[Building Sakai] Oxford Citations Helper work
Jim Eng
jimeng at umich.edu
Wed Jun 27 14:34:53 PDT 2012
Hi Adrian,
I think the assumption was that citation lists would never be very long -- maybe a few hundred citations for an extremely long list. Sorting was done in memory in the tool, if I recall correctly.
One approach would be to add a property to a citation_collection to indicate that it as a custom-ordering and then add a property to each citation in a custom-ordered citation_collection to indicate its index. Then you would need to define a comparator that would be used for those citation lists. You'd need to deal with a couple possible errors:
Citations without an custom-order-index (possibly because they were added after the ordering was defined) should sort to the top or bottom (and not cause a null-pointer)
You need a tie-breaker for citations with the same index or no custom-order-index. For example, sort on custom-order-index first and break ties with some other existing comparator.
That will be as performant as any other sort if they are also done in memory.
If you feel that is not a good solution, you could add the table you described, but that seems to have potential problems. Sometimes you would be getting the list of citations in a collection using the sakai:hasCitation entries, and other times you would be getting them from this new table. Not sure how well that would work.
Jim
On Jun 27, 2012, at 4:15 PM, Adrian Fish wrote:
> I could do with a bit of advice on the citations helper work I'm doing, if there are any citations people around.
>
> I'm currently looking at the reordering ticket (https://jira.sakaiproject.org/browse/SAK-22296) and was thinking of setting up a new table that basically linked a collection with its citations and had the position index in a column. I could just add some more property types indicating position to the props table, but my instinct is that this will not be a particularly performant approach. If I went this route it would obviously mean data duplication as the sakai:hasCitation rows in citation_collection do the same thing but without the explicit ordering.
>
> Any thoughts or suggestions anybody?
>
> Cheers,
> Adrian.
>
> On 22 June 2012 21:31, Cliff, David Graeme <dgcliff at iu.edu> wrote:
> Woops, forgot to reply all (sorry for the double post Jim!)
>
>
>
> I think that seems very reasonable, and would probably greatly speed up the pace of getting the Oxford fixes into trunk.
>
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> - David
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> From: Jim Eng [mailto:jimeng at umich.edu]
> Sent: Friday, June 22, 2012 4:30 PM
> To: Adrian Fish
> Cc: Adam Marshall; John Leasia; Noah Botimer; Eric Echeverri; Jon Dunn; Susan Hollar; Mark H Notess; Cliff, David Graeme; Matthew Buckett; Charles Severance
> Subject: Re: [Building Sakai] Oxford Citations Helper work
>
>
>
> I keep forgetting to respond about commit rights in citations code. I favor giving Adrian commit rights. But I guess that decision might involve some other people. If anybody has any issues, please get back to me before Monday. If I don't hear anything before then, I will ask to have Adrian added.
>
>
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> Jim
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> On Jun 22, 2012, at 4:40 AM, Adrian Fish wrote:
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>
>
> Hi Jim,
>
> Thanks for the well expressed, as always, email.
>
> Adam, have you got any documentation from Oxford's library types? I'm sure the group would like to take a look at it. The more librarians, the merrier, as we say here.
>
> Similarly, it sounds like it may be worth somebody at Oxford taking a look at the results of the requirements gathering exercises Jim mentions so you know what's on the radar.
>
> I know that what I just said is obvious, I just wanted to try and say something intelligent, okay?
>
> By the way, has anybody got any issues with me having commit on the citations code? I'll be submitting a lot of patches over the next couple of weeks. I'll treat it with love, promise.
>
> Cheers,
> Adrian.
>
>
> On 22 June 2012 03:33, Jim Eng <jimeng at umich.edu> wrote:
>
> I agree with you, Adrian, that student involvement was a winning formula for dashboard. But the challenges here are quite different.
>
>
>
> The functionality we are talking about now is support for embedding citations in various contexts, and we have not found that many students are using that capability or interested in using that capability. If it gets a lot easier and a lot more natural, students may use it at times, but it's unlikely they will ever use it very heavily in part because, while students get information from the LMS and submit assignments through the LMS and at times use it to communicate, most students do not do a lot of writing or composition within the LMS (any LMS). It's just not the best environment for student composition (in my opinion).
>
>
>
> On the other hand, some instructors and some librarians do author materials in the LMS and some subset of those instructors and librarians are very interested in incorporating citations in various contexts in the LMS. Requirements gathering for citations work has focused on instructors and librarians more than students, for that reason. I'm not saying that students should not be consulted, but they are not the main focus in this case (as opposed to the dashboard, where they clearly are).
>
>
>
> We have gone through two fairly significant requirements-gathering processes in the past six years. The first led to development of the citations helper. The second focused on possible development of new functionality for OAE, but that has not been pursued very much. Some of us who expect to use CLE for several more years are now trying to follow up on that work to improve and/or replace current functionality in CLE related to citations. We've already learned a lot about the requirements over the past six years, so there's little interest in doing more analysis.
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>
>
> That is not to say that the process won't benefit from input and feedback from end users and from support people at sakai schools that make use of the current citations helper. I think we should work with Oxford and ask people there for feedback as we work on this, just as we should get feedback from people at Michigan, Indiana and other schools where people use the citations helper. But I think we are near the end of the design phase, rather than near the beginning.
>
>
>
> Here's what I expect to happen: We will see a bunch of improvements in the citations helper for sakai 2.10. They will come from you, Oxford, Indiana and Michigan. We will all talk with each other as we do this work. All of us will also post information in JIRA and on the sakai-user list as we work on things. At some point, we may have a proposal for a better integration of external citations management systems into sakai. When that happens, I think we will all discuss it. Maybe we'll have some paper mockups or a clickable prototype that people at various schools will be able to use to gather feedback from targeted groups of end-users. We will also work with experts to make sure what we do is accessible and easy to use. And we will try to develop it as quickly as possible.
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> Just my opinion. It would be good to hear from a few other people at Indiana and Michigan.
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> Thanks.
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> Jim
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> On Jun 21, 2012, at 2:36 PM, Adrian Fish wrote:
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> Hi Jim,
>
> I know you weren't suggesting that :)
>
> Thanks for keeping me and Oxford in the loop; they unfortunately missed the conference as they were deep in the nether regions of a major Sakai upgrade. Ouch. Are you going to keep the ticket updated with comments as you go? Are you thinking of doing it as a student project like Dashboard? That's a winning formula!
>
> Cheers again,
> Adrian.
>
> On 21 June 2012 19:24, James Eng <jimeng at umich.edu> wrote:
>
> That sounds good, Adrian. I wasn't suggesting you hold off. We are
> going ahead with SAK-22083. I just wanted to make sure you were aware
> of the discussions from the conference and the ideas being discussed
> since then.
>
> Jim
>
>
>
> On 6/21/12, Adrian Fish <adrian.r.fish at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi Jim at al,
> >
> > We're going to press on with the Oxford changes for the time being. They
> > need the fixes in the short term and this redesign sounds like a fairly big
> > job. They're obviously interested in a redesign and will still want to be
> > involved in the specification process. They have an engaged set of
> > academics and librarians by the sound of it so will be a useful sounding
> > board.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Adrian.
> >
> > On 21 June 2012 10:23, Adam Marshall <adam.marshall at oucs.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
> >
> >> Since we have integrated CH with Ex-libris PRIMO we’ve had a lot more
> >> interest but a number of people have said they cant use the tool because
> >> ….
> >> We have tried to address the simpler requests with the work that Adrian
> >> is
>
> >> to be doing.****
> >>
> >> ** **
> >>
> >> There are 3 other ‘biggies’ that people ask for****
> >>
> >> ** **
>
> >>
> >> 1/ The ability for specified librarians to see all reading lists and get
> >> a
>
> >> collated view so they can see what books etc are on reading lists.****
> >>
> >> ** **
>
> >>
> >> 2/ Import from Word / PDF – people have word docs that they want to
>
> >> translate into a reading list****
> >>
> >> ** **
>
> >>
> >> 3/ ‘resolve’ references that haven’t been created via a PRIMO search,
> >> This
> >> is for lists created by RefWorks / EndNote import that do not have an
> >> open
> >> URL assigned. What we would do is have a resolve button that when
> >> clicked,
> >> sends (say) the ISBN to PRIMO search and gets back the corresponding open
> >> URL. The reference is then modified and ends up with the same meta data
> >> that one would have got if one had created the reference by doing a PRIMO
>
> >> search and importing to Sakai.****
> >>
> >> ** **
> >>
> >> Other requests are ****
> >>
> >> ** **
>
> >>
> >> 1/ better import from EndNote / RefWorks – we think there are (or were)
>
> >> bugs with this process.****
> >>
> >> ** **
>
> >>
> >> 2/ allow citations to be inserted into other HTML documents. We would
> >> need
> >> to insert the reference plus associated JavaScript (from Talis’s Juice
>
> >> library) which would grab availability info from PRIMO.****
> >>
> >> ** **
>
> >>
> >> 3/ add “course association” meta data to reading lists so one can search
> >> the system for all reading lists for Biochemistry 101 for the academic
> >> year
>
> >> 2011-12****
> >>
> >> ** **
> >>
> >> Adam****
> >>
> >> ** **
> >>
> >> ** **
> >>
> >> ** **
> >>
> >> *From:* Adrian Fish [mailto:adrian.r.fish at gmail.com]
> >> *Sent:* 20 June 2012 22:30
> >> *To:* Jim Eng
> >>
> >> *Cc:* John Leasia; Noah Botimer; Eric Echeverri; Jon Dunn; Susan Hollar;
>
> >> Mark H Notess; David Graeme Cliff; Adam Marshall; Matthew Buckett
>
> >> *Subject:* Re: [Building Sakai] Oxford Citations Helper work****
> >>
> >> ** **
> >>
> >> Hi Jim,
> >> ****
>
> >>
> >> There are several reasons. One has to do with our assessment that the
> >> citations helper is not meeting people's needs very well. That is
>
> >> supported by the fact that it is not used very much anywhere.****
>
> >>
> >>
> >> Is that your experience also, Adam? How does the current tool go down at
> >> Oxford. Obviously, from the tickets, there are concerns about it. Would
> >> it
> >> make sense to you to take part in a new tool design? Can your users wait
> >> for a new tool or are they champing at the bit for the improvements?
>
> >> ****
>
> >>
> >> A much more natural workflow would be that an instructor (or student)
> >> comes across a citation that seems relevant and wants to save it,
> >> possibly
> >> for use in a course now or in the future. That can be saved to Zotero,
>
> >> RefWorks, EndNote, Mendeley or any other citations manager. ****
>
> >>
> >>
> >> That's makes sense. During their lit search they just gather citations in
> >> Zotero and then import them as and when they need to. I do have a
> >> question
> >> about this process though. If you were working on a paper, maybe in
> >> collaboration with others, wouldn't it make far more sense to use Google
> >> Docs and its research tool? You can suck citations straight in from
> >> scholar
> >> with that sidebar and it seems really simple. Maybe citations only ever
> >> gets used as a reading list tool and only ever will. Just a way of
> >> rendering a reading list for a course.
> >>
> >> Cheers again,
>
> >> Adrian.****
> >>
> >> ** **
> >>
> >
>
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