (ICAPs)
– ICAP Tool
ICAP Project Goals
• Connect students with quality library information when
and where they need it for course assignments.
• Enable librarians to combine traditional library
resources with Web 2.0 features in easily created
and maintained web pages.
• Collaborate with faculty to contribute to and promote
use of librarian created web pages.
ICAP Project Strategies
• Determine approach: how should we deliver content
• Get people with the right skill sets
• Use an agile development cycle
ICAPs: Connecting Students to Libraries
Single access point to relevant library
resources at a course or assignment level.
ICAPs are dynamic web pages that integrate
Web 2.0 features, chat and RSS feeds, etc.
with traditional library content, such as
catalogs and article databases.
ICAP Publishing System: For and By Librarians
Librarians have enough to do and maintaining
static HTML pages is tedious and time
consuming.
OSU Libraries developed the ICAP Tool, which
enables librarians to easily create, manage
and publish ICAPs through a web browser.
The
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•
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ICAP tool was developed using:
Ruby on Rails, MySQL, AJAX
(X)HTML, CSS
ICAPs are ADA and W3C Compliant
ICAP Screencast
• http://screencast.com/t/mSsmLVeFd
• /Users/Kim/ICAP/Jing/ICAP-screencast.swf
ICAP Project Assessment
Reached our goal when we have:
• Converted Librarians
• Happy Students
• Faculty Buy-in
Lessons Learned
• People need time to adopt new software.
• Incorporating usability testing and training throughout the
development facilitated communication and feedback.
• Built capacity, both for the team and the librarians who use
the new tool.
• Learned about/how to employ software development practices
in the library setting.
• Energy and excitement about a project is critical to its
success.
Open Source Release available for download:
http://ica.library.oregonstate.edu/about/index.html
Thank You
Questions?
Contact Us For More Information:

{margaret.mellinger, jane.nichols, kim.griggs} at oregonstate.edu

ICAP Project Website: http://ica.library.oregonstate.edu/about/index.html