Natural history collections house immense amounts of data, but the majority of data is only accessible by locating the collection label, which is usually attached to the physical specimen. This method of data retrieval is time consuming and can be very damaging to fragile specimens. Digitizing the collections is the one way to reduce the time and potential damage related to finding the collection objects. The Elm Fork Natural Heritage Museum is a natural history museum located at the University of North Texas and contains collections of both vertebrate and invertebrate taxa, as well as plants. This project designed a collection digitization workflow for Elm Fork by working through digitizing the Benjamin B. Harris Herbarium. The collection was cataloged in Specify 6, a database program designed for natural history collection management. By working through one of the museum’s collections, the project was able to identify and address challenges related to digitizing the museum’s holdings in order to create robust workflows. The project also produced a series of documents explaining common processes in Specify and a data management plan.

This study applies the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) framework for eScience professionals to data service positions in academic libraries. Understanding the KSAs needed to provide data services is of crucial concern. The current study looks at KSAs of data professionals working in the United States academic libraries. An exploratory sequential mixed method design was adopted to discover the KSAs. The study was divided into two phases, a qualitative content analysis of 260 job advertisements for data professionals for Phase 1, and distribution of a self-administered online survey to data professionals working in academic libraries research data services (RDS) for Phase 2. The discovery of the KSAs from the content analysis of 260 job ads and the survey results from 167 data professionals were analyzed separately, and then Spearman rank order correlation was conducted in order to triangulate the data and compare results. The results from the study provide evidence on what hiring managers seek through job advertisements in terms of KSAs and which KSAs data professionals find to be important for working in RDS. The Spearman rank order correlation found strong agreement between job advertisement KSAs and data professionals perceptions of the KSAs.

The purpose of the study was to explore faculty attitudes towards institutional repositories in order to better understand their research habits and preferences. A better understanding of faculty needs and attitudes will enable academic libraries to improve institutional repository services and policies. A phenomenological approach was used to interview fourteen participants and conduct eight observations to determine how tenure-track faculty want to disseminate their research as well as their attitudes towards sharing research data. Interviews were transcribed and coded into emerging themes. Participants reported that they want their research to be read, used, and to have an impact. While almost all faculty see institutional repositories as something that would be useful for increasing the impact and accessibility of their research, they would consider publishers’ rights before depositing work in a repository. Researchers with quantitative data, and researchers in the humanities are more likely to share data than with qualitative or mixed data, which is more open to interpretation and inference. Senior faculty members are more likely than junior faculty members to be concerned about the context of their research data. Junior faculty members’ perception’ of requirements for tenure will inhibit their inclination to publish in open access journals, or share …

With increasing emphasis on technology in schools, the importance of technology policies is great. This study investigated policies for four 1:1 secondary schools in Texas (schools with a ratio of one computing device per student), particularly with respect to the relationship of those policies to practice. The purpose of the study was to determine the current status of the National Education Technology Standards (NETS) essential conditions as reflected in policy and the relationship of those conditions to practice as measured through levels of technology usage and teaching innovation. Schools were selected through purposive, criterion sampling. Open-ended interviews were conducted with twelve participants (principals, technology directors, and superintendents). Policies were rated by campus principals and the researcher using a rubric based on the NETS essential conditions. Finally, surveys of proficiency and readiness measures were collected from 156 teachers using the School Technology and Readiness (STaR) instrument and the Levels of Teaching Innovation (LoTI) instrument. Interviews were transcribed and coded using structural and frequency coding. Policies were analyzed using magnitude coding and policy ratings. A qualitative analysis determined patterns between policy and practice. Quantitative data collected from surveys were measured against policy ratings and magnitude coding using bivariate correlation methods in SPSS. …

Indigenous communities around the world are losing their languages at accelerating rates to the effects of the climate crisis and global capitalism. To preserve samples of these languages facing endangerment and extinction, samples of language use (e.g., audio-video recordings, photographs, textual transcriptions, translations, and analyses) are created and stored in language archives: repositories intended to provide long-term preservation of and access to language materials. In recent years, archives of all kinds are considering their origins and audiences. With the emergence of the community paradigm of archiving framework, the roles of archivists, communities, and institutions are under re-examination. Language archives too are reflecting this trend, as it becomes more common for speakers of Indigenous languages (also known as language communities) to document and archive their own languages and histories. As the landscape of language archiving expands, we now see increased emphasis on the re-use of archival material, particularly to support language revitalization—efforts to increase and maintain the use of the language. There are calls for language documentation (and, by extension, language archiving) to prioritize revitalization efforts. This dissertation is a case study of one language archive collection: the Boro Language Resource in the Computational Resource for South Asian Languages (CoRSAL) archive. …

This study was aimed at understanding the use of technology in early childhood school and home settings as well as its impact on students' social and language development, specifically with children aged four to seven from two schools (Kindergarten and elementary) in Kuwait. The study followed a qualitative design in which the interpretative approach was applied. Non-participant observations were conducted to gather data concerning the actual use of technology in the classrooms, they were followed by interviews with teachers and a group of parents from each classroom. The study used Vygotsky's social development theory as a framework for the analysis of data. The analysis showed limitations in the use of technology in the classroom; teachers identified a need for training to increase their knowledge about how to integrate technology into instruction. Also, the limited availability of up-to-date technology was viewed as a challenge. Teachers and parents agreed that the use of technology may foster social and language development for most students, on the condition that their use is supervised and guided by an adult. However, they also perceived that technology could have a negative impact on the development of students' social development, an area that requires further investigation.

This study examined the impact of the National Science Foundation's Research Experience for Teachers (RET) in engineering at University of North Texas on students after their teachers' participation in the program. Students were evaluated in terms of self-efficacy, knowledge of engineering, perceptions of engineering, and interest in engineering. A 22-item Likert pre/post survey was used for analysis, and participants included 589 students from six high schools, one middle school, and one magnet school. Paired surveys were analyzed to determine if there was a statistically significant difference in attitudes and knowledge after teachers implemented lessons from their time at the RET. Surveys were also analyzed to determine if there was a statistically significant difference in student response based on gender or student school type. Results showed no statistically significant difference in the self-efficacy of students, however there was a statistically significant difference in knowledge, perceptions, and interest in engineering. In addition, there was a statistically significant difference between genders on an isolated question, and seven out of the 22 Likert questions showed a statistically significant difference between student school types.

Digital language archives are used for the preservation of documented language data, such as video and voice recordings, transcriptions, survey data, and ethnographic fieldnotes. This data is most often used for research and linguists and anthropologists are generally heavily involved in the creation of language archives. Ideally, Indigenous communities that are represented in the archives are also able to access their data, but this is not always the case, especially if poor internet access and lack of technological know-how prevent archive use. In addition, western epistemologies are embedded in archival logics, exacerbating the issues surrounding Indigenous access and pointing to the need for a decolonizing archival design that centers the needs of its users. Using ethnographic research methods and a decolonizing framework, I conducted a usability study on the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA) to uncover the cultural-based meanings that inform AILLA use. Using linguistics and anthropology listservs, I recruited research participants for a Qualtrics survey and conducted semi-structured interviews that explore the user perspective on AILLA. I analyzed AILLA's Google Analytics data and used qualitative and quantitative research methods to build upon the previous literature in user-centered design approaches to language archives. As one of …