What do the University of Chichester think of Talis Aspire?
After hearing from Laura Ritchie, Professor of Learning and Teaching at Talis Insight Europe 2016, we wanted to hear from others on how Talis Aspire was having an impact at the University of Chichester.
Laura Ritchie presented a session titled ‘From sceptic to champion’ back in 2016 and discussed how she started being reluctant to pick up a new tool, but quickly discovered how much more Talis Aspire allowed her and her students to do and engage with resources. You can watch her session here.
We went to the University of Chichester and spoke to those involved with Talis Aspire behind the scenes and those who use it for teaching and learning.
Director of Learning and Information Services, Anna O’Neill, talked us through the decision making process and why implementing Talis Aspire was motivated by improving student experience. She explained how smooth the implementation process was and how she felt the Talis team supported the library, “The experience they can bring is really effective in being able to deliver the reading list software in your own institution”. Watch her video below:
Subject Librarian, Gail Graffham, works directly with academics to ensure that they make the most of Talis Aspire online reading lists in order to provide the best possible learning experience for students. As well as supporting academics, it’s important for Gail to manage acquisitions in an accurate and up to date way and she explains that Talis Aspire has helped the library achieve that. She commented that it’s great that the system can continue to manage this in the background, so she has more time to help students and academic with their teaching and learning. “You want to have that face to face engagement with the students because that’s what they want… if you’ve got your systems in the background allowing you to have that time, it can only be good.” Watch her video below:
It was great to speak to Laura Ritchie to hear how her students were finding Talis Aspire a year on. In her video, she explains how the lists are used as part of her course and why Talis Aspire is such an important asset for her students in the digital world. Laura says “it’s a tool for learning, it’s not just a list”.
Ultimately with student experience being a main driver for implementing Talis Aspire it was important to get the views of students. Danielle, a BMus student has a visual impairment and it was great to hear that having digital lists that link to the library catalogue completely transforms the way she studies and her ability to access resources that she needs, “physically, I can’t go and pick up a book and read it off the shelf. If something is online I can read it off my phone… or I use assistive technology”.
Simon, also studying a BMus with Laura Ritchie finds the key benefit to be the interaction that the lists allow, evolving from a one-way conversation with the lecturer. Simon said “the thing that springs to mind immediately is an all-around improvement in communication between student and lecturer. You can share things and that’s the way to learn, by sharing.” Hear from Danielle and Simon in their video below:
Want to find out more? If you would like a demo or to find out more about how your university could use Talis Aspire, please get in touch with Paul at paul.dibble@talis.com. If you are already a Talis Aspire customer, please raise a support ticket.
