Choice has announced that Credo Online Reference Service has been recognised with an Outstanding Academic Title (OAT) Award. The exploratory research platform added several new features in 2018, including a refreshed user-interface, a new content category providing currently trending topics, an update to its Mind Map visualisation feature, and functionality that enables instructors to embed content seamlessly into learning management systems. Never one to rest on its laurels, Credo will continue to simplify the research process and outfit librarians and students alike with innovative new tools in the coming year.
The forthcoming features–added standard at no cost for subscribers–will be Research Quick Tips, which will provide concise instructional videos embedded throughout the platform to cultivate information literacy skills while students are conducting research. Also launching in early 2019 is an update to the Mind Map that will allow librarians to embed the interactive feature outside the platform.
2018 marks the second occasion Credo has won an OAT award, having done so in 2014 as well. This year's selection was attributed to several innovative enhancements, foremost of which was the intuitive user-interface that also led Choice to name the platform 'Essential. All libraries. All levels.' in a recent review. Beginning a research project is oftentimes the most intimidating stage for students, and so Credo's developers designed the platform to help users easily navigate and get directly to relevant content from what can seem like an overwhelming amount of information.
Credo also significantly expanded its Real-time Reference featured search category. With regularly added articles from reliable sources like ProCon.org, The Conversation, and Bloomberg QuickTake, students investigating current events are able to more easily identify trending topics, gather background information, broaden keyword vocabulary, build context, and assess counterpoints, all while developing critical thinking skills.
Librarians who provide instruction benefited from Credo's efforts in the past year to improve teaching opportunities and facilitate better collaboration with faculty. To this end Credo added permalinks and Credo Embeds for all content, making it more convenient to provide students with exactly the right resources for any course. The company also worked with librarians from across the country to publish two open access e-guides, The Credo IL Strategy Handbook and The Credo FYE Guide: Practices for Enhancing Instruction.
Brought to you by Scope e-Knowledge Center, a trusted global partner for digital content transformation solutions - Abstracting & Indexing (A&I), Knowledge Modeling (Taxonomies, Thesauri and Ontologies), and Metadata Enrichment & Entity Extraction.
