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Information experience is based on emotion and motivation psychological as well as activity theoretical models of the concept of user experience. Information experience is defined for static, dynamic as well as interactive information media. The Information Experience and Design Research Group at Stuttgart Media University explore experiential aspects of information media use. The goal is to develop scientifically based design processes and methods for positive and meaningful user experiences with information media. Based on these research activities the valence method was developed. It allows research on and formative evaluation of the experiential design aspects of information media. The valence method was used in a number of studies showing deep and detailed insights of the emotional impact and the motivational basis of design attribute being involved in user experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the strategies employed in justifying counter-arguments against answers provided in Q&A (question and answer) discussion. The study also explores how information sources are used in support of such arguments. The findings draw on the analysis of 100 discourse episodes focusing on global warming – a controversial topic eliciting competing answers from the participants. The empirical data were downloaded from Yahoo! Answers. Four strategies were identified. Of them, questioning the validity of answers and questioning the background assumptions of answers were used most frequently. While justifying counter-arguments, the participants also drew on emotional appeals and questioned the contributor’s motives. To support the counter-arguments, the participants mainly drew on internet-based sources of information. The controversial nature of the discussion topic was reflected in the debate about the most authoritative information sources: persuasive material advocating a particular viewpoint to global warming vs objective research reports. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address the gaps in knowledge about how people get information in a flood and what they want to know. Design/methodology/approach – A total of 27 people were interviewed from two communities that suffered flooding in the 12 months before the interviews. Slow-moving flood and flash flood were covered. Findings – The type of disaster determines how people seek information. In slow-moving flood, people heard from others, tracked it visually and via web-available river gauge information, and talked to others with more flood experience. Radio was an important confirmation tool in the slow-moving flood. In flash flood, people first heard from others and then turned to television. Research limitations/implications – Participants made up a small sample skewed toward regional areas and were selected by snowball/convenience sampling methods. A survey is required to confirm or refute findings. Practical implications – Word of mouth needs to be tapped into by agencies, and mobile phone networks and social media are critical to this. Radio and television should be more proactively used by emergency agencies and maps should be a feature of all flood communication. Originality/value – The focus of disaster communication research tends to have been on agency use of communication rather than the individual's use of a range of communication channels. This study encourages agencies to look at how individuals look for information, the channels they use to get information and the type of information they seek. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is based on a study that examined library services provision for people with visual impairments and in wheelchairs in academic libraries in Tanzania. The article looks at access to the information resources available and the layout of library buildings in five universities in Tanzania. The broader issues in this study were grounded in the importance of access to information as a fundamental right and, particularly, in university studies. The study drew on a pragmatism paradigm and the social model of disability of Oliver which emphasises universal access as the norm. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to conduct survey and observation-based research. The findings reveal that academic libraries provide services to people with visual impairments and in wheelchairs but these services are not inclusive or universal. The study therefore recommends that academic libraries, as manifest in the social model, should strive to provide inclusive services to all users including people with disabilities. To achieve this universal access requires the formulating of policy regarding provision of library services to people with disabilities, providing adequate budgets and staff training. In addition, practical measures are needed such as constructing library buildings with ramps and maintaining working lifts, acquiring Braille and large print information resources, as well as providing assistive equipment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a brief introduction of Internet. The questionnaire method was used to collect data from the teachers & students of two self finance institutes (SFI) of Gujarat. The data were collected from 38 teachers of Parul Institute of Engineering & Technology (PIET) out of 50 & 36 teachers of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Institute of Technology (SVIT) out of 50. In the same way data were collected from 70 students of PIET out of 100 and 65 students of SVIT out of 100. The aim of this study was to analyze the use of the Internet and related issues among the teachers and students of Self Finance Engineering Colleges of Gujarat, India. It was intended in the present survey for internet such as, experience of internet use, amount of time spent for internet, most frequently used location for internet use, purpose for internet used, use of internet services, use of internet resources, ways to browse information from the internet, favorite search engine. Internet had brought dramatic changes in the generation, communication and dissemination of information. It was found that the internet mostly used for education, research, teaching and communication purpose. Some suggestions have been set forth to make the service more beneficial for the academic community of the engineering colleges under study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study is conducted to evaluate the library services and resources of Einstein Academy of Technology and Management (EATM), Bhubaneswar. In this stydy the investigator distributed a simple questionnaire among 72 faculty members from all the departments of the college to obtain their satisfaction, views and suggestions about the services, resources and staffs attitudes. Only 60 faculty members returned the questionnaire at a ratio of male and female as 42 and 18 respectively. The detail procedure of study, methodology and research findings is described in the study. It is found that the overall satisfaction level of faculty members towards library services is about 81.66%. The quality of services, adequacy of eresources, and the nature of IT enabled services are comparatively good in the library. But adequacy of print resources is not satisfactory. About 15% faculty members disagree about the adequacy of print resources. One another thing also revealed from the study that only 6% faculty members spend more than 2-3 hours in the library whereas 40% of them visit the library on daily basis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to describe the citation study as an emerge field for university libraries. There is a constant need to adopt to the ongoing changes and new demands of today's information environment, and the increasing importance of citation study certainly presents a great opportunity for librarians to broaden their horizon. The study employed descriptive research design. Data collected from 15 doctoral theses accepted by the Kuvempu University, Kamataka, India in the field of Biotechnology from 2003-2006. Data were extracted from title page and references given at the end of each chapter. The cited documents are recorded 5"x"3 slips and the same has been tabulated in Microsoft Excel, and extracted data were analysed using statistics. Citation study is ideal for librarians to develop and provide innovative services for both universities and administrative university staff. The study reveals that journals are the most preferred sources of information used by the researchers in the field of biotechnology accounting for 79.72% of total citations although citations from books, proceedings, theses, reports and patents are also found. It is also observed small percentage of users also cited web resources. Plant cell tissue & org .cult (Netherlands) has ranked the first with 121 citations accounting for 4.16% of the total journal citations. Further, Bradford's Law of Scattering was applied. It is observed that major citation from journal literature, besides that study examined the authorship pattern more cited materials were contributed by Multi authors and Degree of collaboration is 0.85. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the information needs, information sources and information seeking behaviours of engineers in breweries in Nigeria. Questionnaire was used to collect data from 288 engineers employed in four major breweries. The major information need of the engineers is to acquire more knowledge. The results further show that the knowledge quest of the engineers is not necessarily for academic, research, or product related purposes, but rather about new discoveries in the field and how to use new equipment. The engineers seek less information about their clients, or social and political activities; the nature of their tasks and engagement tends to limit their interaction with their social environment. The Internet is the source used most, preferred, accessed most and considered most relevant by the respondents. The breweries need to recognize and improve the availability and accessibility of the Internet in the workplace; they also need to promote social Web technologies such as blogs, wikis, podcasts and other social networking services to increase social interaction with colleagues and other persons. These strategies ultimately lead to better job performance, facilitate innovation, and encourage economic growth in the breweries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This bibliographic study identifies over 600 secondary sources published up to and including 2003 that have been omitted in previous bibliographies in Ismaili studies, namely, Farhad Daftary’s "Ismaili Literature: A Bibliography of Sources and Studies" (London, 2004) and Nagib Tajdin’s "A Bibliography of Ismailism" (Delmar, 1985). It encompasses all aspects of Ismaili thought and history, including the Fatimid and Alamut periods, as well as studies on modern Ismaili communities. The study consists of: an introduction that describes the research methods utilized, the omissions arranged in author-alphabetical order, and a subject index. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a partial update to Jocelyn Hendrickson's "A Guide to Arabic Manuscript Libraries in Morocco, with Notes on Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, and Spain," published in the 2008 issue of MELA Notes. The present update is meant to append rather than to replace the Guide. In the past five years, a substantial number of new manuscript catalogues have been published, and a few Moroccan libraries have undergone notable changes. These developments will be reviewed below, based on information gathered in Morocco through June 2013. The standard disclaimer that appears in travel guides is no less relevant here; researchers should be aware that libraries may experience closures or policy changes at any time. Making prior contact to ensure access is recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online or virtual exhibitions are no more new tools to libraries, museums, art galleries and particularly to education institutions. The National Library of Medicine, United States, Holocaust Memorial Museum, Smithsonian Information, many counties national archives, etc. started exhibiting their information resources through these tools. These education resources provide instructional templates that present and use exhibition materials to engage students' interest in historical and scientific perspectives. Educators are welcome to review and use the module or lesson plans in whole or in part, as appropriate for their students' interests, levels, and academic goals. This paper studied how virtual or online exhibitions could be used for instructional purpose to the graduate students of painting programme at university level. This study found useful for using of virtual museums for teacher education. The teachers had positive approaches in terms of acquiring culture and constructing knowledge regarding painting, art, recognising painters and paintings, producing original art works, interacting between individual, society and artist, providing information sources to their students in teacher proficiency and career. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – This paper has a twofold aim. Firstly, to give some insight into competitive intelligence practices in a little-explored area in the field of competitive intelligence: the higher education sector. Secondly, to find out more about the factors influencing competitive intelligence practices, since little research on this subject has been published. Design/methodology/approach – The investigation used a mixed-methods approach, including face-to-face, semi structured interviews with 47 university managers (degree coordinators, deans and vice-rectors), followed by a semi-structured questionnaire carried out with 400 degree coordinators and deans and analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. The interviews informed the questionnaire design. Findings – The survey confirms the proposed framework's usefulness for analysing the enabler and inhibitor factors in an organisation for promoting efficient competitive intelligence practice and also gives some insight into which factors enable or inhibit the efficacy of competitive intelligence practices in Spanish universities. Research limitations/implications – The research focused on degree design adapted to the EHEA. A larger study designed to focus on other management areas in universities would provide a fuller picture of factors influencing competitive intelligence practices. Practical implications – The findings indicate the areas where universities could plan actions to optimise intelligence activities, make the most of them and stand out from the rest. Originality/value – This paper sets out a framework to describe factors related to intelligence function and cycle. In addition, the study reveals which indicators act as enablers or inhibitors for competitive intelligence practices and takes account of some of the particular features of the higher education sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was undertaken to determine the information seeking behavior and library use by research scholars at the Banasthali University. The overall purpose of the study was to determine what their information requirements and also determine their awareness of library services available to them. The study collected data on the information requirements of researchers. Data were gathered from 100 researchers out of 150 through open and closed questionnaire. Findings indicate that guidance in the use of library resources and services is necessary to help researchers meet some of their information requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When patients need information, they may visit a doctor, ask a nurse, or look online. But these are not the only sources of information used by patients. This paper examines discussion threads in online renal support groups to describe how people living with kidney failure conceive of help, information and support. I use Actor Network Theory to locate unexpected sources of information and authority such as information obtained from lived experiences, from bodies or from the machinery used to maintain health. By virtue of being embedded in networks of interrelating elements, the patient emerged as a potential information locus: potentially able to confirm information such as medical measurements, make measurements themselves, generate information related to their own sensations, and summarise information about the trajectory of their illness. Implications for practice include an expanded conception of health information literacy for patients, and expanded possibilities for health information service provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the benefits of using Marketing Information System (MkIS) for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Fiji. The paper comprises of quantitative data, which is comprehensively analysed statistically. Structured questionnaire was used to collect data from the SMEs from five major towns in Fiji forming a sample of 96 SMEs. This research has found that, SMEs in Fiji are quite aware of the resulting benefits of MkIS, though the usage rate is low. This has resulted in changes for SMEs' business in terms of growth (sales and profits), from the time when SMEs started using MkIS or any form of technologies. The importance of MkIS in making extreme decision is also tested and analysed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how often university academic staff members use and create various forms of social media for their work and how that use influences their use of traditional scholarly information sources. Design/methodology/approach – This article is based on a 2011 academic reading study conducted at six higher learning institutions in the United Kingdom. Approximately 2,000 respondents completed the web-based survey. The study used the critical incident of last reading by academics to gather information on the purpose, outcomes, and values of scholarly readings and access to library collections. In addition, academics were asked about their use and creation of social media as part of their work activities. The authors looked at six categories of social media – blogs, videos/YouTube, RSS feeds, Twitter feeds, user comments in articles, podcasts, and other. This article focuses on the influence of social media on scholarly reading patterns. Findings – Most UK academics use one or more forms of social media for work-related purposes, but creation is less common. Frequency of use and creation is not as high as might be expected, with academics using or creating social media occasionally rather than regularly. There are some differences in use or creation based on demographic factors, including discipline and age. The use and creation of social media does not adversely affect the use of traditional scholarly material, and high frequency users or creators of social media read more scholarly material than others. Originality/value – This paper illustrates that academics who are engaged with traditional materials for their scholarly work are also embracing various forms of social media to a higher degree than their colleagues. This suggests that social media tools could be a good addition to traditional forms of scholarly content as a way to promote academic growth. Social media is not replacing traditional scholarly material, but rather is enhancing their use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information is crucial to all human endeavors, therefore it is necessary that required information is provided to all categories of people. This has been the call by many organizations, including libraries, which have also laid more emphasis on access to information. The federal government of Nigeria announced a seven point agenda aimed at achieving the development of the nation. One of the items in the agenda centers on agriculture and food security, which should be a priority for any developing nation. Agriculture not only feeds the teeming population, but it also enhances economic growth and development. Rural women in Nigeria are predominantly involved in agriculture; they produce the food for the citizenry. As a result, they should be well armed with the necessary information, knowledge and resources that will assist them, to achieve the goal of improved agriculture and food security. This cannot be achieved by writing alone because the overwhelming majority of them are non-literate. Based on this fact, the service of librarians becomes imperative, since they are the custodians of knowledge. They should repackage the required information in a way that it will be accessible to the rural women. This paper highlights the activities of rural women and examines how they access information. Understanding the challenges they face in doing so, will improve the services rendered by librarians to this critical segment of the society. The population of the study consists of rural women in some local government areas in Southeast Nigeria. The method of data collection was by focus group interview as most of them cannot write. The data collected from the interviews were analyzed and discussed. The study discovered that there are women cooperatives in Southeast Nigeria, involved in different types of farming like cassava and maize farm, pepper farm, poultry farm etc. They get assistance more from the FADAMAR, ADP and Agric commercial banks. They receive literacy programmes from Agric extension officers and cooperative officers. Their major problems are inadequate personnel to assist them in some of their programmes, delay in getting Government assistance, inadequate funds to carry out their projects and difficulty in transportation and bad roads. Based on this, the paper concluded that Librarians should make more contributions to the literacy programmes of these women and the government needs to provide more assistance to these women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to increase the understanding of the ways that people find health information in Iran, as a developing country, and also to identify how they evaluate the roles of public libraries in providing their users with health information. The setting of the study is public libraries of Qazvin City of Iran. The four main public libraries in different areas of the city were selected for research. Sample size of this study was 200(n=200). To collect data a structured questionnaire was used. Data were summarized using frequency (%) for qualitative variables. The Chi-Square tests were also used to test the association between the socio-demographic variables and health information seeking behavior. The study indicates that health information seekers in Iran are passive information seekers rather than active ones. The results showed that most common resources for seeking health information were "TV" and "discussions with others". Among the persons used internet for search health information, search engines such as "Google" or "Yahoo" were more used. Also results indicated that among persons going to public libraries, there was a group that referred to public library for finding information about health and for using information sources such as medical magazines, books and etc. In review of relationship between socio-demographic properties such as age, gender, education and job and the use of health information resource conclude that there is a meaningful-relationship between education level and use of internet for getting health information and between age, job and "discussions with family, relatives or close friends" for receiving health information. This study suggests that one of the key issues in public libraries could be educating the citizens (its members at least) until people become familiar with available health resources in the library and even librarians teach them how to search on the authentic websites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explored demand for mental health information and the sources used to get that information among female hospital staff in Taiwan. Results showed that nurses had higher demand than other occupational groups of hospital female employees for information about emotion, gender, and career. Administrators were more inclined, and physicians less inclined, than were other occupational groups of employees to seek mental health information from interpersonal sources. Staff in positions of less responsibility or in more junior positions than others had higher demand for information about mental disorders. Women who held a bachelor's degree or higher educational qualification recorded a greater demand than did other groups for information about gender and career. Women whose tenure was longer compared to other participants had the lowest demand for information about emotion and disorders. Those working more than 8 hours a day recorded a higher demand for gender information than did those who were working shorter hours. We suggest that human resources managers in hospitals should meet these information demands to ensure mental well-being of staff. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – This paper aims to identify the opinions of undergraduate students on the importance of internet-based information sources when they undertake academic tasks. Design/methodology/approach – Based on a set of identified typical academic tasks for undergraduate students, three research questions were designed around the students' usage and views of information resources for completing these tasks. Web-accessible questionnaires were used to collect data from participants in two universities in the USA and China, and the data were analyzed using quantitative methods, which included several statistic methods. Findings – The results confirm that undergraduate students use different information resources for various academic tasks. In their tasks, online electronic resources including search engines are the most commonly used resources, particularly for complex academic tasks. Social networking sites are not used for the students' individual academic tasks, and traditional resources still play equal or more important roles in certain specific academic tasks. Students in collaborative tasks look for resources that make it easy to share documents. Participants from the two countries also exhibit interesting and important differences in their usage of information resources. Originality/value – This study examines undergraduate students' usages and views of different information resources in their various academic tasks, and pays special attention to the impacts of being from their different countries. The study also considers both students' individual academic tasks and collaborative tasks. This study is an invaluable addition to the information seeking behaviour literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Psychology, Society & Education is the property of Psychology, Society & Education and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Purpose -- This study reports the trends and practices of seeking online information sources of Science faculties of a university of developing country. The focus was to explore their trends and practices of accessing and using online sources in both modes, i.e. Open Access (OA) and Subscribed Access (SA) to meet their academic and research information. Design/methodology/approach -- Quantitative design of research, based on a self-completion structured questionnaire survey was used. Surveyed population consisted of whole full time S&T teachers working in the 25 institutions/colleges/departments of all four S&T faculties viz. Sciences, Life Science, Engineering & Technology and Pharmacy of the University of the Punjab. Total response rate was 71% (156 out of 220 existed members). Frequency measure, descriptive statistics (mean (µ) and further, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were used to analyze, to interpret the data and to draw conclusions. Findings -- The survey results report valuable information regarding the digital access culture of this community. Though these are not considered extremely important and nor, are fully exploiting. Yet both modes are playing important and complementing role in meeting the e-scholarly needs of this community. It also discloses that there is no significant difference exists regarding the importance, use of both modes and adequacy level of subscribed sources among faculties. Originality/value- Comparative analyses show no significant difference between the importance and use of these both modes in meeting the e-information. This study is the first account of the utilization of online modes by Science faculties of university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine past, current, and future usage of encyclopedias. Design/methodology/approach - The paper reviews the history of encyclopedias, their composition, and usage by focusing on select publications covering different subject areas. Findings - Due to their static nature, traditionally published encyclopedias are not always accurate, objective information resources. Intentions of editors and authors also come into question. A researcher may find more value in using encyclopedias as historical documents rather than resources for quick facts. Practical implications - Academic librarians may begin to invest more selectively in encyclopedias, whether in print or electronic format, and market them differently to students and faculty. Originality/value - This article explores the academic value of encyclopedias in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a paradigm shift the world over, the way how information and knowledge is being generated, stored, accessed, disseminated and consumed. Information and communication technology (ICT) is the game changer in this and it has propelled the growth of large numbers of electronic resources across the world. Organizations now spend a major portion of their budget for subscribing to electronic resources such as e-journals, e-books, bibliographic/full-text databases, online services and web portals. It is imperative on the part of the information professional to have a componentized and a multi-system approach to knowledge technologies and information management. Seamless aggregation and meticulous integration of diverse data streams embracing the traditional as well as the electronic information is the most appropriate strategy to be adopted and applied. Switching over to the technology pedestal shall ensure the information systems an exponential growth in the r-resource base, as well as facility to outreach to a wider community at a 24x7 formula. Information systems could also explore numerous resource base enhancement innovations such as the UGC Infonet, INDEST Consortium etc. and several Open Source Digital Library technologies towards making the library vibrant, resourceful, accessible and visible. More over with the advent of an array of ICT applications and with the upsurge and penetration of a vast variety of electronic content, the multitude of electronic information services will indeed attract and potentially influence the users prompting them to step in and stick to the changed scenario. As a measure of the impact on the scientific and research productivity, the increase in the overall scholarly intellectual capital of the institute could be matched against the improvement in research publications and the conferences, symposia, workshops etc. hosted by the organization. Quality improvement on the courses offered by the organization could also be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large number of diverse, complex, and distributed data resources are currently available in the Bioinformatics domain. The pace of discovery and the diversity of information means that centralised reference databases like UniProt and Ensembl cannot integrate all potentially relevant information sources. From a user perspective however, centralised access to all relevant information concerning a specific query is essential. The Distributed Annotation System (DAS) defines a communication protocol to exchange annotations on genomic and protein sequences; this standardisation enables clients to retrieve data from a myriad of sources, thus offering centralised access to end-users. We introduce MyDas, a web server that facilitates the publishing of biological annotations according to the DAS specification. It deals with the common functionality requirements of making data available, while also providing an extension mechanism in order to implement the specifics of data store interaction. MyDas allows the user to define where the required information is located along with its structure, and is then responsible for the communication protocol details. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Libraries have been cooperating and collaborating on collection building and resource sharing for many years. The cooperation was based on inter-library loan and preparation and publication of union catalogue. But the ways of cooperation in building resources and access to information resources was not easy and effective. Library cooperation for access to information resources was limited to the formation of networking among the libraries having homogeneous interest. Like many other countries, Bangladesh also formed networks of libraries of different disciplines of knowledge, which could not sustain due to lack of appropriate communication system. To ascertain the status of collection of information resources, networking, resource sharing and automation of libraries of Bangladesh, a questionnaire based survey has been conducted. The library surveyed fall into the following categories (a) academic libraries (b) research / special libraries. It is found that in terms of collection of information resources, the efforts of most of the libraries are confined to acquiring books only. Majority of libraries are not subscribing to current titles of journal. Many libraries have not taken part in resource sharing network and library cooperation programme. However a large number of libraries surveyed subscribe to on-line journals through a library consortium and they already initiated library automation programme. But a great chunk of the libraries developed library software to provide database service to its institution members only. Very few libraries developed software to provide database service to serve worldwide. The establishment of digital library by majority of libraries to provide full text information resources is still a far cry. This study delineates the ways of web-based library cooperation with the conclusion that the automation of libraries and effective formation of country consortium can only promote the effective library cooperation for access to worldwide information and global resource sharing. Current study also recommends that government should take up development project to provide appropriate ICT training at global standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students must learn content knowledge and develop scientific literacy skills to evaluate and use scientific information in real-world situations. Recognizing the accessibility of scientific information to the average citizen, we developed an instructional approach to help students learn how to judge the quality of claims. We describe a project-based applied learning (PAL) approach that utilizes engaging questions about biological issues relevant to students. Working through these projects, students are challenged to evaluate sources of information and communicate their understanding of scientific claims. We discuss challenges that students encounter and offer suggestions for enacting this approach in a general-education college classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to find out the level of use of information sources by faculty members, research scholars and students of the faculty of commerce, amu, aligarh. a structured questionnaire was administered to the faculty members, research scholars and students of the Faculty of Commerce, AMU, Aligarh. The survey reveals that the maximum number of Faculty Members as well as Research Scholars uses Journals for getting their required information, while Students prefer general books for getting their required information. After general books they consult journals as well as supervisors/seniors. It is also found that most of the Research scholars as well as the students access printed journals/periodicals in the central library while most of the faculty members personally subscribe printed journals/periodicals. It has also been found out that most of the faculty members as well as research scholars consulted Emeraldinsight.com and Science Direct.com for accessing their required information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a study that determined the format and type of information resources favored by library and information science (LIS) researchers. Topics covered include conducting a citation analysis by using questionnaires for analyzing data from references used in selected copies of articles. Findings showed that LIS researchers are using non electronic sources than the electronic format and relying more on government publications, conference papers, theses and operating manuals.

Every organization requires data and information to run its business and support decision making. These data and information can be obtained from many sources, internal or external organization. Wherever they come from, data and information should be free from any errors and defects to make the business run well and the decision taken from them qualified. In this article, after determination of information quality criteria, weight or importance of each criterion were calculated by utilizing fuzzy-AHP. The main conclusion from this particular study was designing a model to illustrate the information gap between current level and targeted level. The gap between those two levels could be used as guideline for improvement plan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ontology is commonly used as a structure capturing knowledge about a certain area via providing relevant concepts and relations between them. Nowadays, because of the increase in designing ontologies in different domains, it is important to describe some criteria for selecting the most appropriate ontology. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the ontology evaluation criteria, approaches and layers. At first, different evaluation stages in ontology evaluation were explained. Then the most important approaches to ontology evaluation were described: included gold standard, task-based, data-driven and criteria based evaluation. Another part of this paper was about ontology evaluation criteria such as those mentioned by experts of ontology domain as well as the criteria that proposed by US National Center for ontological Research. Lastly, the levels of ontology evaluation, involved lexical, vocabulary, or data layer, hierarchy or taxonomy layer, other semantic relations layer, context or application level, syntactic level, structure, architecture and design layer were characterized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to investigate teachers’ perception of sources of knowledge in their continuing professional development (CPD). It investigates whether the perceived importance of a source can be related to its trustworthiness. Knowledge sources comprise institutions and colleagues, who produce knowledge for teachers’ development. The issues are examined by analysis of questionnaire studies on teachers’ CPD with a sample size of 711 teachers in Germany and Sweden. The results show that a knowledge source’s trustworthiness is a relevant and significant predictor for its importance in teachers’ CPD. However, the national context in which teachers work also has a considerable influence. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Copyright of Bulletin des bibliothèques de France is the property of ENSSIB and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The study surveyed the agricultural information needs, information sources used and the awareness of the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA)’s products and services by the various agricultural stakeholders in Botswana. The survey covered 52 agricultural researchers/educators, 30 extension agents, 54 students, 12 commercial farmers, and 45 subsistence farmers. Data collection instruments used for the study were the questionnaire, interview and focus group discussions. The findings reveal that the agricultural stakeholders in Botswana had a wide range of information needs, especially on government programmes, farm problems and identification of market for agricultural products. The prominent information sources used were the Internet, journal articles and technical papers. The study also revealed that most of the stakeholders were not aware of CTA’s products and services and that the Spore magazine was the product mainly used. The Question and Answer Service was rarely used by the stakeholders. The study recommends that the Botswana College of Agriculture (BCA) Library should be selected as the agency to provide agricultural information services to all the stakeholders in Botswana, given its rich information resources in agriculture, and that CTA should reappraise its services in Botswana by ensuring that its services are well utilized by agricultural information stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study empirically examines whether Wikipedia has a neutral point of view. It develops a method for measuring the slant of 28 thousand articles about US politics. In its earliest years, Wikipedia's political entries lean Democrat on average. The slant diminishes during Wikipedia's decade of experience. This change does not arise primarily from revision of existing articles. Most articles arrive with a slant, and most articles change only mildly from their initial slant. The overall slant changes due to the entry of articles with opposite slants, leading toward neutrality for many topics, not necessarily within specific articles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses library and information science in Nigeria as of April 2012, with a focus on food security, sustainability, and information resources on maize production by rural youth. Topics include the significance of maize to Nigeria, the impact of socioeconomic conditions on agricultural production, and farming experience and household size. Additional information is presented on youths and their social organization memberships, frequency distributions of educational levels, and measures of cosmopolitanness.

The paper offers the foundations of the theory of information media. Information media are dynamical systems with additional macrostructure of information-carrying states and information-preserving transformations. The paper also defines the notion of information media network as a system of information media connected by information transformations. It is demonstrated that many standard examples of information-containing and processing systems are captured by the general notion of information medium. The paper uses the theory (and informal discussion) of information media to motivate a structural approach to the information in media. The idea is that the notion of information transformation should be regarded as more primitive than the notion of informational state. Thus in information systems, especially in the context of information technology, information is secondary while information transformation is primary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Process modeling is an emergent area of Information Systems research that is characterized through an abundance of conceptual work with little empirical research. To fill this gap, this paper reports on the development and validation of an instrument to measure user acceptance of process modeling grammars. We advance an extended model for a multi-stage measurement instrument development procedure, which incorporates feedback from both expert and user panels. We identify two main contributions: First, we provide a validated measurement instrument for the study of user acceptance of process modeling grammars, which can be used to assist in further empirical studies that investigate phenomena associated with the business process modeling domain. Second, in doing so, we describe in detail a procedural model for developing measurement instruments that ensures high levels of reliability and validity, which may assist fellow scholars in executing their empirical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

HIV infection defines particular ways of information management among people affected by this health condition. This article presents the results of a study aimed to determine how the information needs and information-seeking behaviours are generated and expressed in a sample of people with HIV from Lima, Peru, essaying an ethnographic, interpretative approach to explore the role of different forms of uncertainty present in different moments of their lives. The results inform an explanatory theoretical model which establish a continuum with a base formed by people's multiple experiences of uncertainty, from where some specific information needs emerge. Depending of the people's stages in their life trajectories with HIV and several socio-cultural factors, some information needs can be expressed as information-seeking behaviours. The study's findings support an analysis approach based in human experiences, social relationships, contextual elements and life trajectories which define information flows. In that sense, this approach has some implications for theory, social research, and professional practice in Information Science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The objective of this paper is to enhance the knowledge about environmental scanning at the corporate level. It seeks an answer to the research question: Is there an influence of industry sector and firm size on the use of external information sources? Design/methodology/approach – To verify three research hypotheses, the authors performed a cross-sectional study among 165 Portuguese firms. The explorative data analyses consisted of multivariate analysis of variance and Tukey's honestly significant difference test. Findings – Overall, the range of frequently used external information sources is relatively limited, consisting of both personal and impersonal sources. Results suggest a certain "industry effect" and indicate above all a "size effect". Besides this, the service sector possesses most sourcing peculiarities, and smaller firms underuse some relevant sources. Research limitations/implications – The research design applied limits the sample to Portuguese firms and their environment. This geographically circumscribed approach may limit the extent to which the conclusions and implications can be generalised and universally applied. Originality/value – Despite the importance of environmental scanning, little research has hitherto been conducted to analyse variances across industry sectors and firm size. This paper is one of the first attempts to study their joint effects on the use of scanning information sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The management of outsourced information systems development (ISD) projects is both complex and problematic due to the type of outsourcing arrangement, the nature of the work that is outsourced, and the relationship between the vendor and client. Moreover, outsourced projects are conducted in an unstructured environment with divergent organizational expectations. Existing project management techniques and methodologies may not be sufficient to resolve such complexity, and project management needs to encompass knowledge-based aspects of management. Knowledge-based practices (KBPs) are directed to exploring, understanding and making sense of complex situations, sharing that understanding and using that understanding to inform actions to resolve that complexity. These KBPs need to be explicitly included in an expanded repertoire of project management techniques. In this paper we explore how KBPs facilitate the conduct execution of an outsourced ISD projects through a case study in a large Australian federal government department. Our study shows how KBPs operationalize and formalise a knowledge-based approach to project management for the successful delivery and management of outsourced projects. Significantly our study shows that KBPs are not only used within the project boundary but are also applied outside of the project boundaries boundary to address project complexity at a broader, strategic organizational level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the results of a study investigating the relationship between the size and quality of information resources and their use by students at universities in Southeast Nigeria. A literature review of previous research is offered, and the study's goals, methodology, and hypotheses are examined. The finding that size and quality of resources did correlate significantly with library usage by students is commented on, and suggestions for improving library usage through collection development are presented.

The article discusses the methology of the qualitative market research conducted by the Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften (ZBW), a German economics library, in order to refine services offered to their target users. The research first clarified how the target groups receive their information, the information management and resources, and their eventual use of new media. Then the ZBW used qualitative market research tools such as group discussions, workshops, and expert interviews.

This paper describes a model for assessing and reporting schoollevel resources. State and local decision-makers have been seeking ways to obtain such information for more than a decade, but there is as yet no easy, accessible way to do so and no way to satisfy both internal and external users of the information. The model, based on case studies in Pennsylvania (with successful replication in New York), resolves many of the issues. The seven principles that guide the model are explained, challenges in developing school-level reports are generalized, and resolutions to the challenges in three states are compared. The conclusion draws out implications for the future of regularly collected school resource data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates source selection in prescription drug information seeking and influencing factors on selection and seeking behaviors applying a modified Comprehensive Model of Information Seeking in an American context. Survey results suggest consumers engage in prescription drug information search before and after visiting a doctor, but search is not extensive. Consumers turn to the Internet, pharmacists, and doctors most frequently for prescription drug information. Information-seeking behaviors are rather universal across demographic and health-related characteristics; however, higher income consumers are more likely to search. Although our study shows some support for the modified Comprehensive Model of Information Seeking, the results indicate influencing factors vary by information source types examined, suggesting the model is more complex than predicted. The study advances research on health communication, information-seeking behaviors, and prescription drug decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article considers the use of covariance structure analysis (CSA) in structural equation modeling in information systems research. It is noted that while Formatively measured constructs have been increasingly used in information systems research, most studies have have been relying on the partial least squares (PLS) method to estimate structural models involving constructs measured with formative indicators. Issues and possible problems involving formatively measured constructs within a covariance-based modeling framework are discussed.

The article examines methodology on research on management information systems and organization. The problem of selecting among different means of measurement of information in management science and other social science research is considered, along with the issue of construct validity in research on those optics. A variety of methodologies are examined including the marker variable approach, the latent method factor and the method-method pair technique. It is concluded that the complexities of research will prevent standardization of methodology.

We investigated the role of number agreement on verb and of animacy in the comprehension of subject and object relative clauses in 51 monolingual Italian-speaking children, mean age 9:33, tested through a self-paced listening experiment with a final comprehension question. A digit span test and a listening span test were also administered to examine the role of memory in comprehension. Subject relative clauses were easier to comprehend than object relative clauses; animacy of the relative clause head improved comprehension of object relative clauses; memory, as measured by the digit span test, modulates comprehension of object relative clauses, both with animate and inanimate heads, as shown in response accuracy. Although all children process number agreement morphology on the verb, only some perform a correct reanalysis, as shown by the accuracy measures. We argue that number agreement disambiguation is particularly taxing for children, as it provides a negative symptom in the sense of Fodor and Inoue (J Psycholinguist Res 29(1):25-36, ) and reanalysis requires them to hold two dependencies in memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study regarding the availability and utilization of information and communication technologies (ICT) resources at the Olabisi Onabanjo University Libraries in Abeokuta, Nigeria. The method utilized in the study was a descriptive survey which targets student population. Result shows that most of the respondents used the computer and Internet services to access their information needs and recommends the use news electronic resources and computerize tools to promote learning.