Published on Aug 27, 2013 http://summonil2013.wordpress.com/ hashtag: #summonil Sandy Buchanan from Sheffield Hallam University talks about how he uses Summon with students in this presentation. These slides are from the 2nd UK Information Literacy & Summon Day (SummonIL2013) which was held at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) on 25th July 2013.

1. The Faculty of ACES:
Arts, Computing, Engineering & Science
Teaching Summon Across Diverse
Subjects
Sandy Buchanan
Sheffield Hallam University

2. ACES:
The Duck-Billed Platypus
of Faculties
Engineering
Mathematics
Computing
Art
Design
Journalism & PR
Media
© Urville Djasim

5. Engineering, IT &
Mathematics
• Well-supplied with
online resources on
Summon
• Always had lots of
ebooks & ejournals
• From this
summer, also BSI &
ASTM standards
• So vast bulk of what
they want can be
found on Summon
• Induction class for
first years
• Some groups get
extra classes on
evaluation &
referencing
• Final years get more
on search skills and
other resources
• Post-grads get both,
plus help with
referencing and
advanced reading
skills
• Practical, hands-on
students
• Don't do that much
academic research
until final year
• But use more
esoteric material
before then, eg
standards, market
research

6. Art & Design
• Many key resources
print-only
• So suffer a bit on
Summon
• had to add journal
records
• Also big browsers
• So can benefit more
from library tours
• Art search terms
rather nebulous, so a
lot of irrelevant
results
• So sometimes better
off on subject-specific
databases instead
• But do very well on
reference ebooks
• Summon simple
Wikipedia alternative
• Inductions for all first
years
• Tend to see other
students in one-to-
ones
• Also very practical
students
• Also not much
academic research
before final year
• Also interested in
business information
• But a lot more focus
on creativity and
inspiration
• So no set exercises:
do their own thing!

7. Journalism, PR &
Media
• Sheer breadth of
possible research
means have to look
outside Summon for
some material
• Also, some key
resources don't work
well on Summon
• eg, newspapers via
Nexis UK
• Induction for first
years
• 4 long sessions for
second years
• 1 on Summon
• 2 on other resources,
1 on referencing
• Lots of worksheets to
guide them through
the different
resources
• Odd subject out
• Much more a
traditional social
science
• Much more academic
research, much
earlier on
• Very broad focus:
might want to
research almost
anything

8. Teaching Summon
• Students need very little help understanding Summon
• Even supposedly 'non-technical' students such as Art &
Design
• Spend much less time on demos
• Students learn for themselves, and from each other
• Avoids teaching fatigue
• Makes it easier to share teaching
• Don't need to be familiar with arcane subject databases or
search terms

9. Journals
• Dominate Summon search results
– So excellent chance to introduce them
– Refine Your Search also gives a chance to introduce Peer
Review
• However, many students won't make much use of journals for
2 or 3 years
– is it the right time to introduce them?
– what about discussing other resource types?
• Searching for journal articles Versus searching for journals
– Art & Journalism still show postgrads how to find key
journals
– Engineering & Computing don't- can find plenty of articles
through Library Search
– But need to know what to do when link resolver fails

10. Summon as launchpad

11. Summon as Launchpad
• Good starting point for introducing universal search features
• eg, Advanced Search, Facets, Boolean, Catalogue
Records
• Many students don't do much research before final year
• So helps to start from a familiar place
• Students won't have Summon when they leave
• so emphasises search as a transferable skill that can be
used elsewhere
• BUT Summon sometimes also used as a contrast with other
resources
• And some features better elsewhere, eg citation searching
or very complex search syntax

12. Summon and other information sources
o All first-year inductions focus on Library Search
o However, some subjects still need resources outside Library
Search
o But less and less the case with Engineering

13. Sausages
© Timo Newton-Syms© Peter Pearson

14. "Academic Google"
• Lumps all sorts of materials together
– Blurs important differences between types of material
– But can filter easily
– And not as if other databases and catalogues don't do this
• Great while it works
– But can leave students at sea when links and resources fail
• As conglomeration of many different resources, oddities and
inconsistencies can result
– eg, book and ebook editions sometimes share an
entry, sometimes not
– eg, British Standards currently classed as ebooks, not
standards
– Students need to know how the other resources work to
understand how Library Search works

15. Further Information
Please contact:
ClaireAbson: Information Specialist
email: C.Abson@shu.ac.uk
Sandy Buchanan: Information Advisor
email: A.Buchanan@shu.ac.uk