Aspire Digitised Content
When the University of Portsmouth trialled Talis Aspire Digitised Content, demand for its digitisation services spiralled to the extent that the Library had to consider procuring an additional scanner. “Previously we had a threadbare scanning service that we provided on request without advertising”, says Andrew Simpson, Associate University Librarian. The manual workflows were timeconsuming, leaving no spare capacity to extend the service and meet the growing demand. At Middlesex University, space was at a premium, the institution having recently consolidated its presence onto a single campus. “Students said we never had enough books, and when they were told to read a certain chapter there’d be scrums in the library as they all ran in to find it”, says Matthew Lawson, Assistant Director for Library and Learner Development. “So scanning a chapter or hard-copy journal article and making it available to every user meant that we’d be able to improve student access to resources and reuse the storage space. “
Universities want to be legally compliant, and it's hard to do that without a good system. This is a good system. As University Librarian at the University of Lincoln, Ian Snowley was concerned about the effort that his staff were putting into digitisation with little appreciable impact. “We knew that digitisation would help us to make the most of the resources we had,” he says, “but we had no system to support it. From an early stage we believed that Digitised
Transforming your digitisation service,
the quick and easy way
Customers of Talis Aspire Digitised Content, a module which automates digitisation workflows, talk about the difference it has made at their institution, how easily they put it in place, and how quickly they started to see the benefits.
Content represented a real solution to our problems.” For these three institutions, Talis Aspire Digitised Content has transformed the provision of scanned materials within a very short period of time, providing the academic community with a transformed digitisation service, opening up student access to recommended chapters and articles, and helping the library to deliver more with less. Difficulties satisfying digitisation requests Before the University of Lincoln invested in Digitised Content, the library would receive haphazard requests from academics, quite often at the last minute and eliciting all the information that the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) required would typically take a whole series of emails. This was only the start of an onerous process. Subject librarians would rush around, retrieving the material and performing all the necessary compliance checks. The subject librarian would hand the material over to administrative staff for scanning, then review the digitised document for accuracy before finally publishing it. This labour-intensive process meant that libraries were unable to meet the growing need for digitised documents. “I was reasonably confident about the compliance of scans that we were doing here in the library”, says David Sherren, Map Librarian at the University of Portsmouth. “I was less sure about scanning that was done elsewhere.”
The output itself varied considerably in quality. “The quality of images can be very poor, the text unreadable or too small”, adds Dave Masterson, Head of Electronic Services at the University of Lincoln.
It made everything so much quicker to do “Having a system that did the copyright checking automatically was going to give us greater peace of mind”, concludes David Sherren. Effortless implementation of Talis Aspire Digitised Content Staff at Portsmouth had attempted to develop inhouse systems to support the complexity and volumes that their digitisation service was handling. “Talis Aspire Digitised Content came along at exactly the right time because our own solution was proving unreliable and difficult to manage”, says David Sherren. His colleague, Paul Egan, Team Leader (Systems), found the set-up and deployment process of the module to be both quick and easy. “All I had to do was create permissions for users to request digitisations”, he says. “Then I simply flicked a switch. It was very straightforward.” Talis Aspire Digitised Content is hosted externally, providing in-built storage for scanned documents. This lifts away the infrastructural burden at the institution. “It’s a massive benefit to have the storage hosted externally”, says Jamie Halstead, Library Liaison Manager at Middlesex University. “It takes the stress away and we don’t have to bother our IT colleagues.” Matthew Lawson points to the ease with which the module integrates with other systems. “One of the advantages of Digitised Content is that it works smoothly with our student portal and our VLE. That makes it simple and easy for both library staff and academics to use”, he says. Lincoln’s Ian Snowley adds that the University’s selection of Talis Aspire Digitised Content would have been considerably slower had they needed to
procure their own hardware. “Once we committed to the module, we implemented it swiftly,” he says, “and that was critical for us.” Digitisation made easy for time-pressed librarians With the module in place, library staff at all three institutions got to grips with it easily. “I simply used the inline help documentation, which was clearly written”, says Portsmouth’s David Sherren. “That was all we needed to start using it.” The module’s ease of use begins with a standard request form for academics, offering autocomplete fields to minimise errors and save time. The module automates all compliance checks on the spot, eliminating those complex manual workflows and time-consuming communications with academics. “My first impression was the enormous time savings we could make”, says David Sherren. “It made everything so much quicker to do. We worked out that it took an average of 30 minutes to process each item under our old system. Once we had Digitised Content, it was about 10 times faster – about three minutes per item.”
Academics have been impressed at the speed and efficiency with which their requests have been delivered, fully compliant and accessible to students on demand. “Deep down we always felt that compliance was an issue at Lincoln; we weren’t confident that people were checking requests on the basis of the best or most up-to-date information”, admits Ian Snowley. “The great thing about Digitised Content is that it makes subject librarians confident that they’re doing the right thing”, he continues. “Staff have always felt uncomfortable about making these decisions, so that is a powerful benefit.”
Library decision-makers can finally provide the digitisation service that academics and students desperately need, delivering high-quality digitised materials that are fully compliant. The library can scale up its service with the efficiencies that the module delivers. “The quantity of requests would have been hard to manage without a system in place”, says Kate Vasili, Copyright Officer at Middlesex University. “You can’t keep your eye on 4,000 modules all the time.” Customers welcome the clear commitment from the CLA to integrate its own data with the module. “That benefit is really strong for us”, says Ian Snowley. “The module’s integration with CLA systems delivers the most difficult part of the digitisation process. Universities want to be legally compliant, and that's hard without a good system. Talis Aspire Digitised Content is a good system.” Improved academic experience As library staff at the University of Portsmouth started to roll the module out to academic departments, they found that training needs were minimal, as Linda Jones, Subject Librarian, points out. “I did no training at all with our pilot academics”, she says. “We just told them to click the button if they wanted to request a digitisation and take it from there. For academics who are cautious about new software, we’re thinking of running a series of lightweight clinics. But I think most users will simply go ahead and use it.”
It works very smoothly and the benefits to us as an organisation are fantastic Talis Aspire Digitised Content offers academics a simplified, expedient and compliant service. Digitised Content libraries typically receive positive user feedback from an early stage. “I received an email this week from a user saying how much they like the ease of access”, says Portsmouth’s David Sherren. His colleague, Linda Jones, agrees. ”What we’re seeing is the corridor effect; people who have been requesting scans themselves are telling colleagues”, she says. “So I think word will spread.”
“We’re offering them a service that they never had before”, says Middlesex’s Kate Vasili. “Academics were reluctant to digitise because they didn’t understand the compliance requirements, and it seemed like a long drawn-out process. For academics that is too much hassle so they would simply tell students to read the chapter.” A number of academics at Middlesex have even jumped the queue to gain early access to the module so they can provide more digitised materials to their students. Quicker and easier student access It has never been more important to improve student access to learning resources. “We know that students are time-short and under pressure”, Ian Snowley points out. “We have growing student numbers, particularly in course areas where international recruitment is strong, and learning materials won’t always go round. Digitisation helps universities to use resources to their fullest extent.” With Talis Aspire Digitised Content, universities can make another category of content available to students at the click of a button.
It’s really taken off. There are already more digitised readings accessible to students In common with other institutions, the University of Portsmouth is keen to enhance the experience of distance learners such as international students. “We’re giving those students a better service in terms of access”, says Linda Jones. “We run a postal service to our distance learners, but it is very expensive to send out entire books, and even with photocopied chapters it can take a long time. Some students are in situations that are literally hostile; they’re serving members of the armed services, or they’re in countries where post is frequently interrupted.” Library staff at Middlesex University are delighted with the early outcomes. “It’s really taken off”, says Kate Vasili. “There are already more digitised readings accessible to students, who no longer have to trawl to the library and fight over one book on the shelf a week before the lecture.”
But is Talis Aspire making student access a little too easy? “Some may argue that we’re spoon-feeding students”, says Middlesex’s Matthew Lawson. “My response is that if academics want students to spend their time rifling around in the library for printed resources, that’s their choice. But by creating partnerships with academics, forging a positive dynamic, engagement with the idea has been positive and that in turn improves the student experience.” Evidence-based student provision Another strength of Talis Aspire Digitised Content is the usage analytics. “We can see how many students have looked at an item, printed or downloaded it”, says Lincoln’s Ian Snowley. “Of the 895 items we’ve digitised so far, we've had more than 12,000 views in the two months we've been live, nearly 2000 downloads and more than 500 prints. This offers real potential for subject librarians to work with academics to understand how students act upon the resources they recommend. So we can start to have more of a dialogue with academics about what they digitise and what students want.”
At rollover, the module will carry out the required checks without us having to go through every item individually…That will be a major benefit. Middlesex’s Jamie Halstead agrees. “Before, if a lecturer had told students to read chapter two, not all students would have done so. But now we can see with the analytics that they’re really doing that in a big way with digitised content.” Portsmouth’s Linda Jones agrees. “It has transformed the nature of the conversations that subject librarians have with academics”, she says. “We’re talking at a deeper level about information literacy, so it’s been nothing but a benefit.” Painless year-end rollover and reporting Towards the end of every academic year, libraries are required to submit a report to the CLA,
providing details of every request. This often involves trawling through a number of information sources across various departments. “Every spring I went through a lengthy process reviewing all the year’s requests, checking the data and correcting it in many cases”, recalls Lincoln’s Dave Masterson.
This offers real potential for subject librarians to work with academics to understand how students act upon the resources they recommend. Customers of Digitised Content now look forward to effortless annual CLA reporting at the end of every academic year. Because the module builds up this report cumulatively, as transactions are completed in the system, customers can already evaluate the completeness and accuracy of this mandated report. “I am absolutely confident that the report is what it should be,” says Dave, “so for me the process will be very different this year because I won’t have to check all that information.” The annual rollover process, which also involves compliance checking, promises to be equally painless. “At rollover, the module will carry out the required checks without us having to go through every item individually”, says Kate Vasili. “That will be a major benefit.“ Evaluating the early benefits of Talis Aspire Digitised Content Overall, the Digitised Content module supports an enhanced scanning service that saves considerable staff time on checking and processing digitisation requests. “We can provide a well-publicised and efficient scanning service, which will encourage people to use chapters rather than buying whole books. It helps us to make use of our printed stock in a way that wasn’t previously possible”, says Portsmouth’s Andrew Simpson. Universities are experiencing rapid take-up of Digitised Content as word spreads of the excellent user experience it offers.
“We’ve got large numbers of academics using it, and it’s doing exactly what we hoped it would do”, says Middlesex’s Matthew Lawson. “It’s fantastic to see these tasks, which used to take up such a lot of time, suddenly carried out automatically for us.”
Digitised Content represents a real solution to a real problem In only two months of live operations with Talis Aspire Digitised Content, the University of Lincoln successfully processed 895 digitisation requests, as opposed to the 1,200 it made available in the whole of the previous year. The University is able to promote its much-needed digitisation service to all academics, something that was not previously possible when manual processing acted as a constraint on service capacity. “We knew there was demand out there and that we needed to make full use of the materials that we already had. That’s where Digitised Content represents a real solution to a real problem”, says Ian Snowley. “It goes from being a service that we wanted to keep quiet about, to one that we can really encourage people to use.”
Librarians find that with the time saved they can focus on other areas of responsibility, such as information literacy. Digitisation services no longer require specialist knowledge of copyright compliance, so library staff can be more flexibly redeployed across the library, smoothing out peaks and troughs in demand across services. Talis Aspire universities have a sense of moving onto bigger and better things with Digitised Content. “Let’s push further”, says Middlesex’s Jamie Halstead. “Let’s do as much scanning as we can do legally.” Ian Snowley at University of Lincoln is also upbeat. “We’re confident that we’ll save a huge amount of time, and we’ll improve the process for all users as well as our record keeping at a stroke”, he says. Paul Egan at the University of Portsmouth is equally impressed. “It works very smoothly”, he says, “and the benefits to us as an organisation are fantastic.”
Key Analytics • 895 requests made live, with 12,000 views and nearly 2,000 downloads in the first two months of operation at the University of Lincoln • 475 staff hours saved per annum at Nottingham Trent University • Processing time per item reduced from 30 to 3 minutes at University of Portsmouth • One article viewed 1,020 by the 380 students on the course at University of Lincoln • 6000 views of digitised content in one month at Middlesex University • 600 live requests generating a total of 3,151 views at the University of Portsmouth
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