Dean Giustini at the UBC Academic Search – Google Scholar Blog brings us news that Google and Blackboard are going to team up, with Google Scholar somehow being integrated within the Blackboard CMS. From the Washington Business Journal story, "As part of the partnership, Blackboard’s learning system will be integrated with Google Scholar, providing quick access to millions of scholarly references directly from courses within the Blackboard system."
We use Blackboard here at the U of C, and I do have to assist many of my faculty members in building links to content that is available via library databases simply because there are so many different places one must go to grab the persistent link. I have to assume that having Schoogle integrated within an institution’s Blackboard installation will mean that the proxy server will be built-in, allowing access to library-owned content from both on and off campus, but damn, since we still don’t know just what Schoogle covers, the potentially high adoption rate of such a partnership due to the brand name is going to mean a lot more edumacation here on campus as to the pros and cons of using Schoogle, and reminders that there are a lot more credible/relevant/transparent databases available on your library’s website, and that they too allow linking directly to content.
OK, here’s a more detailed press release from today, and in fact there is already a Blackboard building block available, so I guess we’ll have to throw that on our test server to see what it’s all about.
Also interesting is the fact that Microsoft and Blackboard have a "preferred relationship", according to this Chronicle of Higher Education piece from back in 2001. That means, "Microsoft will promote Blackboard to its education customers and Blackboard will suggest that its clients use the Microsoft Windows operating system to run Blackboard on their servers to take advantage of special features available only to Microsoft users." Not sure if that’s still in effect, but even if so, it seems that Schoogle’s addition is a pretty minor partnership, not likely to kick Microsoft out of Blackboard’s bed…
Technorati Tags: Schoogle, Blackboard
Comments
6 Responses to “Have our toes just been stepped upon? Google Scholar within BlackBoard”
I dunno. I’d be a lot scareder if I were, say, Scopus. Or ProQuest.
Stupid vendors. Our vendors are so amazingly stupid.
That’s the problem with us moving too slow….
Paul,
Integrating Google scholar into Blackboard (proxy-enabled or not) is merely another means to link to scholarly content (open-access or subscription-based). Why the hand-wringing?
All we need to do is contextualize searching: for literature reviews, use an index; for browsing, and “needle in a haystack” known-searches, use Google scholar.
Findability trumps all other considerations in the Blackboard environment.
Dean
Dean, I think the hand-wringing is that we’re constantly trying to remind students (and faculty) that Google is not the be-all and end-all, yet Schoogle is who’s now going to (somehow) start showing up in Bb search results instead of results from Science Direct, EBSCO, ProQuest and all of the other paid-for library databases. I’m personally happy to see Schoogle show up, but I’d prefer it to be along side the other products we pay for, not alone. If Schoogle is what people see within Bb, we need to have figured out when to get them that information about when an index might’ve been a better option…
Hi Paul,
I respect and understand your concerns, most of which I share.
On the other hand, if you could tell your undergraduates what databases you would want them to consult and in which order, what would they be? Is this feasible? What interfaces are better than Scholar? EBSCO?
My feeling about integrating Google scholar into Bb is that it is useful if the instructor contextualizes what GS should be used for. My feeling is that with our SFX linkresolver now embedded in GS, good content will be found. At the very least, GS gets students started on their way.
Dean
It turns out that the Google Scholar building block for BlackBoard requires a Windows Server, and since we’re running Linux, we’ve got no way to test it 🙁 Doesn’t that seem an odd combination?