LibAnswers

The Best Chat Transcript Awards is a review of nominated transcripts conducted by consortium librarians on behalf of the ResearchHelpNow queue from the previous school year.

• Nominations come from managers of subscribed schools' chat managers; transcripts are anonymized and blind-peer reviewed by 2 reviewers each. 
• Nominees are chosen that model excellence in chat service.
• The reviewers are also chat operators in the system; the awards committee chair assures that reviewers do not review their own school's operators or nominations.
• The committee uses a standardized rubric to assure fairness in judging; rubric can be viewed online.

Purpose:

• Assure quality amongst operators in the system.
• Use as a training tool for new operators in the system - see how excellent chats are conducted.
• Refresher tool for seasoned operators.
• Anonymized transcripts are helpful for showing administrators the return on investment re: quality and service.

For current examples, see this year's presentation files attached to this FAQ. Includes examples of anonymized transcripts as seen by our judges.