ASIS&T, 75TH Annual Meeting 30 October 2012
http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/synergy.html
Convergence & Synergy:
Social Q&A Meets Virtual
Reference Services
Marie L. Radford
Lynn Silipigni Connaway
Chirag Shah
Associate Professor
Rutgers University
Senior Research Scientist
OCLC
Assistant Professor
Rutgers University
mradford@rutgers.edu
connawal@oclc.org
chirags@rutgers.edu
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Where We Are Now
VRS
SQA
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Current Model of Virtual Reference Services (VRS)
POSITIVES
• 20+ years
Question
• High quality/accurate
• Professionals
• Consortium collaborations
CHALLENGES
• Funding cuts
• Monolithic
• Collaboration limited
beyond consortia
• Underutilized
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Answer
Social Question & Answer (SQA)
POSITIVES
•Community-based
•Collaborative
•Publicly available
•Low cost
•Quick turnaround
•Easy build-up of social capital
CHALLENGE
•No guarantee of quality of answers
•Some questions receive no answers
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Convergence of VRS & SQA
•Similar components
•Previous efforts
•Slam the Boards
•Enquire
•Rated best answer 79% of time
•Collaboration possibilities intriguing
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Cyber Synergy:
Seeking Sustainability through
Collaboration between Virtual Reference
& Social Q&A Sites
Partners: OCLC & Rutgers
Funded by IMLS for $250K
2-year project
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Research Questions
• What is the effectiveness of various VRS & SQA services, quality of content
provided, & their relative merits & shortcomings?
• How does accuracy compare between VRS & SQA sites?
• What lessons can be learned from SQA sites that could be applied to VRS &
vice-versa?
• How can VRS become more collaborative, within & between libraries, & tap
more effectively into librarian’s subject expertise?
• How can we design systems & services within & between VRS & SQA for
better quality & sustainability?
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Project Phases
Phase I
Transcript analysis
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Phase II
Telephone Interviews
Phase III
Constructing Design
Specifications
Phase I: VRS & SQA Transcript Analysis
•560 transcripts (296,158 total)
•350 live chat
•210 Qwidget (IM)
•11 coding schemes
•1000 Q&A pairs from Yahoo
Answers! (>1 million total)
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Phase I: Transcript Analysis – Preliminary Results
• Subject - Dewey Decimal Classification
•Broad range
•Social sciences & technology - largest percentages
• Type of Question
•Procedural & Ready Reference largest percentages
• Accuracy
•90% accurate for Ready Reference
•75% correct with citation included
•
Difficulty
•READ Scale (Gerlich & Berard, ‘07)
•Most questions fall 2-3 on READ scale (require some effort & time)
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Phase II: Telephone Interviews
•Librarians
•50 VRS librarians
•Users
•VRS
•50 QP live chat & Qwidget users
•SQA
•50 services users & expert users
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Phase II: VRS & SQA Phone Interview Demographics
•Librarians
•18 academic
• 16 other
•VRS/SQA Users
•5 VRS only
•12 SQA only
•56 used both
Participant geographic distribution
VRS/SQA User
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Librarian
Phase II: SQA FtF Interview Demographics
•36 SQA student users
•24 undergraduate
•12 graduate
•10 subject librarians
•Major themes
•Important for success
•Topic
• Length
•Visibility
•Timeliness
•Clarity
• Availability
•Verifiability
•Relevance, quality, & satisfaction
on equal planes
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Phase II: SQA Interview Analysis
• Exploratory
• Uses & experiences in physical &
digital libraries & SQAs
• Preliminary results
• “Goodness” of answers
• Synergy of SQA & VRS
• Collaboration
• Leverage subject knowledge
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Phase II: Librarian Interviews
•34 phone interviews conducted to date
•Major themes
•Draft coding scheme developed
•Important
•Attaining sustained user satisfaction
•Teaching search strategies
•Better via electronic media
•Cite sources
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The Takeaway
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Goals & Impact on VRS/SQA Services
•Improve underutilized services
•Understand how to leverage librarian subject
expertise through virtual collaborations
•Develop guidelines for practice
•Make recommendations for evaluation of VRS & SQA
•Inform systems design
•Connect potential users with SQA services & VRS
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Next Steps
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Next Steps
•Further analysis of SQA questions
•Subject
•Question Type
•Questions failing to obtain answers
Nee help with English please?
•Continue interviews
•VRS/SQA users
•VRS librarians
•Conduct design sessions with experts
•Specifications for system design
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Answer Question
ANSWERS(0)
Funding & Acknowledgements
Cyber Synergy: Seeking Sustainability through Collaboration
between Virtual Reference and Social Q&A Sites
• $250,000 for 2011-2013
• Funded by IMLS, OCLC, & Rutgers University
• Co-PIs Marie Radford (RU), Lynn Silipigni Connaway
(OCLC), & Chirag Shah (RU)
http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/synergy.html
• We thank Eric Choi, Alyssa Darden, Kathy Juliano, Vanessa
Kitzie, Hanna Lee, and Stephanie Mikitish for their
assistance in coding, analysis, and data presentation.
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Selected Bibliography
Connaway, L. S. & Radford, M. L. (2011). Seeking Synchronicity: Revelations and recommendations
for virtual reference. Dublin, OH: OCLC Research. Retrieved on February 26, 2012 from
http://www.oclc.org/reports/synchronicity/full.pdf
Radford, M. L., & Connaway, L. S. (forthcoming). Not dead yet! A longitudinal study of query type and
ready reference accuracy in live chat and IM reference. Library & Information Science Research,
35(1).
Radford, M. L., & Connaway, L. S. (2005-2008). Seeking synchronicity: Evaluating virtual reference
services from user, non-user, and librarian perspectives. Funded by National Leadership Grants for
Libraries program of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Retrieved from
http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/synchronicity/default.htm
Radford, M. L., Connaway, L. S., Confer, P., Sabolsci-Boros, S., & Kwon, H. (2011). “Are we getting
warmer?” Query clarification in live chat virtual reference. Reference & User Services Quarterly,
50(3), 259-279.
Radford, M. L., Connaway, L. S., & Shah, C. (2011-2013). Cyber Synergy: Seeking sustainability
through collaboration between virtual reference and social Q&A sites. Retrieved from
http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/synergy/default.htm
Shah, C., & Kitzie, V. (2012). Social Q & A and virtual reference-comparing apples and oranges with
the help of experts and users. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and
Technology, 63(10), 2020-2036.
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Marie L. Radford: mradford@rutgers.edu
Lynn Silipigni Connaway: connawal@oclc.org
Chirag Shah: chirags@rutgers.edu
Questions?
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