A paper in the New Review of Academic Librarianship (Judith Andrews and Eleanor Eade, Listening to Students: customer journey mapping at Birmingham City University Library and Learning Resources published 11 July 2013) describes a project to map customer journeys.
This paper explains that student satisfaction is important, particularly in the light of increased tuition fees, introduced by a government white paper stating that 'institutions must deliver a better student experience: improving teaching, assessment, feedback and preparation for the world of work' and the National Student survey, introduced in 2005l, which recorded an increase in dissatisfaction with value for money on the part of home students in 2007.
The literature review section relates to the:
1) University of Huddersfield research (Goodall and Pattern, 2011) which suggested that the quality and complexity of the services offered are one possible reason for the non-use of libraries,
2) Research by Catalano (2013) on patterns of information seeking behaviour of graduate students, which shows that students at different levels of study use different types of resources, accepting "materials of lower quality or reliability if it will save their time"
3) Weiler (2005) suggests that 'generation y' students "avoid librarians" and do not ask for help at
reference desks.
4) Whitmire (2001) suggests that a positive introduction to the library in the first year could contribute to an ongoing use of the service throughout the whole course- "asking the librarian for help was the only library experience that declined and never increased during the three years of study. (Whitmire and Goodall and Pattern refer to 'library anxiety'.
5) Library anxiety has been discussed over the past 25 years, and Onweuegbuzie (2004) discussed ways the making the physical environment easier to use and using informtation literacy to help students find the information resources that they needed could help to reduce library anxiety.
6) Schroer (2003) balances the above by suggesting that some expectations are unreasonable and stresses the need to define service boundaries. He stresses that expecting students to find their own information is an important step in training students to develop the skills they need.
7) Miller and Murino (2012) presented students at three universities in Illinois who had very low expectations of librarians, and only expected them to answer simple questions such as "where is the bathroom," rather than in-depth assistance locating resources for research.
Birmingham City University were striving to achieve the UK Government Customer Service Excellence standard, which encourages mapping of customer journeys, and defines a robust journey mapping methodology. Their Lending Services department had already developed a similar methodology with the help of Talis Information Ltd.; 'business process mapping', and this was adapted for use with customer mapping after being tested out on different procedures for borrowing rights. The project, designed to assess services from the customer's point of view with an aim to enhancing their experiences, and to collect information that would allow them to prioritize service development at a time of financial constraint.
A project budget of £1,500 was set; £1,000 from the University's Student Academic Partner Scheme, which allowed for the employment of a student researcher, and various senior staff members were involved. Staff were trained in how the methodolgy had been developed and what the benefits were. Staff were encouraged to try to forget their own staff point of view and view services from a customer point of view but this proved difficult so students were asked to be involved in the mapping process themselves, to prevent staff bias.
Students identified twelve scenarios of library experiences, and these were each examined both inside and outside staffed hours. Fifty students were offered a £20 Amazon voucher but there was a low resource rate so notices were displayed on digital signage. Emoticons relating to 'touch points' were recorded on post-it notes but these took up too much time and will not be used in future.
The project was judged to have confirmed the benefits of student journey mapping, and helped obtain a fresh perspective, that is, the perspective of the service as experienced by a range of students and it was useful for undercovering student expectations and misunderstandings. It also fed into the process to develop a new Inter-library loan system.
The study showed that journey mapping is a good methodology to use: it also found that students found library processes challenging, which caused anxieties. It showed they had 'higher expectations' [of the service than were currently provided by the service].
Full details of the references can be found in the paper.
Our library staff discussed the article with great interest. We thought we should develop a strategy for gaining user feedback by various means. It stimulated us to discuss the non-use of libraries, 'thinking outside the box' service re-design and expectations of course materials, the provision of study packs, providing study packs on ready made tablets or on our VLE and measuring the attitudes of non-users or remote users. We were quite keen to implement a library focus group.
This paper explains that student satisfaction is important, particularly in the light of increased tuition fees, introduced by a government white paper stating that 'institutions must deliver a better student experience: improving teaching, assessment, feedback and preparation for the world of work' and the National Student survey, introduced in 2005l, which recorded an increase in dissatisfaction with value for money on the part of home students in 2007.
The literature review section relates to the:
1) University of Huddersfield research (Goodall and Pattern, 2011) which suggested that the quality and complexity of the services offered are one possible reason for the non-use of libraries,
2) Research by Catalano (2013) on patterns of information seeking behaviour of graduate students, which shows that students at different levels of study use different types of resources, accepting "materials of lower quality or reliability if it will save their time"
3) Weiler (2005) suggests that 'generation y' students "avoid librarians" and do not ask for help at
reference desks.
4) Whitmire (2001) suggests that a positive introduction to the library in the first year could contribute to an ongoing use of the service throughout the whole course- "asking the librarian for help was the only library experience that declined and never increased during the three years of study. (Whitmire and Goodall and Pattern refer to 'library anxiety'.
5) Library anxiety has been discussed over the past 25 years, and Onweuegbuzie (2004) discussed ways the making the physical environment easier to use and using informtation literacy to help students find the information resources that they needed could help to reduce library anxiety.
6) Schroer (2003) balances the above by suggesting that some expectations are unreasonable and stresses the need to define service boundaries. He stresses that expecting students to find their own information is an important step in training students to develop the skills they need.
7) Miller and Murino (2012) presented students at three universities in Illinois who had very low expectations of librarians, and only expected them to answer simple questions such as "where is the bathroom," rather than in-depth assistance locating resources for research.
Birmingham City University were striving to achieve the UK Government Customer Service Excellence standard, which encourages mapping of customer journeys, and defines a robust journey mapping methodology. Their Lending Services department had already developed a similar methodology with the help of Talis Information Ltd.; 'business process mapping', and this was adapted for use with customer mapping after being tested out on different procedures for borrowing rights. The project, designed to assess services from the customer's point of view with an aim to enhancing their experiences, and to collect information that would allow them to prioritize service development at a time of financial constraint.
A project budget of £1,500 was set; £1,000 from the University's Student Academic Partner Scheme, which allowed for the employment of a student researcher, and various senior staff members were involved. Staff were trained in how the methodolgy had been developed and what the benefits were. Staff were encouraged to try to forget their own staff point of view and view services from a customer point of view but this proved difficult so students were asked to be involved in the mapping process themselves, to prevent staff bias.
Students identified twelve scenarios of library experiences, and these were each examined both inside and outside staffed hours. Fifty students were offered a £20 Amazon voucher but there was a low resource rate so notices were displayed on digital signage. Emoticons relating to 'touch points' were recorded on post-it notes but these took up too much time and will not be used in future.
The project was judged to have confirmed the benefits of student journey mapping, and helped obtain a fresh perspective, that is, the perspective of the service as experienced by a range of students and it was useful for undercovering student expectations and misunderstandings. It also fed into the process to develop a new Inter-library loan system.
The study showed that journey mapping is a good methodology to use: it also found that students found library processes challenging, which caused anxieties. It showed they had 'higher expectations' [of the service than were currently provided by the service].
Full details of the references can be found in the paper.
Our library staff discussed the article with great interest. We thought we should develop a strategy for gaining user feedback by various means. It stimulated us to discuss the non-use of libraries, 'thinking outside the box' service re-design and expectations of course materials, the provision of study packs, providing study packs on ready made tablets or on our VLE and measuring the attitudes of non-users or remote users. We were quite keen to implement a library focus group.
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