1. TALIS ASPIRE AT
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE BIRMINGHAM

2. ABOUT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
BIRMINGHAM
v UCB is based in Birmingham City Centre, there are over 8,000
students on Higher Education, Postgraduate and Further
Education programmes including 1100 international students
from 65 countries.
v UCB is a specialist institution for
Undergraduate management programmes
in the fields of Hospitality, Tourism,
Events, Culinary Arts, Business, Sports
Therapy, Spa Management, Marketing,
Childhood and Education.
v We also offer a range of Postgraduate
opportunities.
v Approximately 800 modules.

3. WHY?
THE DECISION MAKING PROCESS
v Improve our existing reading list system.
v The existing system was only enabled for book
content, with no ability to include other material.
v The ability to link to online content, therefore giving
improved access and discovery for students.
v E-Books become better integrated within the virtual
library.
v Much easier to manage a reading list - instant
editing enabled.

4. PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT
v Review and evaluation of product considering:
● Costs of admin time
● Ease of use
● Integration with our existing library management systems
(inc authentication)
● Support from provider
● Product costing
v Formal proposal to internal committees to secure funding.
v Agree a time frame for implementation.
v Planning meetings with Talis.
v Demonstrations to lecturing staff.

5. IMPLEMENTATION
v Go ahead May – formally agreed July 2013.
v Existing system in place so concept wasn’t alien.
v Kick off meetings – ensuring compatibility and
integration with UCB systems.
v Exporting data from existing system was challenging!
v IT support needed.
v Integration with VLE was complicated because it
required technical expertise.

6. IMPLEMENTATION CONTINUED
v Urls for eBooks were historically not in our Marc records,
so we had to contact all our eBook suppliers for our url’s.
v These were then input into the Aspire metadata ensuring
online resource links were intact.
v Updated current lists to meet the data upload deadline.
v Portal placement.

7. ROLL OUT
v Should we have a trial group of modules or go for the BIG
BANG?

9. WE WENT FOR THE BIG BANG OPTION.
WHY?
v We had invested heavily in the project.
v Two systems would only have led to confusion.
v Let’s get the students used to Talis from the get-go.
v We had the time from July to late September to prepare.
v Why not?

10. ROLL OUT
v Specialised staff training and Q+A sessions.
v Putting Aspire onto the catalogue PCs – reading list access in
library.
v Replaced the existing reading list system.
v Put links in place in our VLE so the students were familiar with
access points.
v Fresher’s Fayre, informal ‘Meet and Greets’.
v Set up meetings with lecturers and organised some informal 1 to
1 sessions.

11. ISSUES
v The previous system allowed students to print their reading list
with Dewey numbers and pictures.
v This lead to some staff resistance as initially Aspire was seen to
complicate the existing process.
v Lecturers – slower/reluctant to embrace Aspire. Misplaced fear
that it will lead to a greater workload.
v Tidying up existing data in our catalogue to ensure eBooks are
picked up in Aspire.

12. ONGOING TASKS
v Monitoring the Talis website for reading list updates.
v Taking part in product webinars.
v Checking into the Reading List Forum – suggesting and
voting for ideas.
v Recently in preparation for Rollover, we realised that half
of our lists hadn’t got a date period assigned to it.
v Attaching the Hierarchy to modules.

13. FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS
v Lecturers need to take ownership of their own lists rather
than the Library doing it for them.
v Using Aspire for book requests and ordering.
v Decision taken to arrange lists in Aspire to replicate the
existing Module Delivery Schemes and organise reading
into a weekly format.

17. QUESTIONS
Contacts: d.findlay@ucb.ac.uk