Your feedback

Listening to you

We regularly involve you in assessing our services and resources. Gathering both quantitative and qualitative data enables us to understand your concerns about our services and explore ways in which we can improve things. We welcome all your comments about the wide range of Library services as your views are a key part of the discussions about developing services for the future and ensuring the best possible services for today.

Below is a summary of the key areas of work

Polls

Polls were introduced in 2011 to enable you to vote on a specific question of interest to us in developing our services to you. They offer us a snapshot of views and provide a feature on the website.

The current poll focuses on naming a new section of the website

April 2011 poll

Question: 'We are building a new online induction for students using the OU online Library for the first time. What information would you most like to see included?'

Surveys

In order to improve the services available to you we want to know how we can support your Open University studies, particularly, how satisfied you are with the current library services and what services we could develop in the future to make finding information easier.

National surveys

National Student Survey

This survey is available to students at most Higher and Further education institutions across the UK. It provides students with the opportunity to give their opinions on what they liked about their time at the OU as well as things that they felt could have been improved. The question about library services is 'The library resources and services are good enough for my needs'. Our ratings are:

Our challenge with this survey is that most students are rating a physical library whereas we provide an online library.

Improvements we have made - integrated more library resources and information literacy skills activities into study materials, developed a programme of Elluminate training sessions and introduced a 24/7 pilot for help and support

Library surveys

Student Survey results 2010

Key areas of satisfaction were - ease of using information and the good quality of materials available.

Key areas of dissatisfaction were - site difficulties (search of site and resources) and being unable to access material.

Improvements we have made - new search facility introduced in Dec 2010 and new website in Oct 2011

Student Survey results 2008

Key areas of satisfaction were - awareness of electronic journals and ebooks, help and support available
Key areas of dissatisfaction were - lack of quick and clearer access to resources and the number on online resources available

Improvements we have made - changes have been made to the consistency of navigating around the library website, we improved the website home page and we expanded our use of social networking.

AL (Associate Lecturers) Survey 2008

Key areas of satisfaction were - OU library services generally and awareness of electronic journals and ebooks

Key areas of need were - a greater range of full text online materials including journals and ebooks

Improvements we have made - more direct links from learning materials to library resources, more training on the library website and resources offered to ALs

Feedback

Your comments about using the website and our services are always welcome. Please complete the feedback form