ux research with distance learners

UX research with distance learners

Keren Stiles, Library Services@mirya

• UX with distance learners1. Focus group: Love/break-up letters2. Interviews: Touchstone tours

• UX with full time PhD students– Cognitive mapping

UX study participants

SHOULD THE LIBRARY WEBSITE REMAIN STUDENT FOCUSSED?

1. Focus group: Love/break-up letters2. Interviews: Touchstone tours

Love/break-up letters• [play clip of Isolde’s letter]

Photograph by Liz West: https://www.flickr.com/photos/calliope/234447967/

Touchstone tour

Pretend I’m a fellow OU student who has told you that I’ve never used the library, and you’ve kindly offered to show me how you use it in your studies.

Photograph by Michael Larson: https://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelthesecond/549594588/

Show me how you use the library

Planne

d res

earch

:

menu s

tructu

re

How do research students conduct

their research?

We used cognitive mapping and interviewed students about their maps

afterwards

Literature reviews were the part of the

research process mentioned the most

There were more instances of negative feedback about the library than positive

Library print resources were mentioned almost as much

as electronic resources

Screenshot of https://scholar.google.co.uk/

Most participants use Google Scholar as their primary (or one of their primary) means of finding literature

https://twitter.com/sci_hub

http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/LimeWire

https://en.facebookbrand.com/assets

There is some significant use of non-Library Services resources

We have started communicating findings to colleagues and acting on them

We found that cognitive mapping was easy to undertake and generated insightful data

Keren StilesKeren.Stiles@open.ac.uk@mirya

David JenkinsDavid.Jenkins@open.ac.uk@david_r_jenkins

COGNITIVE MAPPING BIBLIOGRAPHYAsher, A. 2013-12-09. Coding Library Cognitive Maps. Available at:

http://www.andrewasher.net/BiblioEthnoHistorioGraphy/coding-library-cognitive-maps/.

Costley, C, Elliott, G & Gibbs, P 2010,Doing work based research: approaches to enquiry for insider-researchers, London: SAGE Publications Ltd

Creswell, J.W., 2003. Research design : qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method approaches 2nd ed., Thousand Oaks, Calif. : Sage Publications.

Denscombe, M., 2003. The good research guide : for small-scale social research projects 2nd ed., Maidenhead : Open University Press.

Guest, G, MacQueen, KM & Namey, EE 2012, 'Themes and codes', in Applied thematic analysis, Thousand Oaks, CA :SAGE Publications, Inc., pp. 49-78

Kevin, M. and Nancy, R. (2005) 'Building an enterprise process view using cognitive mapping', Business Process Management Journal, 11(1), pp. 63-74.

Lanclos, D. (2013) the Anthropologist in the Stacks: Playing with Cognitive Mapping. Available at: http://atkinsanthro.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/playing-with-cognitive-mapping.html. s

Lanclos, D. (2015) "#cogmaps generally 2-D reps of 3-D spaces...". Available at: https://twitter.com/DonnaLanclos/status/581516611707797504?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw.

Mills, D & Morton, M 2013, 'Being, seeing, writing: the role of fieldnotes', in Ethnography in education, Research Methods in Education, London : SAGE Publications Ltd, pp. 77-93