THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG
KNOWLEDGE TEAM
Minutes of a meeting of the Knowledge Team held on Friday, September 21, 2007 at 12:30 – 2:10 pm in the Conference Room, 4th Floor, Main Library.
Present: Dr Anthony W. Ferguson (Convenor)
Professor John Bacon-Shone
Mr Jussie Chan
Dr Colin Day
Dr Bob Fox
Dr P.T. Ho
Mr David Palmer
Professor Mike Prosser
Mr Peter Sidorko
Mr Benny Tai
Dr Frank Tong
Mr David Wan
Dr Beverly Webster
Ms Antonia Yiu
Dr Y.C. Wan (Secretary)
Apologies: Dr Bruce Cheung
Professor Francis Chin
Dr David Kennedy
Professor Nancy Law
Dr Elaine Martyn
Dr John Nicholls
Ms Tina Pang
Ms Lillian Wong
The Convenor extended his warm welcome to all members for attending the first KT meeting after the summer break. He also welcomed Professor Mike Prosser, Dr P.T. Ho, Dr Beverly Webster, Mr Jussie Chan and Mr David Wan, who attended the meeting for the first time.
1. Minutes
The minutes of the last meeting, held on June 15, 2007, were confirmed without amendment (documents distributed).
2. Centennial Campus Learning Commons – progress and the Australia and New Zealand Learning Commons investigation trip
The Convenor noted that some photographs in his PowerPoint presentation “Learning Commons in Australia and NZ: 11 days 11 libraries” were contributed by Mr Danny Tang, Chief Architect of Wong & Ouyang (HK) Ltd. and a member of this investigation team, who was not able to attend this meeting owing to a last-minute change of the agenda. Other members of the team included Professor Malpas, Mr Kenneth Wong (Director of Estates), Mr Philip Lam (Director of Finance), Ms Benedict Tsui (Director of Development and Alumni Affairs Office) and himself. They visited eleven universities in six cities (Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Auckland and Dunedin) in eleven days, with the goal of looking at what others are doing in Australia and New Zealand to provide innovative learning support facilities, e.g. learning commons.
He highlighted that amongst the universities visited only Auckland University has a separate learning commons. Others have interesting learning centres/facilities inside the library, or scattered here and there in a larger building. With the aid of nicely prepared PowerPoint slides, he took members on a virtual tour of learning spaces in these universities and explained in details how these facilities work. The library at the University of Otago was given particular attention because with all the books and things that signaled this is a library and not a learning commons, yet it exuded energy and caused him to think this was truly a wonderful learning-support environment.
On the other hand, the University of Queensland is notable for its provision of flexible teaching/learning facilities. Slides of these modern, collaborative learning spaces were shown and the Convenor also noted that teaching the teachers how to make full use of them is also important. Members suggested that some of these useful examples could be shared with the new building planning group in designing classrooms and other teaching/learning facilities at the centennial campus. It was agreed that this PowerPoint presentation should be made available on the Internet so that members could refer to these slides when needed. [Post-meeting note: the PowerPoint presentation had been linked to the Knowledge Team website at http://lib.hku.hk/kt/learning_commons.html]
The Convenor concluded his presentation by making the following remarks:
- Students will flock to a learning commons if it is available. In other words, providing a one stop shopping/learning environment which brings together student social/learning facilities will create an excitement that generates high use.
- Students in Australia and New Zealand seem to enjoy spaces where food, friends, computers (FFC) and information, as well as easy access to the services that students need are all present.
- Shared services (computer labs, language labs, student counseling, teacher support services, etc.) can be integrated under a single roof in a big community centre.
- Very innovative lecture theatres, classrooms, and small and large group study facilities are emerging at some universities in Australia and New Zealand, such as University of Queensland and Curtin University.
- There is no single right way of setting up a learning commons. The problem for the University now is to deliberate on the facilities that should be provided at the learning commons in the centennial campus.
3. Inter-institutional higher education study on first year students’ experiences with technology
Dr Fox noted that HKU had joined with the six other UGC-funded universities in Hong Kong in a project to survey first year students about the experiences they already have with using technology in their daily life. A mirroring study is being conducted in Australia and all participating institutions are basically using the same survey questionnaire (a copy of which was distributed during the meeting).
However, response rate to this survey was not overwhelming so far, with only 200-300 completed questionnaires received. Dr Fox would like to seek advice from members on how to encourage more first year students to participant in this survey. Members shared their views and the following were noted:
- Getting response online is difficult, especially for a complicated questionnaire.
- Soliciting the help of teachers with large classes so that a time slot could be allocated during the class for distributing and collecting the completed questionnaires would be useful. It would be best if the teacher could help introduce the survey.
- Giving gifts/souvenirs to students who participate in the survey. It might be possible to get some sponsorship from vendors like Starbucks and Pacific Coffee.
- The Registry conducts student surveys regularly. Seeking their help would be very useful and desirable.
- The Libraries will be conducting two surveys shortly, including a LibQUAL survey on library service quality in November and a biennial user survey in February 2008.
[Post-meeting note: Mr David Wan, our student representative, volunteered to help distribute the questionnaire to students during the functions organized by the Computer Society and ITSA.]
4. Use of Turnitin at HKU – results of a recent online survey
Ms Yiu gave an overview of the document 2007 Report on Turnitin@HKU, which she distributed during the meeting. She highlighted that into the third year of Turnitin@HKU, the usage statistics and survey results show that the text matching software has become more widely adopted within the university community. As of 20 June 2007, there are 300 Turnitin instructors, 13,330 registered students and 30,277 originality reports generated. The percentage of red originality report (75-100% matches) dropped significantly and that of green originality report (1 word to 24% matches) increased notably since the second year of Turnitin implementation. The online survey administered in June 2007 also revealed favourable feedback from the instructors. Most respondents indicated that they will use Turnitin in the future and would recommend it to other colleagues. The report further recommends that:
- Turnitin should continue to be made available to users campus-wide.
- The Libraries should continue supporting the use of Turnitin at HKU, including holding training sessions, answering enquiries, providing administrative support and conducting evaluation.
- Periodic reviews should be conducted every two years instead of annually given the steady acceptance of Turnitin among teaching staff and its growing integration with curriculum.
- The Libraries and CC should study the compatibility and possibility of the WebCT integration when the new service pack of WebCT server is available in the future.
- The Libraries should continue to negotiate with Turnitin to make more matching sources available in their text matching system.
- It would be useful for the university to integrate the ethics and skills of academic writing in the curriculum.
Ms Yiu noted that subscription to Turnitin had just been renewed.
5. Date of the next meeting
[Post-meeting note: the date of the next meeting will be confirmed later].
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