By Una O'Sullivan, ROUTES Project Officer: U.Osullivan@open.ac.uk
ROUTES has grown a bit since the last ROADS Newsletter in January. We now have a prototype database with 52 records and some customisation. Our first focus group met in early March to offer constructive criticism, and gave us some good pointers on how to prioritise further development of the database. For instance, controlled keywords was one requirement, so we are reviewing our use of the Dewey system in favour of another, more detailed classification system. The "What's New" page will also need to be changed from a straight list of date-related links to a more structured list.
During the year, we will be working on getting more course teams interested in ROUTES; embedding the work involved into normal library functions (as opposed to project staff); and further development of the database itself. We are putting out a call for more academic partners next month, and we hope to make the database available to students on a course-by-course basis within this year. The OU's Doctorate in Education and the MSc in Science will be the first two courses with a "critical mass" of resources on ROUTES by the end of this year.
We have also begun to work on a separate database of resources for Open University's Planning Office staff. This is still at the discussion stages, but looks like it will be a very interesting project. It will look at combining external information with relevant internal reports, and so will become an integral part of the University's information management strategy.
Any questions or comments may be sent to Una O'Sullivan: U.Osullivan@open.ac.uk, Project Officer, or Anne Ramsden: A.Ramsden@open.ac.uk, Project Manager.
