5 tricks for Talis Aspire to help with online work

Since the shift to online, we’ve all had to get used to new systems and make the most out of the tools at our disposal. Whether you are new to Talis Aspire, or have been using it for years, we’ve put together a few quick tricks and tips to help you make the most of it whilst working online.
1.Filter to online resources
It’s worth highlighting to students and academics that Reading List content can be filtered to ‘online only’. This will show materials which can be accessed remotely. See the video above for a 10-second demo.
2. Support the wider use of Talis Aspire
Ensuring academics are comfortable using the system is key to enabling students to benefit from accessing their resources from Talis Aspire. To help with the onboarding of academics using Talis Aspire, short videos on the functionality to create and edit lists can help with getting colleagues comfortable with using the system.
To support, we have created a series of support videos aimed at academics here. Feel free to share these widely if this helps with your online training. Please note, these are demonstrating the New List Edit interface, which is more intuitive for academics to use. If you would like to change to the New List Edit, do let us know via a support ticket.
3. Enable academics to upload their own scans
With Talis Aspire Copyright Clearance, you are able to change a setting in the administrator’s area to enable list publishers to upload their own scans when raising a digitisation request. This can be set to refer so that the library digitisation team has the opportunity to review the content which has been added. See the video above for a 10-second demo.
4. Create specialist reading lists to collate content
Reading lists don’t just need to be linked to courses and taught modules. Talis Aspire can be used for collecting diverse ranges of information to support students and academics as a useful point of reference. Recent examples include this homeschooling resources list or perhaps lists on mindfulness. These ensure that items can be easily accessible and the list can be shared and evolved as more content is released.
5. Make the most out of online resources
To fully maximise the number of online resources on lists, you can export an All List Items report and filter to chapters and articles. From this, you are able to identify those items which have a bundle URL for a digitisation. This could prompt a digitisation request to be completed, which you may already have a copy of in your vault, or allow a colleague to upload a copy, see point 2 above. See the video above which walks you through how to generate this report and find those resources needing a digitisation.
What are your tips?
We would love to hear from you about your tips and experience of making the most of Talis Aspire. Please do share in the comments below.
We hope this helps, to reassure you Talis continues to provide our service as normal during this unprecedented time.
Talis are continuing to plan our community and product update webinars which we will advertise and keep up to date on our events page. As always, these will be recorded and shared if you are unable to attend them live for you to refer back to.