Guidelines and Standards for Research Guides

Create a list of Guides you own:

It is a good idea to evaluate and update Course Guides every semester and Subject Guides every 12 months. To create a checklist of all the guides you own in the "Guides" menu:

1. Type your last name in the “Owner” box at the top of the list of guides.
2. Select “Export all records” located on the upper right-hand side of the page.
3. Select CVS to create a spreadsheet of all your guides.

Guiding questions:

Is this guide still relevant? Some questions to ask yourself are: 

• Is the course still being taught
• Are the topics covered still culturally relevant?
• Was the guide created for a specific event?

Did it serve its purpose? Some questions to ask yourself are:

• Did the content meet the information needs of the intended audience?
• If not, can it be modified to fit that purpose?

 Are there new resources that need to be added?

If the Guide is no longer needed:

1. Unpublish the guide.
2. Review use statistics.

If the Guide is still needed and no modifications need to be made:

1. Check for broken links.
2. Update any broken links (see link checking information in the “Assets” section below). If the link is from a mapped asset that you do not own, inform the asset owner that the link is broken.
3. Review LibGuides content guidelines to ensure the content meets accessibility and best practice guidelines.

If new resources need to be added:

1. Check the LibGuide assets to make sure the asset doesn’t already exist before creating a new one.
2. If reusing an asset, make sure that the description is relevant to the current guide or create a local description for the asset.
3. Review LibGuides content guidelines to ensure the content meets accessibility and best practice guidelines.

Creating a list of assets:

When updating your guides, you should also check the links in all of your owned assets.  You may be the owner of assets that you are not currently using but other guides are. To get a full list of your owned assets:

1. Open the “Content” menu in the gold bar at the top of the page.
2. Select “Assets.”
3. Select the checkbox next to your name in the “Owner” field located in the grey box at the top of the list of assets.
4. Select the blue filter button in the grey box.

Once you have a list of your assets:

1. Sort by “Mapping Count.”
2. Remove from the assets list in LibApps any assets that have a zero count.

Link Checker:

1. Run the link checker tool located under the “Tools” menu in the Gold Bar at the top of the page.
2. Type your last name in the field located at the top of the “Owner” column.

Like all link checkers the first time you run this you will have a lot of false positives, especially if the link requires a log-in to access the materials.  You can add the link to the “exclusion” list by selecting the plus sign next to the trash can in the action column. This will make it so the link is never checked by this link checker.  It’s important to periodically check all the links you have excluded. To access the exclusion list scroll to the top of the page and click on the “Exclusions” tab just under the “Link Checker” page title.

**Note: clicking the trashcan in this report removes the link FROM THE REPORT, it does not delete the link.  If you want to delete the link, you will need to locate the link in the Assets list described in the Assets section above.