Rome Wasn't Digitized in a Day - Council on Library and Information ...

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non-user behavior.” The authors also <strong>in</strong>sisted that there had likely been no “coord<strong>in</strong>ated conversation
about user research” across the many types of digital resources available because of the immense
variety of such resources found onl<strong>in</strong>e.
As they began to study the types of digital resources available <strong>in</strong> order to create a typology of resource
types (e.g., data sets, videos, maps, electronic journals, course materials) they quickly discovered the
number of resources available was ever grow<strong>in</strong>g and that digital resources were be<strong>in</strong>g created <strong>in</strong>
different environments by many types of developers. In addition, they noted that users often def<strong>in</strong>ed
resources much more granularly than did their creators. The project also def<strong>in</strong>ed three major roles for
analysis <strong>in</strong> terms of website “owners,” <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g resource aggregators, developers of tools, and content
creators and owners.
The major part of this study consisted of speak<strong>in</strong>g with and survey<strong>in</strong>g faculty <strong>in</strong> different discipl<strong>in</strong>es 579
and at several k<strong>in</strong>ds of <strong>in</strong>stitutions to f<strong>in</strong>d out why they did or did not use digital resources as part of
their teach<strong>in</strong>g. Harley et al. (2006b) found that “personal teach<strong>in</strong>g style” and philosophy greatly
<strong>in</strong>fluenced resource use and that there were a large number of user types, from nonusers (a diverse
group <strong>in</strong> itself) to novice users to advanced users. Images and visual materials were the resources that
were listed as be<strong>in</strong>g most frequently used, but news websites, video, and onl<strong>in</strong>e reference sources were
also used quite heavily. Faculty used Google as their primary means of f<strong>in</strong>d<strong>in</strong>g resources; the second
most frequently used resource were their own “collections” of digital resources.
The reasons for use and nonuse of digital resources were quite diverse, accord<strong>in</strong>g to Harley et al.
(2006b). Major reasons faculty used digital resources were to improve student learn<strong>in</strong>g, to <strong>in</strong>tegrate
primary sources <strong>in</strong>to their teach<strong>in</strong>g, to <strong>in</strong>clude materials <strong>in</strong> teach<strong>in</strong>g that would otherwise be
unavailable, and to <strong>in</strong>tegrate their research <strong>in</strong>terests <strong>in</strong>to a course. The preem<strong>in</strong>ent reason for nonuse
was that digital resources did not support their approach to teach<strong>in</strong>g. Additional reasons <strong>in</strong>cluded lack
of time, resources that were difficult to use and, notably, the <strong>in</strong>ability to “f<strong>in</strong>d, manage, ma<strong>in</strong>ta<strong>in</strong>, and
reuse them <strong>in</strong> new contexts.” The importance of personal digital collections was illustrated aga<strong>in</strong>, and
Harley et al. (2006b) asserted that “many faculty want to the ability to build their own collections,
which are often composed of a variety of materials, <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g those that are copyright protected.” Thus
faculty demonstrated a desire not just for resources that were easier to f<strong>in</strong>d and use but also for ones
that were “open” <strong>in</strong> the sense that they could at least be reused <strong>in</strong> new contexts.
Interviews with 13 digital resource providers of “generic” onl<strong>in</strong>e educational resources (OERs) 580 and
two other stakeholders <strong>in</strong> terms of what types of user research they had engaged <strong>in</strong> and what they knew
about their users revealed that there were no common metrics for measur<strong>in</strong>g use or def<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g groups of
users, but that most projects assumed faculty were their ma<strong>in</strong> user group. Their f<strong>in</strong>d<strong>in</strong>gs largely
confirmed those of (Warwick et al. 2008b), namely, that little if any comprehensive or systematic
research had occurred:
The <strong>in</strong>terview analyses suggested that there were no common terms, metrics, methods, or
values for def<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g use or users among the targeted projects. Yet digital resource providers
shared the desire to measure how and for what purpose materials were be<strong>in</strong>g used once
579 Accord<strong>in</strong>g to the full report (Harley et al. 2006a), 30 faculty from classics participated <strong>in</strong> this study—11 (2.4 percent of the total) faculty members
answered the H-Net survey and 19 faculty (2.3 percent of the total) from California universities participated <strong>in</strong> the focus and discussion groups (pp. 4-15).
The only other major f<strong>in</strong>d<strong>in</strong>g of this report <strong>in</strong> regard to classicists was that they tended to use fewer digital resources <strong>in</strong> their teach<strong>in</strong>g than did scholars <strong>in</strong>
many other discipl<strong>in</strong>es (pp. 4-56).
580 Resource providers <strong>in</strong>cluded MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) (http://ocw.mit.edu/), JSTOR, and the National Science Digital Library (http://nsdl.org/).