SWITCH Day (January 13, 2021)

SWITCH DAY
January 13, 2021

Agenda
I. Introductions (Jazzy Slideshow)
II. Presentations
A. Sara Shutkin (AC) – Archives Display
B. Elaine Gustafson (CUW) – Mouse Flow UX Testing
C. Nancy Siker (AC) – Experience Using New Video Tutorial
D. Jason Palmer (SWITCH) – EZ Proxy 101
III. Break-out Rooms
A. Prompt One: Share one highlight from your holiday break
B. Prompt Two: What is one thing you struggle with in Alma
IV. New Alma Interface (optional)
V. Raffle

SPECIAL Thanks
Special thanks to our presenters today:
• Sara Shutkin
• Elaine Gustafson
• Nancy Siker
• Jason Palmer



How Useful Are
Research Guides?
Mouseflow UX Project

Elaine Gustafson, MLIS, MS

CUW Guide Basics
• WordPress based http://research.cuw.edu
• Modest links from campus intranet, campus website, and Blackboard

• Starting Fall 2020, included in new student orientation
• Enrollment: 7404 students (2019), 64% Main Campus

Growing Usage (Nov 2018-2020)
Monthly Visits
Oct 2020, 1000 visits

1000
500
2019

2020

Google Analytics Data (Nov 1, 2019-Nov 1, 2020)
Many Online Students

Return to Popular Pages
Page

User Type

Unique Pageviews

Home
Home
Databases by Subject
Subject Guides
Evidence Based Practice

Returning
New
Returning
Returning
Returning

2744
754
656
571
377

Journal Articles
Business Guide
APA 7th guide
Nursing Guide

Returning
Returning
Returning
Returning

361
259
213
210

What’s Going on Here?
Session Length

10 seconds

10-30 minutes

25%

What’s Going on Here?
Why aren’t
people staying?
What’s
happening
during long
page views?

10 seconds

10-30 minutes

25%

Questions to Answer with MouseFlow
• What do students need from a subject guide? What are they looking for?
• Are students able to navigate guides without assistance?

Why MouseFlow?
• Free Screen Recording
• 2 Week Free Trial

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed
under CC BY-NC-ND

Targeting Specific Pages
Page Name

Unique Page Views View Time

Bounce Rate 

Subject Guides Page

748

:46 sec

35%

Evidence Based Practice

492

3:27 sec

49%

Find Journal Articles

416

2:40 sec

38%

APA 7th Edition Guide

295

2:06 sec

70%

Nursing Guide

295

4:06 sec

57%

Primo Help Guide

262

3:18 sec

74%

Social Work Guide

197

6:59 sec

67%
This Photo by Unknown Author is
licensed under CC BY-NC-ND

What I Did With Mouseflow
• Recorded guide visits start-to-finish including specific pages.
• Recorded location, visit time, click data, and attention zone.

• Honored private browsing and “do not follow” settings
• Over 600 records total, 400 during midterms Fall 2020, 200 start of 2021

What is Happening During Long Sessions?
• “page looping” through links (can’t find it)
• Using the wrong resource (browsing journal titles instead of searching a
database)
• Repeatedly clicking through the same tabs or sections on one page (Too
much information).

Other Patterns
• Don’t watch videos → follow-up needed
• Confused by links to databases → where’s the search box? What’s a database?
• Don’t use ebook titles → did use linked subject terms or Primo searches
• Prefer to scroll all content and pick and choose (don’t use left side page navigation)
• Don’t understand the difference between a database and a journal title page for
finding journal articles
• Instructions vs. Places to Search (looking for a search box on a page with just
instructions)

Take Aways
• Needs of few vs Needs of many
• Rarely used topics should get
separate pages

• Determine what visitors want and
make it easy to find

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BYNC

Take Aways
• Students arrive at different point in
the process.
• Give options to choose a starting
place.
UCLA Tutorial

Take Aways
• Less is more
• Task based, not resource based

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY

Best Use for MouseFlow
• Identify and quickly fix obvious UX problems (fix a section that keeps
getting missed)

• Ex. This week I sent an email to Nurs 301 students (first course in
accelerated nursing program) with resources and instructions.
• Can they find the Nursing Theory Tab? (navigation)
• Can they apply the tips on that tab to successfully to find resources?



EZproxy 101 or:
How to Succeed in Electronic Resource
Access Management without Really Crying
Jason Palmer / SWITCH Library Consortium
SWITCH Day, January 2021

EZproxy 101 or:
How to Succeed in Electronic Resource
Access Management without Really Crying
Much
Jason Palmer / SWITCH Library Consortium
SWITCH Day, January 2021

Why I’m here:
•
•
•
•

What EZproxy is
Why we use it

Basics on how it works
My role in all of it

Badly explain your job:
• “I talk to myself in front of large numbers of young people busy on their
smartphones.” (Professor)

• “After kids tell me where it hurts, I push on the part that hurts while asking
if it hurts.” (Pediatrician)

• “Insisting on silence to respect the fallen trees.” (Librarian)

Badly explain my job:
“I make a webpage look like other webpages, but only for
certain people so nobody gets in trouble.”

What libraries consider when purchasing
electronic resources:
• Which the titles are we getting? How far back can we get them?
• How are we getting billed? Per download? By school / library size?
• Who gets to see them?
• Only so many users at once?
• Only certain groups within the university (e.g. people in certain majors /
departments)?

• Increased access = Increased costs
• Libraries are responsible for access compliance agreed upon in the contract.

How most SWITCH libraries provide access to
electronic resources
On campus:

Off campus:

•
•
•
•
•

• Current students
• Faculty and staff

Current students
Faculty and staff
Alumni / Emeriti
Community users
General Public

So how do we enforce it?
• Enforcement by IP (Internet Protocol) address is a common method
• IP addresses are unique and assigned to each interface on the Internet
• These addresses are used to route data around the Internet
• SWITCH libraries’ IP addresses are v4, which are 4 sets of numeric values. (e.g. 216.56.8.146)
• It’s possible for one college / university to have multiple IP addresses.

• IP addresses for colleges and libraries are static IPs, which means they don’t change
• This is different than dynamic IPs (i.e. most residential customers). Dynamic IPs are assigned
from their ISP’s pool of available addresses. It often changes, especially after a router reboot.

• If the vendor knows the library’s IP address(es), it knows requests from it are legit.

How whitelisting works:
If you see a request from 216.56.8.146, that means
it’s coming from the MIAD campus. Give them
access to what we bought.

Artstor.org
I will remember that.

Whitelisting works great . . .
Hi, Artstor.org! I’d like to see this article. I’m from
216.56.8.146.

Artstor.org
I know that IP! Here you go.

. . . until it doesn’t.
Hi, Artstor.org! I’d like to see this article. I’m from
173.239.199.43
I don’t know that IP. Go away.

Artstor.org
But I’m a current MIAD student!
So what? Go away.

Enter EZproxy
• EZproxy is a product developed / sold by OCLC
• SWITCH buys annual licenses from them.
• All SWITCH libraries (except SFS) have their own EZproxy server.
• I maintain the software and the servers they run on.

• EZproxy serves a relay (you could even say proxy) between patrons and e-resources
• The servers running SWITCH libraries’ EZproxy servers are on Amazon Web
Services (i.e. “the cloud”)
• Each library’s EZproxy server has its own static IP for libraries to give to their vendors.

How EZproxy works
• Users interact through EZproxy, not the resource itself.
• EZproxy needs instructions on how to proxy each resource.
• Electronic resource vendors work with OCLC to determine the code for the best way
for EZproxy do that

•
•
•
•

This set of instructions is called a stanza
A stanza is needed for each resource that EZproxy proxies
Each EZproxy server has a file full of stanzas to proxy resources
These stanzas change over time, especially after vendors’ website designs

Example stanza (JSTOR)
Option DomainCookieOnly
HJ jstore.org
Title JSTOR (updated 20190626) HJ dfr.jstor.org
HTTPHeader -request -process HJ labs.jstor.org
X-Requested-With
HJ links.jstor.org
URL http://www.jstor.org/
HJ mobile.jstor.org
HJ https://www.jstor.org
HJ about.jstor.org
HJ www.jstor.org
HJ plants.jstor.org
HJ www.jstore.org
HJ https://uk.jstor.org
HJ jstor.org
HJ https://dfr.jstor.org

HJ https://labs.jstor.org
HJ https://links.jstor.org
HJ https://mobile.jstor.org
HJ https://about.jstor.org
HJ https://plants.jstor.org
HJ https://uk.jstor.org
DJ jstor.org
Option Cookie

It’s not as scary as it looks.
• Stanzas are often agnostic. They are not specific for the library using them.
• An EZproxy server can have a stanza for a resource even if the library doesn’t have that resource.
• Usually, stanzas are ready-to-go for me to copy and paste from OCLC or vendors. Usually.
• When done right, the only way of knowing you’re dealing with the resource itself or EZproxy is
by looking at the URL.
At Alverno, accessing directly

Off campus, using EZproxy

More whitelisting!
Hi, JSTOR. If you see a request from 13.58.72.162,
that’s from our EZproxy server. Give them access to
what Cardinal Stritch bought.

JSTOR
I will remember that.

And now it works great . . .
Hi, JSTOR via EZproxy!
I’d like to see this article.
I’m from 173.239.199.43

Hi, JSTOR! I’d like to
see this article. I’m from
13.58.72.162.

JSTOR

EZproxy - CSU
I made a proxy of that page.
Here you go.

I know that IP! Here you go.
.

. . . until it doesn’t.
But what about restricting access to comply with our electronic
resources agreements?
Off campus access:
•
•
•
•
•

Current students
Faculty and staff
Alumni / Emeriti
Community users

General Public

Establishing identity in EZproxy
• Each SWITCH library’s EZproxy server is connected to that school’s identity provider (IdP)
•

An identity provider is the computer system that manages your network ID and password

• After EZproxy relays the user ID and password, the IdP relays user metadata back to EZproxy.
•
•
•

“Yes! That’s Jason Palmer. He’s an employee.”

“Yes! That’s Jane Alverno. She’s an professor emerita.”
“Nope. There’s no active account for anybody with that username and password.”

• Most SWITCH institutions have active accounts only for current students, faculty, and staff (i.e. You get
access as long as you have an active account.)

• For larger institutions, EZproxy examines the metadata and applies rules to deny or allow access.
•

This is a custom setup for each SWITCH school because each colleges classifies people differently.

• Just because a patron has an active account doesn’t mean she should get access.

Getting to yes: initiation
Hi, Ebook Central via
EZproxy! I’d like to see
this ebook. I’m from
173.239.199.43

EZproxy -AC

… and you are? Fill this out.

.

eBook
Central

Getting to yes: authentication
Hi, Alverno IdP! Is this the username and
password of one of your active users?

EZproxy - AC
Yup. It’s legit. Here’s some info about that user.
.

Getting to yes: verification
Hmm. Let’s see. Active account.
Nothing there says it’s a administrative
account or for a retiree, but it’s definitely for
a person. I’ll grant access!

EZproxy - AC
.

And now it works great!
Hi, it’s eBook Central via
EZproxy! It’s me, Jason.
I’d like to see this ebook.

Hi, Ebook Central! I’d
like to see this eBook.
I’m from 13.58.64.159.

eBook
Central

EZproxy - AC
I made a proxy of that page.
Here you go.
.

?

✓

I know that IP! Here you go.

But sometimes you have to say no.
• EZproxy displays this page to users listed as alumni in Concordia’s IdP

While my job description may say . . .
• Maintaining EZproxy on virtual servers on AWS
• Continually updating EZproxy servers with current stanzas
• Working with vendors to ensure correct IPs are whitelisted
• Troubleshooting and modifying stanzas as necessary
• Ensuring patrons can log in to their library’s IdP
• Creating regular expressions to determine access based on users’ metadata

• Ensuring compliance with electronic resource vendors’ agreements

. . . it’s actually:

“I make a webpage . . .
• Maintaining EZproxy and virtual servers on AWS

. . . look like other webpages . . .
• Maintaining virtual servers on AWS
• Continually updating EZproxy servers with current stanzas

• Working with vendors to ensure correct IPs are whitelisted
• Troubleshooting and modifying stanzas as necessary

. . . but only for certain people . . .
• Maintaining virtual servers on AWS
• Continually updating EZproxy servers with current stanzas

• Working with vendors to ensure correct IPs are whitelisted
• Troubleshooting and modifying stanzas as necessary
• Ensuring patrons can log in to their library’s IdP
• Creating regular expressions to determine access based on users’ metadata

. . . so nobody gets in trouble.”
• Maintaining virtual servers on AWS
• Continually updating EZproxy servers with current stanzas

• Working with vendors to ensure correct IPs are whitelisted
• Troubleshooting and modifying stanzas as necessary
• Ensuring patrons can log in to their library’s IdP
• Creating regular expressions to determine access based on users’ metadata
• Ensuring compliance with electronic resource vendors’ agreements

Thank you!
Jason Palmer / SWITCH Library Consortium
SWITCH Day, January 2021



MIAD Information
Literacy with Google
Forms
SCAVENGER HUNT activity for RPC students - hands on opportunity
And Art History Video feedback form

RPC – Research, Process, Connection
(elective with different subjects) and

Intro to the Practice of Art & Design History
❖

Analog Footprint: Exploring the Handmade in
Contemporary Design

❖

Creating & Designing Health and Wellness

❖

Photography & Identity

❖

Rethinking Landscapes

❖

Power, Propaganda & Protest

❖

The Artist’s Joke

❖

Drawing Systems in Design

❖

Molds and Multiples

❖

Punk and Politics

Before COVID in-person RPC class instruction
…transition to online instruction


In the library “Hands On
Tools” workshop with
student using their laptops
(in-person)



Google Forms “Scavenger
Hunt” using instructional
video, Google Drive Folder
with Handouts



Two library/LRC staff, one to
facilitate and one to help
keep everyone in the same
place





Access to both physical and
online resources

Requesting MLA citation
from TOPCAT search and
permalink, citation or image
link from database
exploration + few other
questions



Virtual demo & presentation

Using under 4 minute video (professionally captioned by
3PlayMedia) and handouts in Google Drive

Advantages: Flexibility and Feedback


Scavenger Hunt can be assigned in advance or done in
class before the library demonstration and presentation.



Easy to email reminders to students that have not
completed scavenger hunt.



More comments than in-person instruction got.



MLA citation results offer snapshot of students interests.



Database search shows which databases were explored.



Summary of responses, or can view individual responses.

Results:

Pie Charts for multiple choice questions

Results: Comments obtained


“They made me think a bit about how I perceive things.”
(on the video)



“This video was really good at showing the little details of
the site, like how to search specific databases and put
filters on.”



“Maybe just how to narrow down good resources that
apply to certain projects. Like how certain types of
resources may be more useful than others.”



“Those posters look super cool! I'll definitely have to
check them out more.”

Challenges in the process


Customizing scavenger hunt to each class topic is time
consuming. [Search terms, MLA citation example and databases given.]



Exporting results to Excel, some of the the MLA citations
are lost. (Probably from incompatibility of characters from copy and pasting
citations.)



Comments useful, helpful but time consuming to read and
aggregate compared to multiple choice questions.



Incomplete participation: some students do not complete
the scavenger hunt and lack the foundation for the
presentation. (Potential information overload).

Art History first year students (multiple sections) of
Intro to the Practice of Art & Design History


Three videos: Using library resources
[TOPCAT and MIAD databases] (20 minutes)

Annotated bibliography (90 seconds)
Learning Resource Center - writing, research, historical
context and analysis (15 minutes)



Google Survey Form for Feedback done in class
after the first two videos.



One-on-one sessions with LRC tutors, library staff
and art history instructors

Results to multiple choice questions

Google Forms allowed reincorporation of handson-experience and increases student feedback


Fall 2020 used with some RPC classes and 2 sections of art history



Spring 2021 expanded all 9 RPC classes and 14 sections of art history



Well received by instructors and students. Made some adjustments
and changes to accommodate larger number of classes.



So far used for synchronous classes but can be adapted to
asynchronous classes.



Instructional Video: https://vimeo.com/430392008/85e5f89fd6
($2.95 minute captioning done by 3PlayMedia https://www.3playmedia.com/
Large volume discount available)



Contact library@miad.edu or nancysiker@miad.edu



Links from SWITCH Day (1/13/2021) Archives LibGuide Exhibit
Demonstration
Alverno College Archives
https://www.alverno.edu/Archives/
Alverno College Archives Exhibit Page
https://www.alverno.edu/Archives-Exhibits
Reaching Out in New Ways: Highlights from the History of Alverno's
Research Center on Women (LibGuide Exhibit)
https://libguides.alverno.edu/rcw_exhibit

Sara Shutkin
Sara.shutkin@alverno.edu