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Preprints play an important role in scholarly conversation. This paper examines perceptions of preprints through the lens of students using a simulated Google environment. Data were collected from 116 high school, community college, undergraduate, and graduate students with attention toward the helpfulness, credibility, and identification of preprints. Findings show preprint and peer-reviewed cues play little to no role in judging helpfulness or citability, but peer-review does when judging credibility. Further, most students did not recognize these resources as preprints. Implications and recommendations are discussed surrounding awareness and use of these openly available sources of scientific information.

Most studies of trusted digital repositories have focused on the internal factors delineated in the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Reference Model—organizational structure, technical infrastructure, and policies, procedures, and processes. Typically, these factors are used during an audit and certification process to demonstrate a repository can be trusted. The factors influencing a repository's designated community of users to trust it remains largely unexplored. This article proposes and tests a model of trust in a data repository and the influence trust has on users' intention to continue using it. Based on analysis of 245 surveys from quantitative social scientists who published research based on the holdings of one data repository, findings show three factors are positively related to data reuser trust—integrity, identification, and structural assurance. In turn, trust and performance expectancy are positively related to data reusers' intentions to return to the repository for more data. As one of the first studies of its kind, it shows the conceptualization of trusted digital repositories needs to go beyond high‐level definitions and simple application of the OAIS standard. Trust needs to encompass the complex trust relationship between designated communities of users that the repositories are being built to serve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine common and unique metadata requirements and their levels of description, determined by the data deposit forms of 20 repositories in three disciplines--archaeology, quantitative social science, and zoology. The results reveal that requirements relating to Creator, Description, Contributor, Date, Relation, and Location are common, whereas those regarding Publisher and Language are rarely listed across the disciplines. Data-level descriptions are more common than study- and file-level descriptions. The results suggest that repositories should require detailed study-level descriptions and information about data usage licenses and access rights. Moreover, repositories should determine metadata requirements in a standardized and consistent manner.

This paper explores how students judge scientific news resources, as they might find through a Google search. The data were collected as part of an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) funded project. Students used a simulated search engine that ensured study participants found the same search results while seeking information for a science-related school project. The 116 students from high school, community college, undergraduate, and graduate communities evaluated three online news resources for their helpfulness, citability, credibility, and container. Analysis of quantitative data from the study indicated that students may find news resources helpful for a science project, but do not always consider them citable. Students appeared to focus on the organization that produced the news resource (i.e., source) when judging its credibility. Not all students identified the resources' containers as news, even when the source was widely known. The researchers note differences in judgment between educational stages. Differences were especially pronounced between high school and higher education students, with high school students more likely to find news sources worthy of citing for school projects.

This qualitative research study examines librarians' research data management (RDM) experiences, specifically the factors that influence their ability to support researchers' needs. Findings from interviews with 36 academic library professionals in the United States identify 5 factors of influence: (1) technical resources; (2) human resources; (3) researchers' perceptions about the library; (4) leadership support; and (5) communication, coordination, and collaboration. Findings show different aspects of these factors facilitate or constrain RDM activity. The implications of these factors on librarians' continued work in RDM are considered.

A challenge of studying information-seeking behavior in open web systems is the unpredictability of those systems. One solution to counteract this issue is employing a simulation to ensure experimental control. However, concerns arise over the realism of such an environment. This paper assesses the realism of a behavioral simulation used to study the evaluation behavior of 175 students from fourth grade through graduate school. We assess realism through the examination of targeted participant feedback about what would have made the simulated environment and tasks more realistic to these participants. Based on this feedback, we reflect on decisions made in designing the simulation and offer recommendations for future studies interested in incorporating behavioral simulation in their research design. We find that a thoughtfully designed simulation can elicit naturalistic behavior when the controlled environment is designed to be realistic in meaningful ways. Because the simulation does not have to perfectly match reality to elicit these behaviors, designing a simulation that is real enough is an effective method to study information-seeking behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preprints play an important role in scholarly conversation. This paper examines perceptions of preprints through the lens of students using a simulated Google environment. Data were collected from 116 high school, community college, undergraduate, and graduate students with attention toward the helpfulness, credibility, and identification of preprints. Findings show preprint and peer-reviewed cues play little to no role in judging helpfulness or citability, but peer-review does when judging credibility. Further, most students did not recognize these resources as preprints. Implications and recommendations are discussed surrounding awareness and use of these openly available sources of scientific information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior studies have shown high‐level differences in people's perception and use of various information formats. However, the lack of a coherent and theoretically informed framework of elements of format has inhibited a nuanced understanding of the role that formats play in information behavior. This paper draws on theories from the field of rhetoric and composition to ground the study of information format in a social constructivist perspective that foregrounds action in context. Specifically, rhetorical genre theory is discussed in detail and the limitations of previous information behavior studies using rhetorical genre theory are explored. One of the main problems of earlier studies is confusing genres and their containers. This paper introduces and defines the concept of containers as typified ways of collecting and presenting texts of certain genres for publication. Building on rhetorical genre theory, the paper offers a theoretical exploration of the role that containers play in the formal and/or public sharing of information within discourse communities. An illustrative example of the concepts applied to data from an Institute of Museum and Library Services funded study is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine common and unique metadata requirements and their levels of description, determined by the data deposit forms of 20 repositories in three disciplines-- archaeology, quantitative social science, and zoology. The results reveal that requirements relating to Creator, Description, Contributor, Date, Relation, and Location are common, whereas those regarding Publisher and Language are rarely listed across the disciplines. Data-level descriptions are more common than study- and file-level descriptions. The results suggest that repositories should require detailed studylevel descriptions and information about data usage licenses and access rights. Moreover, repositories should determine metadata requirements in a standardized and consistent manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. We present an in-depth case study that follows collaborative data sharing, curation and reuse practices among eleven zooarchaeologists and two curators during a large data reuse project. A data life-cycle model highlights how factors in one life-cycle phase impacted other phases forming virtuous (positive) and vicious (negative) circles. Method. Mixed methods were employed, including individual and focus group interviews, observations, documentary analysis of e-mail threads, and review of curatorial guidelines. Analysis. Interview and e-mail data had two rounds of qualitative coding. General topical codes were established first. Next, relationships among the four life-cycle phases (data production, sharing, curation, and reuse) and factors having positive or negative effects were coded. Results. Data production practices were the most influential on other phases, data sharing practices followed. Curatorial intervention, at times laborious, did reverse factors that negatively influenced curation and reuse. Data reuse had a positive influence on all other phases. Conclusion. Data producers partnering with data curators to steer the data production process, after data management planning and before data deposit, is critical to avoid the proliferation of vicious circles and enable meaningful data reuse. Understanding the impact of data practices, can lead to self-reflection on the part of data producers, sharers, curators, and reusers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which editor discusses various articles within the issue on topics including collaboration around data management between archaeologists and information professionals, archaeological excavation and intersection of archaeology and information research.

This qualitative research study examines librarians’ research data management (RDM) experiences, specifically the factors that influence their ability to support researchers’ needs. Findings from interviews with 36 academic library professionals in the United States identify 5 factors of influence: 1) technical resources; 2) human resources; 3) researchers’ perceptions about the library; 4) leadership support; and 5) communication, coordination, and collaboration. Findings show different aspects of these factors facilitate or constrain RDM activity. The implications of these factors on librarians’ continued work in RDM are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the recent research on digital data repositories has focused on assessing either the trustworthiness of the repository or quantifying the frequency of data reuse. Satisfaction with the data reuse experience, however, has not been widely studied. Drawing from the information systems and information science literature, we developed a model to examine the relationship between data quality and data reusers' satisfaction. Based on a survey of 1,480 journal article authors who cited Inter- University Consortium for Political and Social Research ( ICPSR) data in published papers from 2008-2012, we found several data quality attributes-completeness, accessibility, ease of operation, and credibility-had significant positive associations with data reusers' satisfaction. There was also a significant positive relationship between documentation quality and data reusers' satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a digital environment, students have difficulty determining whether an information resource comes from a book, magazine, journal, blog, or other container, and lose the contextual information that these containers provide. This study of students from primary through graduate school looks at their ability to identify the containers of information resources, and how this ability is affected by their demographic traits, the resource features they attended to, and their behaviors during a task-based simulation. The results indicate that correct container identification requires deep engagement with a resource. Those who attended to cues such as genre and source were better able to identify container, while those who paid attention to heuristics such as its visual appearance and URL were not. Demographic characteristics, including educational cohort and first-generation student status, also had an effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the point-of-selection behavior of graduate school students in using web search engine Google for data collection. It presents quantitative and qualitative analysis of data collection methods. It highlights the impact of simulated search engines and multiple data collection methods on the development of knowledge of students. It also analyses the requirement of time, expertise and coordination in the execution of data collection methods.