Talis Courseflow offers a mandatory importances feature. This is optional, but was introduced due to customer feedback that some institutions have created workflows where having mandatory importances would have benefits for the library - eg in terms of calculating the number of print titles / EBook licences that need to be purchased for a given title. This is in addition to their usefulness for students who are navigating a reading list.
How to turn on
Currently you will need to raise a support ticket so that our Operations Team can enable this feature for you. It can also be revoked if required.
How it works
When mandatory importances is switched on for an institution, it means that when a user adds a new item to their reading list, they will be forced to select an Importance before they are able to add an item to their list. There are multiple routes to adding items to lists, so here is out it works in each scenario:
Using the extension (Create & Add to List option) or the My Bookmarks screen
As you will see in the screenshot below, the Importance field is marked as Required and the user will not be able to proceed with the bookmark until an importance is selected.
Using the Add Resource button
If you're building a list and use the Add Resource button to launch a pop-up, the 'Add to list' button will display your Importances, and once one is selected the item will be added as usual. This applies both to items you have already bookmarked, and items you may find via the Discovery Layer Integration / Nielsen Book Data results.
Existing items
When a user hits the Publish button on a list which includes existing items without an importance, they will be prompted to Set Importances for those items (see screenshot below). However, they can bypass the option at this point by just clicking Publish.
Q - When I set an importance on an item using this route, does it also impact on other instances of that bookmark?
A - No, the importance attached to a bookmark exists independently of the bookmark itself. After all, a bookmark may require one importance on one list, and a different importance on another! So the importance you set will only apply to the individual list item that you are adding / editing.