Course Pack Evaluation Report
LIBRARY PROJECT TO A NALYSE THE UNIVERSIT Y COURSE PACKS FOR
ELECTRONIC CONTENT
T H E P R OB L E M
The Eastman Company produces each term, paper course packs at the request of McGill faculty
to be used by students enrolled in their course and offered for sale at the University Bookstore and
Paragraph Bookstore. Eastman obtains copyright clearance and pays all applicable royalties for the
print reproduction of the material through COPIBEC or directly with the publisher. The Library
maintains a growing number of electronic subscriptions to material which maybe included in the
course packs; either as a reference or reproduced in printed form.
The Library would like to know the extent of the electronic content in the course packs that
match the Libraries current electronic subscriptions and whether this content is currently being made
available through the new Find It/Article Finder linking service.
The University and the students are concerned about the perceived escalation of the course pack
prices. The issue has been raised by students in the University Senate and in the Senate Committee
on Libraries.
C O U R S E PA C K P RO J E C T G OA L S
1. Quantify the amount and nature of the electronic content in the winter
2004 course packs prepared for students by Eastman.
2. Prepare recommendations for the Associate Director, Information
Technology Services concerning the Library’s role in promoting and
enhancing access to the University’s electronic collections and how to better
integrate these resources into educational technology initiatives on campus.
(E.g. WebCT)
P RO J E C T M E T H OD OL O G Y
This project analyzed the winter 2004 course packs. The Eastman Company supplied printouts
of the table of contents for the winter 2004 course packs that were printed and sold to McGill
students.
The first step was to sort the course packs into department groupings, using the course code.
Table 1 below shows that of the total number of course packs received there were only 309 that were
suitable for the analysis. Forty-seven had table of contents containing citations that could not be
identified as a journal or a monograph.
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Course packs
Count
Proportion
Number with courses identified
252
71%
Number with courses unidentified
57
16%
Total Analyzed
309
Number without citations to verify
28
8%
Number without departments and no
citations to verify
Total unable to analyze
19
5%
Total number of course packs received
356
100%
Total number of identified course packs
with a WebCT course
83
33%

47
Table 1: Winter 2004 course pack information
There were 39 departments represented in the 309 course packs analyzed. The individual
departments are named in the following figures in the results section of this report. If the course was
unidentified, and had citations that could be verified, they were included in the analysis and assigned
a department, based on the subject content of the citations. The Law faculty course packs were not
included in the course packs received from Eastman. They contain primarily case law and would not
have suited the project’s searching methodology. There were no course pack table of contents
received for the Faculty of Medicine and Eastman advises that they have not been requested to
produce course packs for medical students.
A coding scheme was devised to record the differences in the types of citations (journal,
monograph or other) and the results of the searching (electronic journal in Article Finder, not in
Article Finder but identified as an electronic journal in MUSE, print holdings in MUSE, unable to
locate in MUSE.) Each of the relevant codes for the categories were recorded on the table of
contents sheets, totaled and then entered into the data collection spreadsheet.
The searching was conducted in two different ways, depending upon the nature of the citation. If
the citation was for a journal, the Library’s Article Finder service was used. The Article Finder is a
new web service that uses the title, date and volume information entered from a citation to locate the
journal in the Library’s Knowledge Base (KB). The KB contains information about the 15,000
electronic journal subscriptions licensed for the McGill community by the Library. The Article Finder
also searches the MUSE catalogue and facilitates the identification of a print holding. The name of
the electronic journal collection (e.g. JSTOR) was recorded on the course pack table of contents next
to the citation if the Article Finder located an electronic edition. If the subsequent MUSE search
revealed an electronic edition, this result was coded as well. The bibliographic searching was
conducted in February 2004 , using the KB updated as of December 2003.
If the citation was identified as a monograph, a MUSE search was conducted. Initially, this was
conducted for 37% of the course pack citations. Procedures were adjusted due to lack of time. To
ensure that the journal searching was completed, the remaining monograph citations were identified
but not searched. The MUSE catalogue does contain some records describing the Library’s electronic
book collections. For the monographs that were searched, there were no matching citations to
electronic book collections.
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PAGE 2.
Given the nature of the Library’s electronic book collections (information technology, science,
medicine) and the lack of course packs existing for these departments, it is not expected that
comprehensive monograph searching would reveal many electronic matches. The Early English
Books Online (EEBO) electronic book collection does not have MUSE catalogue entries and may
reveal matches for selected courses. This additional searching would need to be conducted directly
on EEBO.
The existence of a WebCT course was also verified for each of the courses in the sample. This
information was obtained from the Courseware production department of ICC (Instructional
Communications Centre).
R E S U LT S
Figure 1 in Appendix A shows a ranked list of number of course packs by McGill department.
The top seven departments with over 15 course packs per department are Education (36), English
(32), Political Science (29), History (21), Social Work (18), Anthropology (17) and Religious Studies
(16).
Figure 1 in Appendix A also shows the number of WebCT courses by McGill department. Thirtythree percent of the course packs with identifiable course numbers also have a WebCT course.
Specific course numbers are identified in Table 6 in Appendix B.
Table 2 below shows the percentage of citations by type for all course packs analyzed.
Citations
Count
Proportion
Total number of journal citations
1918
29%
Total number of monograph or other
citations
4680
71%
6598
100%
Total number of citations
 Table 2: Course pack citation type
It is not possible to provide an exact figure for the total number of “other” citations, because the
monograph citations were only partially searched. By far the largest proportion of citations in the
‘monograph or other ‘category, were recognizable as monograph.
Table 3 below shows the percentage of course packs with electronic journal content.
Citations
Total number of electronic journal
citations
Total number of non electronic journal
or monograph or other citations
Total number of citations

Count
Proportion
941
14%
5657
86%
6598
100%
Table 3: Course pack electronic journal content
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Table 4 shows the characteristics of the journal citations only for all course packs analyzed. 49%
of the journals citations had electronic versions available from library collections.
Citations
Total number of electronic journal
citations located by Article Finder
Total number of electronic journal
citations located in MUSE
Total number of print journal citations
located in MUSE
Total number of journal citations not
held by the Library
Total number of journal citations

Count
Proportion
883
46%
58
3%
740
39%
237
12%
1918
100%
Table 4: Course pack journal citation information
Table 5 below shows the top five departments with the largest numbers of electronic journal
citations in their course packs. This accounts for 58% of the total number of electronic journal
citations.
Departments with highest numbers of electronic
journal citations
Count
Proportion of the
department total
Political Science
116
67%
Education
108
41%
Psychology
108
84%
Social Work
90
12%
Geography
60
77%
Anthropology
59
63%
Table 5: Departments with the largest number of electronic journal citations
Figure 2 in Appendix A shows this same information for all departments. The bar graph
compares two different journal variables by total number of citations in the department’s course
packs. The type of journal citation (electronic vs. print) and whether or not the Library has holdings
to match the citation. It is not possible to compare between departments because of the differences
in the number of course packs available for the analysis in each department.
Figure 3 in Appendix A shows by department the proportion of citations by different types of
citation; electronic journals, print journals, journals not held and monographs and other items. The
Biology and Psychology departments have their course packs composed of greater than 50 percent
electronic journals. Another three departments have 40 % or more electronic content.
Figure 4 in Appendix A shows by department how many electronic journals held by the Library
were located using the Article Finder. The departments of Music (70%) and Management (20%) had
the largest percentage of their electronic journals unavailable through the Article Finder.
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C ON C L U S I O N
The goal of the course pack analysis was to provide quantitative data concerning the type of
material that faculty are including in their course packs for students. The Library was concerned that
if the content of the course packs was high in electronic content, material that has already been
purchased or licensed on behalf of the McGill Community, the students would in effect be paying for
use rights to a print version of the same material they could view online from any McGill network
connected computer.
The analysis has yielded the following results:
1.
Electronic journal citations licensed by the Libraries make up 14% of the course packs
analyzed. (Table 3)
2.
There is variation by department in the electronic journal content of the course packs.
( Figure 3)
3.
Of the course packs with identifiable course numbers, 33 % also have a WebCT course.
(Table 1)
4.
46% of the journal citations in the winter 2004 course packs were located using the new
Article Finder service. (Table 4)
In conclusion, it was not confirmed that high percentage of the course packs contain copies of
electronic journal articles that are licensed for use by the McGill community by the Library. In any
analysis of the cost of the course packs this factor will be of smaller influence that anticipated.
R E C O M M E N DA T I ON S F OR F U RT H E R S T U DY
This study has raised a number of interesting areas for further inquiry. A number of new
questions related to improving the use of the University’s electronic collections and avenues to
peruse to better integrate these resources into educational technology initiatives on campus are
suggested below.
1. Discussions could be undertaken with professors who have a large percentage of course
pack material electronic. A survey of faculty and student views on their preferences for paper
readings in the course pack vs. an online bibliography linked to electronic content in their
Web CT course. Identify sample courses to pilot online course packs.
2. Investigate with departments who are not represented in the course pack sample, to better
understand how they are delivering their reading material to students.
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3. Investigate how to create digital reproductions of items that do not yet exist in electronic
format for online course packs. Currently, McGill’s ICC department will create a digital
version of paper article (e.g. PDF) however; the professor is expected to prove that rights to
reproduce have been obtained in advance of ICC digitizing the work. Eastman may be
willing to undertake the copyright clearance work for this type of material. Web CT courses
do have sign-on security for specific students and if the digital reproduction was restricted to
students enrolled in the course on the WebCT platform; this may enable Eastman to obtain
copyright clearance.
4. Discussion should begin with the WebCT system managers to investigate the possibility of
adding openURL functionality to WebCT. If this was possible, the Library’s Article Finder
database could be used to provide instant and stable linking to the electronic course readings
from within the WebCT platform. The CUTL Learning Team (Adam Finkelstein and Karen
Nicholson) are currently working on a project to create information literacy templates within
WebCT. This initiative may provide the structured metadata required to generate an
openURL.
5. The Library needs to continue to implement additional Article Finder sources and targets
which may increase the number of matches for electronic content. The library’s subject
specialists may wish to review the winter 2004 course pack table of contents to see how to
improve the library collections ability to support this teaching resource. Journal content that
is not available in MUSE could perhaps be added to the collection. Electronic journals that
are not available in Article Finder, need to be reviewed to see if an alternative means of
licensing with the openURL capabilities can be purchased. If librarians find this review
useful, it maybe something to be continued on an annual basis.
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APPENDIX A
1. Figure 1: Number of course packs by department
Page 8
2. Figure 2: Number of electronic and print journal citations analyzed by department
Page 9
3. Figure 3: Proportion of department citation totals by type
Page 10
4. Figure 4: Number of electronic journal citations by Article Finder or MUSE only by department
Page 11
APPENDIX B
1. Table 6: Winter 2004 Course Pack and WebCT Information
Pages 12-17
A C K N OW L E D G E M E N T S
The bibliographic citation verification, data spreadsheet construction, data entry and the graphing
of the report results was ably performed by Jocelyne Andrews, Graduate School of Library and
Information Studies first year master’s student.
Thank you to Hagan Mehnert and Chris Park of Eastman Systems for background information
on the preparation of the course packs and the copies of the table of contents for McGill’s winter
2004 course packs.
This report was prepared by Sharon Rankin, Metadata and Special Projects Librarian, Library
Technical Services Department.
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