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Convergence & Synergy: Social Q&A Meets Virtual Reference Services

ASIS&T, 75TH Annual Meeting 30 October 2012http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/synergy.html

Chirag Shah

Assistant ProfessorRutgers University

chirags@rutgers.edu

Marie L. Radford

Associate ProfessorRutgers University

mradford@rutgers.edu

Lynn Silipigni Connaway

Senior Research ScientistOCLC

connawal@oclc.org

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Where We Are Now

VRS SQA

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Current Model of Virtual Reference Services (VRS)

Question

POSITIVES

• 20+ years

• High quality/accurate

• Professionals

• Consortium collaborations

CHALLENGES

• Funding cuts

• Monolithic

• Collaboration limited beyond consortia

• UnderutilizedAnswer

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Social Question & Answer (SQA)

POSITIVES

• Community-based

• Collaborative

• Publicly available

• Low cost

• Quick turnaround

• Easy build-up of social capital

CHALLENGE

• No guarantee of quality of answers

• Some questions receive no answers

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Convergence of VRS & SQA

SQA VRS

•Similar components

•Previous efforts

• Slam the Boards

• Enquire

• Rated best answer 79% of time

•Collaboration possibilities intriguing

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Cyber Synergy: Seeking Sustainability through Collaboration

between Virtual Reference & Social Q&A Sites

Partners: OCLC & Rutgers

Funded by IMLS for $250K

2-year project

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Research Questions

• What is the effectiveness of various VRS & SQA services, quality of content provided, & their relative merits & shortcomings?

• How does accuracy compare between VRS & SQA sites?

• What lessons can be learned from SQA sites that could be applied to VRS & vice-versa?

• How can VRS become more collaborative, within & between libraries, & tap more effectively into librarian’s subject expertise?

• How can we design systems & services within & between VRS & SQA for better quality & sustainability?

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Project Phases

Phase I Phase II Phase IIITranscript analysis Telephone Interviews Constructing Design

Specifications

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Phase I: VRS & SQA Transcript Analysis

•560 transcripts (296,158 total)

• 350 live chat

• 210 Qwidget (IM)

• 11 coding schemes

•1000 Q&A pairs from Yahoo Answers! (>1 million total)

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Phase I: Transcript Analysis – Preliminary Results

• Subject - Dewey Decimal Classification

• Broad range

• Social sciences & technology - largest percentages

• Type of Question

• Procedural & Ready Reference largest percentages

• Accuracy

• 90% accurate for Ready Reference

• 75% correct with citation included

• Difficulty

• READ Scale (Gerlich & Berard, ‘07)

• Most questions fall 2-3 on READ scale (require some effort & time)

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Phase II: Telephone Interviews

•Librarians

• 50 VRS librarians

•Users

• VRS

• 50 QP live chat & Qwidget users

• SQA

• 50 services users & expert users

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Phase II: VRS & SQA Phone Interview Demographics

•Librarians

•18 academic

• 16 other

•VRS/SQA Users

•5 VRS only

•12 SQA only

•56 used both

Participant geographic distribution

LibrarianVRS/SQA User

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Phase II: SQA FtF Interview Demographics

•36 SQA student users

•24 undergraduate

•12 graduate

•10 subject librarians

•Major themes

• Important for success

• Topic

• Length

• Visibility

• Timeliness

• Clarity

• Availability

• Verifiability

• Relevance, quality, & satisfaction on equal planes

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Phase II: SQA Interview Analysis

• Exploratory

• Uses & experiences in physical & digital libraries & SQAs

• Preliminary results

• “Goodness” of answers

• Synergy of SQA & VRS

• Collaboration

• Leverage subject knowledge

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Phase II: Librarian Interviews

• 34 phone interviews conducted to date

• Major themes

• Draft coding scheme developed

• Important

• Attaining sustained user satisfaction

• Teaching search strategies

• Better via electronic media

• Cite sources

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The Takeaway

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Goals & Impact on VRS/SQA Services

•Improve underutilized services

•Understand how to leverage librarian subject expertise through virtual collaborations

•Develop guidelines for practice

•Make recommendations for evaluation of VRS & SQA

•Inform systems design

•Connect potential users with SQA services & VRS

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Next Steps

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Next Steps

•Further analysis of SQA questions

• Subject

• Question Type

• Questions failing to obtain answers

•Continue interviews

• VRS/SQA users

• VRS librarians

•Conduct design sessions with experts

• Specifications for system design

ANSWERS(0)

Answer Question

Nee help with English please?

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Funding & Acknowledgements

Cyber Synergy: Seeking Sustainability through Collaboration between Virtual Reference and Social Q&A Sites

• $250,000 for 2011-2013

• Funded by IMLS, OCLC, & Rutgers University

• Co-PIs Marie Radford (RU), Lynn Silipigni Connaway (OCLC), & Chirag Shah (RU)

http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/synergy.html

• We thank Eric Choi, Alyssa Darden, Kathy Juliano, Vanessa Kitzie, Hanna Lee, and Stephanie Mikitish for their assistance in coding, analysis, and data presentation.

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Selected Bibliography

Connaway, L. S. & Radford, M. L. (2011). Seeking Synchronicity: Revelations and recommendations for virtual reference. Dublin, OH: OCLC Research. Retrieved on February 26, 2012 from http://www.oclc.org/reports/synchronicity/full.pdf

Radford, M. L., & Connaway, L. S. (forthcoming). Not dead yet! A longitudinal study of query type and ready reference accuracy in live chat and IM reference. Library & Information Science Research, 35(1).

Radford, M. L., & Connaway, L. S. (2005-2008). Seeking synchronicity: Evaluating virtual reference services from user, non-user, and librarian perspectives. Funded by National Leadership Grants for Libraries program of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Retrieved from http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/synchronicity/default.htm

Radford, M. L., Connaway, L. S., Confer, P., Sabolsci-Boros, S., & Kwon, H. (2011). “Are we getting warmer?” Query clarification in live chat virtual reference. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 50(3), 259-279.

Radford, M. L., Connaway, L. S., & Shah, C. (2011-2013). Cyber Synergy: Seeking sustainability through collaboration between virtual reference and social Q&A sites. Retrieved from http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/synergy/default.htm

Shah, C., & Kitzie, V. (2012). Social Q & A and virtual reference-comparing apples and oranges with the help of experts and users. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 63(10), 2020-2036.

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Questions?

Marie L. Radford: mradford@rutgers.edu

Lynn Silipigni Connaway: connawal@oclc.org

Chirag Shah: chirags@rutgers.edu

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