Thank you to those of you who shared your experiences of changing from an in-house Harvard style of referencing. Here is a summary of the comments received:
Reason for changing
1 - In-house style difficult to use with referencing software and search tools such as Google Scholar
2 - Feedback from students and staff showed difficulties using in-house style. Students voiced concerns about referencing in relation to time management and the detail required to compile bibliographic lists
3 - Time consuming to support and edit changes to in-house style
4 - APA/Cite them right - don't need to update referencing Software of changes and are included in the Word referencing tool as standard. Students working off campus or on own laptop no longer need to download additional software
5- In-house style not listed in Citation Style Language (CSL)
6- Inconsistent advice on existing style - had a negative impact on study
7-Change to ease using referencing software which would hopefully shift the focus to use of resources, evaluation and synthesis rather than the mechanics of creating a reference list
8-Improving the student experience
9- In-house style generated a high number of support requests from students
10- Need for students to be able to quickly and easily generate correctly formatted references
11-Enable students to more easily use a wide range of online referencing tools
12-Postgraduate students have a wider choice of referencing software such as Mendeley and Zotero
Two institutions changed to APA as it was similar to the previous in-house style and is a widely recognised standard which is supported by all major referencing tools and search engines
Two institutions changed to Cite Them Right which is also a recognised standard style and supported by referencing tools
One institution changed to Anglia Ruskin as free online support. Support for Cite Them Right was too expensive
*Other referencing styles - change not intended to apply to all areas where other styles such as Numeric and Oscola were being used due to subject requirements
Research and Promotion
1-Communication through faculty meetings
2-Survey students and staff for feedback to in-house referencing style
3-Presentation at Teaching and Learning Forum
4-Contact with influential stake holders - Head of Learning and Teaching for all faculties, Student Union and finally the Academic Quality and Standards Committee for the formal change to be agreed
Transition
1-Introduced at the beginning of the academic year.
2-Students not penalised for using old style in first year of introduction
Hardest Group to convince of need for change
1-Academics
2-Library staff who had created in-house referencing guides
Training and Comunication
1-Short videos
2-Online toolkit
3-Online guide
4-Training sessions for students and staff
5-Survey both students and staff and collaborative partners
6-UX testing
7-Tailored faculty support - Librarians attended subject group meetings
8- Kahoot quiz
What didn't work
1-Mandating academics through committees - academics and academic skill tutors didn't like change and in particular being instructed by management
2-Should have used switch to promote definitive style for institution
3- A 6 month lead up was a little too short, allow more time
4-The way the change was promoted which gave opportunity for lots of people to object
5-Needed to convince academics that although there was a name change the style was not too different from what they had previously used
Many institutions are currently trying to use their bespoke referencing styles which have grown in complexity over time and have been difficult to maintain and to use with online referencing tools. Statistics from library help desks show that students struggle with referencing and this has a negative impact on their studies.
Jackie McCarthy
Librarian
Harper Adams University
########################################################################
To unsubscribe from the LIS-LINK list, click the following link:
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=LIS-LINK&A=1
|
