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askON Continues to Thrive - 2016 Evaluation Results
The 2016 askON Evaluation results are in! The report
reveals another year of record-breaking traffic, increased numbers of reference questions, and high quality service to askON visitors from all colleges.
askON continues to experience record-breaking traffic, with a 76% increase in 2016 and a further 86% increase from Jan to Aug 2017. This trend began back in September 2015 with the transition to LibraryH3lp and was further influenced by the Proactive Chat Pilot that began in May 2016. Traffic from all libraries increased in 2016, ranging from 13% to 210%.
Reference questions continue to make up the majority of questions to t
he service. 65% of all questions in the coding sample contained a reference request (63.5% as the primary information need).
Of the reference questions received, 65% were for research help, 23% were for help finding a known item, and 12% for help with citation. 85% of reference questions involved an information literacy component, such as helping visitors identify and use search tools (55%), access information (27%), develop a search strategy (23%), evaluate and refine results (23%) and cite sources (12%).
askON operators continue to
provide excellent service. 98% of visitors who filled out the satisfaction survey responded that they were satisfied with the service they received, and 64% reported that the service they received exceeded their expectations.
Transcript analysis indicates that askON staff provide excellent service in many areas, including approachability and interest, patience and listening skills, reference interviews, consulting sources, and communicating search strategies. Results suggest that askON staff and interns could benefit from further development in the areas of asking questions and developing search strategies. Regular refresher training will ensure that askON continues to provide exceptional reference service.
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askON's 10th Anniversary Approaching
askON will be celebrating ten years of service in January 2018 thanks to a dedicated collaborative of college libraries, the askON Steering Committee, the Site Coordinators, askON library staff, and student interns.
As we lead up to 2018 we'd love to hear about what the service means to you, your library, and your students, your thoughts on how the service has changed in ten years, or anything else you'd like to share! If you have a testimonial you'd like to share, please fill out the
askON Testimonial Form
or send an email to
Jan
or
Sioban
. With your permission, we'll compile these and share with askON partners in the new year.
Happy anniversary!
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Virtual Help in the Learning Portal: A Guide for askON Staff and Phase 2 Updates
Learning Portal visitors have real-time chat support at their fingertips through the Virtual Help service.
The Learning Portal officially launched in September 2017, and with it the Virtual Help Pilot Advisory Committee (VHPAC) launched phase two of the pilot chat service.
The purpose of the pilot is to learn about the research needs of Learning Portal visitors in three phases. Visitors can connect with college library staff through chat or email to get help with research or find out what their library can do for them.
You may have noticed some changes to the look and feel of the service based on the results of user testing conducted in Summer 2017.
There are two ways to access to the Virtual Help service: a "Connect now" link which lives on the Research Hub landing page; and a floating button that appears on the bottom right side of every page in the Learning Portal.
From the Research Hub, visitors can click on the "About Us" link to learn about what Virtual Help staff can help them with and other service details.
Please visit the Learning Portal at
http://www.tlp-lpa.ca to see the Learning Portal and the Virtual Help pilot in action. You can also visit the Learning Portal project site for more details, including a
Virtual Help Pilot project page. We also invite you to review the
VHP Talking Points, which provide talking points for college library staff to use when discussing the project with college students, faculty, staff, and administration.
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Publication Alert: Proactive Chat Pilot Summary
The
Proactive Chat Final Report Summary
is now available through the OCLS website. This document summarizes key pilot findings, including traffic, question types, and staff and visitor feedback across the three pilot phases.
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askON, a service of Ontario Colleges and Ontario Colleges Library Service (OCLS)
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