ProQuest Improves Design and Usability for Popular SIRS® Resources
ANN ARBOR, MI, November 12, 2019 – With guidance from customers and users, the popular SIRS Issues Researcher and SIRS Discoverer products from ProQuest have been enhanced with a new look and new features to engage students and help them achieve better outcomes.
SIRS products – staples for research, teaching and learning for upper elementary, middle and high school students – now feature a simpler, more intuitive design and are available on the ProQuest® platform.
"Students love SIRS Issues Researcher because it is intuitive for them, and they are immediately comfortable with how content is arranged,” said Deb Svec, Media Specialist at Palm Beach Gardens High School in Florida. “The visual design helps them quickly find a topic, and the ‘leading issues’ pages give them the context they need to guide their research."
Moving to the ProQuest platform infrastructure provides significant benefits for users. While both SIRS Issues Researcher and SIRS Discoverer will continue to be available with a “guided research” experience for novice users, students will also have the option to search SIRS resources in an interface that mimics the university-level experience to cultivate their research skills.
“The SIRS products have been trusted by librarians for decades, starting with the beloved print binders and moving online,” said Larry Wilkner, Product Manager for SIRS products. “In an era of questionably sourced information, these recent enhancements make SIRS even easier for students to discover quality, curated and authoritative information on the most important topics of the day.”
Other improvements to SIRS Issues Researcher and SIRS Discoverer include:
- More visual appeal to engage students in their research
- Trending issues and topics on the home page, helping students focus their research
- A new “famous people” section in SIRS Discoverer with short, editor-created biographies
- A mobile-friendly interface tailored to skills and behaviors of novice researchers
- Integration with Microsoft OneDrive to facilitate collaboration and off-campus work
- Prioritization of frequently used documents in search results
Visit the SIRS upgrade page to learn more.
About ProQuest (https://www.proquest.com)
ProQuest supports the important work in the world’s research and learning communities. The company curates six centuries of content – the world’s largest collection of journals, ebooks, primary sources, dissertations, news, and video – and builds powerful workflow solutions to help libraries acquire and grow collections that inspire extraordinary outcomes. ProQuest products and services are used in academic, K-12, public, corporate and government libraries in 150 countries.
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