During the COVID-19 lockdown Higher Education Institutions have worked tirelessly to continue to offer their students access to content and allow them to continue their studies remotely.
Many senior teams may be asking library teams for what content and resources they have been able to offer students during this time.
The Digital Content Store has offered HEIs the ability to share content with students throughout the lockdown and has even helped HEIs source content where available in the content repository, for HEIs unable to access their collections.
As a DCS user you may wish to measure the student usage during this period, using the guidance below. You can also compare this to the same period last year, if you were also using the DCS then.
In general the DCS has seen very similar student accesses year-on-year, showing that even during lockdown remote learning is as important as ever.
You can see how many students have download material in a given period by using the 'Downloads per Content Item' or 'Downloads by Content Item - Length of Access' reports, and then selecting the period.
For example I am searching for month of March below:
The metrics can be seen from column S onward.
To see the total just highlight the whole of the column and the total will be in the bottom right of the spreadsheet.
Or, if that doesn't work, add a SUM formula at the bottom:
=SUM(FirstCell:LastCell) for example =SUM(S2:S2000)
You can compare the usage this year to the same period last year by searching for last year under the same report.
This will give you an indication of the change from last year.
You must have been an active DCS User last year to compare the data.
Number of Requests Created
To see how many requests have been created by you internal teams you can use the HEI Report.
Run your HEI Report.
Add a filter by highlighting all cells (top left half arrow) and adding a filter under the data tab.
Filter on column AG (Date Request Created). This will allow you to select by year, month and day. Again I am selecting March this year.
The total filtered for can be found at the bottom of the page.
To do the same for last year please download last year's HEI Report and doing the same (the data will only be on this year's report if you have not deleted any requests since last year, so it's best to run the previous year's report to compare).
These two checks can answer the questions: Are students accessing as much / more material than last year and are we creating the same / more requests than last year?
About the Author
David has been a Product Manager for the DCS at CLA since August 2017, previously working in the Education and Operations Teams in CLA since 2008. Outside of work David enjoys writing, reading, gaming (currently obsessed with the new Red Dead Redemption), and films.
You can find out more about the Digital Content Store here.
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