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ABSTRACT A significant part of all research takes place in extra-academic organizations. Practitioner researchers often present their results in publications different from those in academia, e.g. in reports, sometimes (and here) referred to as 'gray literature'. Gray literature is increasingly available online. However, availability does not mean that reports are exploited to their full potential in research. Disciplines like archaeology have substantial problems with the scholarly communication and knowledge sharing between extra-academic and academic research. This paper approaches this problem from a report-user perspective. For the benefit of potential report users' gray literature literacies, report-writing practices are analyzed by means of practice theory. Qualitative interviews with six practitioner researchers in Swedish archaeology firms make up the material. The analysis focuses on how report writers draw on regulative, institutional, and infrastructural resources in their practices. Based on the findings about the practices in which reports are written and become informative, the paper presents seven suggestions supporting report users' potential to critically analyze and use report content. The results contribute to the information science field with insights into extra-academic information practices, and as input in a wider critical discussion of the information-related conditions for research outside academia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper gives a summary of the activities of Watson Davis (1896-1967) during the first half of the 20th century in the area of information organisation and dissemination. Starting from Davis's views on the purpose of information, the paper subsequently describes his projects for the establishment of 'one big library', the Auxiliary Publication Service, 'one big journal', and the 'world brain'. Considering Davis as a member of the Special Libraries and Documentation Movement, his connections with its other members are explored. Subsequently, Davis's ideas are analysed and his legacy to Information Science investigated. The paper argues that Davis is an important link between Information Science and its predecessor Documentation, and therefore that he deserves to be subject of deeper research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A fake news detection system aims to assist users in detecting and filtering out varieties of potentially deceptive news. The prediction of the chances that a particular news item is intentionally deceptive is based on the analysis of previously seen truthful and deceptive news. A scarcity of deceptive news, available as corpora for predictive modeling, is a major stumbling block in this field of natural language processing (NLP) and deception detection. This paper discusses three types of fake news, each in contrast to genuine serious reporting, and weighs their pros and cons as a corpus for text analytics and predictive modeling. Filtering, vetting, and verifying online information continues to be essential in library and information science (LIS), as the lines between traditional news and online information are blurring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the landscape of data-sharing practices in social sciences via the data sharing profile approach. Guided by two pre-existing conceptual frameworks, Knowledge Infrastructure (KI) and the Theory of Remote Scientific Collaboration (TORSC), we design and test a profile tool that consists of four overarching dimensions for capturing social scientists' data practices, namely: 1) data characteristics, 2) perceived technical infrastructure, 3) perceived organizational context, and 4) individual characteristics. To ensure that the instrument can be applied in real and practical terms, we conduct a case study by collecting responses from 93 early-career social scientists at two research universities in the Pittsburgh Area, U.S. The results suggest that there is no significant difference, in general, among scholars who prefer quantitative, mixed method, or qualitative research methods in terms of research activities and data-sharing practices. We also confirm that there is a gap between participants' attitudes about research openness and their actual sharing behaviors, highlighting the need to study the 'barrier' in addition to the 'incentive' of research data sharing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Although researchers have grappled with conceptualizations of time in relation to information behavior, the effect of time on information practices has been a challenge to study and theorize. Longitudinal naturalistic methods provide an opportunity to observe information practices in context over time, but have infrequently been used in information research. This paper presents a qualitative ethnographic exploration of the changes over time in the information practices of a group of young parents in Canada, a population experiencing substantial life changes as young adults and new parents both. Using grounded theory, this analysis explores time-related processes in the lives of young parents and they ways these processes affect information practices such as seeking, sharing, and use of information. Three case examples illustrate the interplay over time of individual characteristics, setting, and events, and the impact on an individual's information practices. Based on these findings, a theoretical model to inform future investigations of information practice evolution over time is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper aims to survey five perspectives of research data in chemistry research process, which including data generation and collection, data recording and processing, data preservation and backup, data management and sharing, needs for data sharing services. By means of questionnaires survey, 119 researchers and graduate students of Chinese Academy of Science in chemistry disciplines provided us with insights in research data management and sharing. The outputs of statistical analytical results help us have a better understanding on their currency attitudes and needs of researchers about their data management and sharing in chemistry disciplines. Although the survey in chemistry discipline, it could be provide us some insights for designing a range of library service, particularly in promotion, consulting and training of research data management and sharing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dealing with information in a new land is considered challenging for immigrants. Their adaptation process, including how to seek and share information, usually requires supports from several sources, including various social and community associations. This paper discusses immigrants' information sharing practices within community groups during their settlement processes. Data for analysis includes 197 questionnaires, 35 interviews, and 258 photos. The preliminary results show that Asian immigrants are involved in community associations and online links with both general and particular groupings. The main sharing activities relate to daily activities, culture and religion and knowledge/experience. The findings will provide insights of how sharing activities within community associations support immigrants' settlement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Information behavior research has typically explored individual-level practices, even within studies of groups and group activities. Although collaborative information seeking has emerged in recent years to explore how people search for and share information, much of this research also focuses on individual-level experiences. Collectivist approaches to information behavior have been conducted in only a few studies in the discipline; however, collectivism offers a unique, holistic way to study information practices at within-group levels. Collectivism also accounts for the social, professional, and other contextual elements that shape group members' information practices when pursuing common shared goals. This exploratory qualitative study used focus groups situated in a constructivist grounded theory methodology to investigate wine industry members' experiences while engaging in peer mentoring circles. Designed as a professional development activity, the mentoring circles provided a platform for the development of long-term relationships among group members to foster information sharing and knowledge creation relevant to their work environments. The emergent results make a significant contribution to the field as they outline key conditions under which collectivist groups support members' information needs. Findings point to the importance of group cohesion developed through shared (industry-based) language and knowledge and development of kin-like relationships to generate unique knowledge communities. Interdependency and reciprocity are shown to play key roles in motivating individual group members to share information with their peers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Libraries are uniquely positioned to support the quickly shifting landscape of modern research practice. The NCSU Libraries has paired user research approaches with iterative design practice to determine contextually relevant services to support researchers. This poster will showcase two case studies as examples of successful avenues of support through library services, the user research and application of frameworks that supported the development of these services, and the project management methodology that applied research to practice. Each case study will outline strategies used to develop services that support modern research practice through the investigation of a complex problem space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Social Q&A (SQA) sites that allow users to exchange knowledge by asking and answering questions in natural language have become increasingly popular due to their ability to leverage the wisdom of crowds and provide personalized answers. Considerable research efforts have been devoted to studying users' information and knowledge sharing within SQA sites. Past research, however, has neglected users' information sharing behavior from SQA to other social media platforms (e.g., microblogs). In this study, we utilized Zhihu, one of the most popular Chinese SQA sites, as a lens to explore users' information sharing from SQA to third parties, as this has become a widespread behavior among Chinese Web users. A survey that gathered 591 valid responses yielded interesting findings. Overall, respondents who had higher educational levels and who spent more daily time on the Internet via mobile devices were more likely to share SQA posts to other virtual spaces. Their experiences with Zhihu, their content preferences, and their friends' sharing behavior also significantly influenced their sharing behavior. Our findings generate quite a few directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Sharing and reuse of scientific data, which can enhance the transparency and reproducibility of research and lead to the creation of new knowledge from existing data, is both a growing scholarly communication practice and an expanding area of interest in information science. However, much of the literature to date has focused on the data practices of scientists working in academic environments, with less research done on understanding the practices of scientists working in other types of environments, such as government or industry. This poster presents the results of a study in which data from a worldwide survey of scientists were analyzed to determine if differences in data practices, perceptions, and access to resources for data sharing existed between scientists who reported their primary work sector as academic and those who reported a non-academic primary work sector. Researchers' perceptions of data sharing and reuse were generally positive and did not differ significantly by work sector. However, differences were found in actual reported data sharing practices, even when controlling for researchers' age, geographic location, and subject discipline. Researchers outside of academia had lesser odds of reporting sharing all their data. Differences were also found in reported barriers to data sharing, as well as in reported access to and use of data sharing resources, suggesting that data sharing challenges faced by scientists working outside of academia may differ from those faced by their academic peers. Implications for the adoption of data sharing practices and technologies, as well as for knowledge sharing and creation across work sectors, are discussed, and suggestions are offered for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Open data" is a popular phrase in research practice and science policy. While stakeholders agree on some aspects of this concept, many others remain hotly debated. As a means to identify the main themes and arguments surrounding open data, we analyzed highly cited publications from the last 10 years that address data sharing or open access to research data. We identify and synthesize eight components of open data that vary among policies, studies, and initiatives, and present problematic arguments worthy of further investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research in group decision-making has shown that group members tend to share and focus on the information that is known to the majority of the group but keep the unique information unshared. Tasks created to study this information pooling phenomenon are referred to as hidden profile tasks. A recent hidden profile experiment showed that group members constructed stories to reach their group decision. The study discouraged this storytelling approach and suggested that technology mediation could provide a way to reduce the likelihood of using this approach in discussion. While our experiment confirmed this story construction approach, we found that in the story construction process the participants considered the important arguments as well as different perspectives. We therefore suggest that the story development approach is rational and that the Story model, an existing group process model well-documented in jury decision making literature, could shed light on the design of collaborative technologies that accommodate or improve such a discussion approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It was discovered over three decades ago that groups tend to discuss common information while failing to discuss unique information in group decision-making processes. This is called group's information pooling phenomenon or hidden profile problem. We report a work-in-progress study here that examines the effectiveness of using pre-discussion notes to address hidden profiles in group decision-making. Our data shows a moderate positive correlation between the appearance of a piece of information in participants' notes and its appearance in the subsequent discussion, suggesting note-taking prior to the group discussion as an effective approach. Our data also indicates that hidden profiles can affect the group performance through aspects other than information sharing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While discussion forums in online courses have been studied in the past, no one has proposed a model linking messages in discussion forums to a learning taxonomy, even though forums are widely used as educational tools in online courses. In this research, we view forums as information seeking events and use a keyword taxonomy approach to analyze a large amount of MOOC forum data to identify the types of learning interactions taking place in forum conversations. Using 51,761 forum messages from 8,169 forum threads from a MOOC with a 50,000+ enrollment, messages are analyzed based on levels of Bloom's Taxonomy to categorize the scholarly discourse. The results of this research show that interactions within MOOC discussion forums are a learning process with unique characteristics specific to particular cognitive learning levels. Results also imply that different types of forum interactions have characteristics relevant to particular learning levels, and the volume of higher levels of cognitive learning incidents increase as the course progresses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evaluating answer quality or identifying/predicting which answer would be selected as the best for a given question is an important problem in community-based Q&A services. In this article we introduce new interaction-based features depicting the amount of distinct interactions between an asker and answerer over time, in order to predict whether an answer will be selected as Best Answer or not within Yahoo! Answers. Through a series of experiments ran on a data set of 23,218 question-answer pairs, we determined that after the data was first run using a model trained on textual features, and then the failed cases re-run with a model trained on interaction features, we were able to significantly improve the performance of the original model in identifying these difficult cases. In addition, when compared to models using often five to seven times the amount of features and requiring a large amount of computational effort, our model performed at to above the same evaluative measures. This suggests that future classification models can be made more parsimonious and handle larger datasets using less computational effort by developing a two-step classifier that includes interaction history as a feature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural disasters are a period of uncertainty and instability for those affected. It becomes important for members of the public in a disaster zone to access up-to-date information about their environment. Currently, solutions are only set up for information from official sources to flow through existing infrastructure to members of the public. This approach has been criticized for being incomplete and slow to respond. The authors propose an integrated communications solution that would leverage the networked potential of localized actors, whether they are affected members of the public, aid workers, or official agencies sent to provide support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study aims to examine information seeking and sharing behavior of IT professionals in a virtual community (VC). In total, 200 threads with 1623 postings were extracted from ChinaUnix.net, an IT VC. A content analysis was performed and descriptive statistical analysis was conducted. The study identified four types of information seeking and sharing activities: resource sharing, experience sharing, asking questions, and asking for resources. The results indicate that asking questions is the dominant activity in this virtual community (VC), while experience sharing threads are browsed most in comparison to other threads. Browsing information in the VC is much more preferred by the users than contributing information to the VC. The important information behavior chain in this VC consists of asking, responding, interacting, uploading, linking, posting, and browsing. Interacting is an important vehicle for effective information exchange. The study helps people understand how the users of a VC seek and share information. The study reveals typical information seeking and sharing activities as well as behavior characteristics that support users' engagement in a VC; it also identifies an information seeking and sharing chain in that context. It also adds new knowledge to users' information seeking and sharing behavior in the information science area. The study could help designers develop and improve the design of VCs as well as help administrators improve and maintain an active and effective VC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although people engage in a range of information behaviors, the majority of previous models and empirical research in information behavior tend to focus just on information seeking and use. This panel will discuss the need of extending the territories of information behavior research beyond seeking and use. Panelists will explain their own research studies that explore different forms of information behavior, and introduce emerging models including serendipitous finding of information, informationorganizing behavior, and information-creating behavior. Theoretical and methodological issues concerning modeling the new modes of information behavior will be discussed. This panel will involve the audience in identifying underinvestigated areas of information behavior and discussing potential impacts of studying various forms of information behavior on individuals, society, organizations, systems & technology, and culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]