Browsing by Author "Harker, Karen"
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Item Collaborative Development: Building a Web-based Family Practice Subject Guide(2003-05) Mayo, Helen; Harker, Karen; Frey, Robert D.; Murphy-Cullen, Cassie L.Item Creating a Centralized Data Repository(2008-10) Carpenter, Scott; Chapa, Kay; Harker, Karen; Minzenmayer, Tracey; Ramos, Therona; Thompson, Laurie; Thompson, Pamela; Turner, Antoinette; Kainerstorfer, CameronItem Evaluating the Quality of a Link Resolver(2008-10) Harker, Karen; Jayaraman, ShobanaItem Gathering Customer Input Prior to Home Page Redesign: An Ontological Study(2002-11) Alexander, Katherine; Harker, Karen; Higa-Moore, Mori Lou; Mayo, Helen; Wilder, Laura; McKibbon, ShelleyIn the summer of 2001, the Library's Content Team, which addresses the selection of content in the Library's Web site, studied how clients organize and describe information. Specifically, we wanted to identify which library resources and services were considered to be most important by our clients, how clients would organize the library's electronic resources and services, and the terminology clients would use to describe their groupings. The results will be used in the redesign of the library's home page. This poster presents our library's experience in planning and conducting this study, which involved a multi-level card sort. We will report on the process we developed to guide us through this study, from setting our initial goals to analyzing the data. We will present our card sort methodology as well as the participant-selection process, which involved the use of our client contact database and other unique approaches to encouraging participation by self-selected volunteers. We will share our detailed working procedures, such as the development of a shared calendar to manage scheduling and a participant database to track responses. Finally, we will present our analysis methods for the gathered data and identify the resources necessary to complete this type of study successfully.Item Proving Value and Preserving Staff Sanity: A Centralized Data Repository(2008-10) Chapa, Kay; Kainerstorfer, Cameron; Carpenter, Scott; Harker, Karen; Minzenmayer, Tracey; Ramos, Therona; Thompson, Laurie; Thompson, Pamela; Turner, AntoinetteItem A Searchable Library News Archive(2001-10) Giles, Sharon; Harker, Karen; Jacobs, LynneItem What to Do before the Webmaster Leaves(2001-05) Harker, Karen; Walters, Mitchel; Hill, Judi; Berkins, BrendaPURPOSE: As librarians' technical Web skills grow, they are incorporating more local databases, search tools, feedback mechanisms, and interactive forms into our Web sites. In our particular case, the realization that the departure of one key technical person could severly cripple our Web site sent us searching for the best way to document the custom software that she had helped us to develop. This paper will describe the software development and documentation process that resulted from our search. The process has become a part of all Web development projects in our library. SETTING/PARTICIPANTS/RESOURCES: This large, academic medical center library has a Web site receiving approximately two million hits per year. Most of the important functions of the site are generated dynamically using Cold Fusion to serve Access and SQL databases. A library unit of four FTE is responsible for maintenance of the site, but software development is distributed throughout the library by means of cross-functional project teams. DESCRIPTION: In the course of studying how professional software engineers manage projects and write documentation, we gleaned good ideas from several sources and combined them into a development process that uses careful project planning both to guide the process and to write the software documentation at the same time. We have called this the Process Improvement Initiative (PII). It leads a project team through the steps of defining the modules of their product, fully designing the modules on paper, and then building the modules. The successive leavels of ever-more-detailed designs are recorded on templates, which then become the written documentation of the finished product. RESULTS/OUTCOME: To date, PII has been successfully implemented in a half-dozen software development projects including a faculty publications database, a Web-based user survey, and a library newsletter that is dynamically generated and archived. Evaluation Method: PII allows a project team to monitor its progress through well-defined schedules and work plans. It includes frequent self-evaluation exercises by the team and a wrap-up evaluation of PII itself at the end of the project.