Global Campuses Groups
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The Global Campus groups are geographic in nature. These groups are for the international campuses only. As of July 2021 there are 4 Global Campus InfoGuides Groups: RIT Dubai, RIT Croatia, RIT Kosovo, and RIT China.
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Guide Page Layout:
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- To create a consistent user experience build guides using the specific template provided for you. This template will be called [Your First Name] Template.
- Guide descriptions are optional in the Guide Description field. These can be used to clarify the focus of guide. Example: “This guide will help you find marketing resources to help you create a marketing or business plan.” They should be more than just a reiteration of the Guide title. Consider including a learning outcome.
- Consider, but not required, using Learning prompts such as:
- Where to get started…
- How to get started…
- Start with…
- Keep in mind…
- Tabs aka Pages are placed on the left side in our system.
- Tabs names could be media type (books, articles, databases) or conceptual (demographics, industry information). This choice is based on the librarian’s knowledge of the information, research needs, audience.
- Number of tabs is not limited but should not overwhelm the user. Eight or less is recommended.
- Every Guide has a Chat/Email/Appointments button already programmed in to provide a chat box, LibCal Appointment button, and contact information of the guide owner.
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Profile Box
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- Our system does not use out of the box profile boxes.
- The system is custom coded to display a Chat/Email/Appointments button on every guide and the homepages. This button initiates a modal with either Reference Desk contact info or Librarian specific contact info depending on who owns the guide.
- Each modal contains librarian photo, Email address, Meet with [Librarian Name] Schedule Appointment button to launch LibCal modal, Call [Librarian] info with phone number, Reference Desk phone number and link to business hours page, and Chat box.
- Information in the Modal is drawn from the LibApps profile section.
- Do not display librarian profile boxes are on the guides. Instead the last tab on each guide can link to a profile page if so desired to give more information than is available via the Chat/Email/Appointments button on each guide to the top right.
- In unique situations multiple profile boxes can be added to a page. For example multiple librarians are working with a class. Beware that chat code sometimes does not work when two profile boxes are displayed on one page. If this happens use tabs linking to profile pages.
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Naming Tabs
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- Tab names should concise with the fewest words possible.
- Tab names could be media type (books, articles, databases) or conceptual (demographics, industry information). This choice is based on the librarian’s knowledge of the information, research needs, and audience.
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Page Contents
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- Scrolling should be limited as much as possible whenever possible.
- Try not to overwhelm users with too much information. Strive for a combination of usability and guidance.
- Try viewing your guide on a mobile device to see if there is too much on one page for a smaller screen.
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Descriptions of Items
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- Descriptions of items should be brief and focused on why the item is useful. Provide a context to the item for the user instead of a basic description. What outcomes could this resource help achieve?
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Box Descriptions
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Database Links
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- Use the database links from the LibGuides Database A-Z list found under Assets. This list mirrors the library website database list. Using the internal LibGuides list will track database usage from LibGuides. You can make your own personal Lockerbox with links to the LibGuides A-Z Databases if this helps your workflow. This will still track statistics for hits to the database.
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Rich Text Boxes (RTB)
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- Rich Text Boxes Are used to convey contextual information.
- Starting September 2022 DO NOT use hyperlinks/URLs within the Rich Text Box. When you need to offer context with a link, use the Link Asset before or after the RTB. Links in RTBs cannot gather statistics and will create more labor for you to maintain, locate and update.
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Book Links & Covers
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- Limit linking to single book titles.
- Only use the catalog permanent link for ebooks.
- Consider the special reason a book needs to be highlighted in InfoGuides vs. providing a dynamic, self-updating link to a search in the catalog. Maintaining multiple book titles in LibGuides over time is labor intensive and may lead to stale information.
- Only link to the catalog record for an ebook. Do not link directly to the ebook.
- Linking to books directly in ebook packages instead of linking to the catalog record will result in broken links and create future labor for you if the vendor changes the direct links or the ebook package is cancelled.
- If you decide you do need to link directly to a book or book chapter make sure to provide teh name of the ebook package or platform in the...
- It makes sense to link to a single book when that book(s) is assigned in a course.
- It makes sense to link to a catalog search when trying to direct patrons to books on a subject.
- When linking to books through the single title Books from Catalog box use Syndetics.
- Do not link to Amazon book covers, because this redirects the user away from the source they are looking for and could imply that they should buy a copy.
- Check your book records and links at least once a year.
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Images
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- Images and illustrations should be used in a way that contributes to the purpose and content of the guide.
- Images and illustrations must be used according to copyright standards with an attribution at the bottom of the photo or illustration.
- Try to only use images you own the copyright to or images RIT owns and has made available for staff use publicly. If you use images from other sources verify the copyright allows you to use the image.
- When using images upload them into the Image Manager. Do not link to images on the web using code.
- As of March 2019 Springshare has said it has added image attribution to their list of desired enhancements. If this becomes a part of the product we should switch to that tool for attribution.
- Add alt text to all images.
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Videos
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- Videos should contribute to the purpose of the guides.
- Videos should be short.
- Videos must be used according to copyright standards.
- Videos should demonstrate how to use a resource or explain a research concept.
- Videos made by the library must be captioned if they contain audio. Videos reused from elsewhere should be captioned.
- If a video does not contain audio, the description or text on the video should state that it does not have audio.
- Ensure copyright for videos reused from elsewhere allow for your use.
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LTI Metadata to link Guide to myCourses
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For every guide add the correct LTI metadata so the guide will appear in a myCourses shell when a patron clicks on RIT Libraries.
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Easy URL
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- All guides should have an easy URL assigned for ease of linking in myCourses and for sending links to students.
- For course guides use course number for Easy URL.
- Pages can also have easy URLs.
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Subject Headings
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- Each subject heading is assigned to a librarian. Be mindful of using subject headings assigned to other librarians. Let others know you want to use a subject heading not assigned to you before assigning the subject heading.
- Assignees:
- Academic Integrity and Citation = Reference Desk
- Art & Design = Claire
- Business = Jennifer
- Computing = Grey
- Deaf Studies = Joan
- Engineering and Applied Science = Roman
- Humanities and Social Sciences = TBD
- LIV@RIT = Reference Desk
- Mathematics, Sciences and Health Sciences = Adwoa
- SOIS = Ryan
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Groups |
- Content on the former Library Services group has been moved the main library website with the most recent redesign of the library site. The group is now Internal with no published content. There is also a Digital Scholarship Group requested by Frances Andreu in 2021 to "to utilize this group for developing infoguides related to our dept." There is also a Cary Graphic Arts Collection group requested by Amelia in Feb 2023.
- The groups (all global campuses, Digital Scholarship, Cary Graphic Arts) sit outside of the main system which houses the RIS guides.
- Admins for groups:
- Cary Graphic Arts
- China
- Croatia
- Digital Scholarship
- Dubai
- Kosovo
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ITEMS NO LONGER USED |
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***General Lockerbox*** NO LONGER USED but may have items linked on older guides (this houses items that explain general concepts such as scholarly vs. non-scholarly articles, citation, information literacy related topics etc.) |
As of Nov 2019 this guide still exists but is no longer updated. Items on this page are most likely out of date. Creators should be creating an asset first and then linking to that asset. |
Library Services Group (RETIRED End of 2022)
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The Library Services groups at https://infoguides.rit.edu/services contains information related to non-information literacy/pedagogy and non-subject/course based topics.
These guides contain policy and process guides and should not duplicate information already on the library website.
As of July 2021 this group is down to one guide related to Alumni. All other content was moved the main library website at library.rit.edu
July 2022 the last guide, RIT Alumni has been made private and redirected to https://www.rit.edu/library/rit-alumni
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Tags (no longer used) |
The tags are not made public on the site and are used only to connect with myCourses.
Tags should be Course Subject Codes and Course Numbers only to allow InfoGuides content to be linked to myCourses.
Do not use descriptive words.
Tag both subject and course guides.
Subject guides should be tagged with the 4 letter Course Subject Code. For example acct
Course guides should get the Course Number without the section number. For example maat307
Course guides with same course number should be differentiated using the section code. No two guides should have the same tag.
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