In this multivariate correlational study, the researcher examined the course culture of an online graduate course whose environment exhibited characteristics of a Community of practice (CoP). An online survey captured data used to explore the relationships among variables shown to describe a CoP in field environments and among student perceptions of their experience in the course culture. A canonical correlation analysis (CCA) and commonality analysis (CA) were conducted using five predictor variables and three criterion variables to evaluate the degree and direction of the relationships. The CCA revealed that the full model was significant, explaining approximately 74% of the variance among the two synthetic variates. Impact, faculty leadership, and connection were the largest contributors to the predictor variate. The criterion variate was primarily explained by value and perceived CoP, with exposure to the profession providing a smaller contribution. The CA confirmed these findings. Results from this study indicate that a CoP could be fostered in an online graduate course. The overall significance of the model indicates teachers can nurture an environment wherein graduate students will take the initiative to work with others to create and acquire knowledge that creates a sense of professional connection with each other and with the …

This study explores the everyday life information seeking (ELIS) behavior of Catholic clergy in Northern Nigeria and describes their information use environment (IUE). It employed a mixed-method case study using survey and episodic interview techniques of data collection. The ELIS of Savolainen, the IUE of Taylor and the small world of Chatman were theoretical frameworks that guided this study. Findings showed that the IUE of these Catholic clergy is shaped by four elements: (1) geographical location and culture, (2) the celibate clergy, (3) their information needs, and (4) the information sources used to resolve these needs. Three types of information needs were identified: essential needs, circumstantial needs and intermittent needs. There was a high interrelatedness between the effects of culture and celibacy on the information seeking of these clergy. They are not likely to cross boundaries of their world to seek particularly essential information about their ministry or private lives. The findings of this study align with Chatman’s proposition that members who live in the round will not cross the boundaries of their world to seek information. The study found problems with access and availability of information, which included lack of familiarity with electronic/online library databases among the clergy, and …

From the very beginning, library education has been a mixture of theory and practice. Dewey required apprenticeships to be part of the first library school at the University of Chicago as a method to indoctrinate new professional. Today, acculturation is incorporated into the professional education through a large variety of experiential learning techniques, including internships, practicum, field work, and service learning projects, all of which are designed to develop some level of professional skills within an information organization. But, what is done for understanding library culture? It is said that one cannot truly recognize the extent of one's own cultural assumptions, until they have experienced another. This study followed a group of LIS graduate students that took that next step – going to Russia. By employing a critical hermeneutic methodology, this study sought to understand what value students gain by from working on an assessment project in an international school library. Using a horizon analysis, the researcher established the worldview of participants prior to their departure, analyzed their experience through post-experience interviews, and constructed an understanding of value. Among other concepts, the researcher looked specifically to see whether "library cultural competency", understanding library culture in global context, was developed through …

Information-seeking behavior is a mixture of activities and attitudes, oftentimes motivated by an individual's need to make a decision. One underlying element of this mixture is cognitive authority - which sources (e.g., individuals, institutions, texts, etc.) can be trusted to fulfil the information needs? In order to gain insight into the dynamics of cognitive authority selection behavior which is an information seeking behavior, this study explored primary source text data (316 text records) that reflected selection in the mundaneness of life (advice column submissions and responses). Linguistic analysis was performed on the data using the Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC2015) software package. Pearson correlation and 1-sample T tests revealed the same 45 statistically significant relationships (SSRs) in the word usage behavior of all subgroups. As a result of the study, the gap in research formed from the lack of quantitative models of cognitive authority relationships was addressed via the development of the Wordprint Classification System which was used to generate a cognitive authority relationship model in the form of a cognitive authority intra-segment wordprint. The findings and implications of this study may provide a contribution to the body of work in the area of information literacy and information seeker behavior …

Open access institutional repositories (OA IRs) are electronic systems that capture, preserve, and provide access to the scholarly digital work of an institution. As a new channel of scholarly communications IRs offer faculty a new way to disseminate their work to a wider audience, which in turn can increase the visibility to their work and impact factors, and at the same time increase institutions prestige and value. However, despite the increased popularity of IRs in numbers, research shows that IRs remain thinly populated in large part due to faculty reluctance to participate. There have been studies on the topic of open access repositories with the focus on external factors (social or technological context) that affect faculty attitudes towards participation in IRs, and there is a lack of understanding of the internal factors and the psychology of the reluctance. The goal of this mix method study was to identify the overall factors that affect faculty attitudes towards participation in IRs and examine the extent to which these factors influenced faculty willingness to participate in IRs. First, from literature review and the Model of Factors Affecting Faculty Self-Archiving this study identified eleven factors that influenced faculty members' intention to participate in OA …

The arrival of the Big Data era has become a major topic of discussion in many sectors because of the premises of big data utilizations and its impact on decision-making. It is an interdisciplinary issue that has captured the attention of scholars and created new research opportunities in information science, business, heath care, and many others fields. The problem is the Big Data is not well defined, so that there exists confusion in IT what jobs and skill sets are required in big data area. The problem stems from the newness of the Big Data profession. Because many aspects of the area are unknown, organizations do not yet possess the IT, human, and business resources necessary to cope with and benefit from big data. These organizations include health care, enterprise, logistics, universities, weather forecasting, oil companies, e-business, recruiting agencies etc., and are challenged to deal with high volume, high variety, and high velocity big data to facilitate better decision- making. This research proposes a new way to look at Big Data and Big Data analysis. It helps and meets the theoretical and methodological foundations of Big Data and addresses an increasing demand for more powerful Big Data analysis from the …

Makerspaces are a popular, new concept being implemented in public, academic, and school libraries, and as stand-alone spaces. The literature reflects the newness of the topic with a limited number of articles and studies and even less about the users of makerspaces themselves. This study explored information sharing behaviors in the Dallas Makerspace as an informal learning environment and described their preferred method of information transfer from one member to another. It employed a mixed methods methodology using surveys, interviews and observations. The study identified how the rules and policies in place at the makerspace influence the information seeking process and how the Dallas Makerspace exchanges information effectively. Dallas Makerspace is one of the largest non-profit work groups in its size, and this research study answers how information is exchanged in an informal environment.

This study applied the impression management theory in the context of social networking to investigate the generalized research question of this dissertation which is "Do active social media presence and various privacy concerns influence online behaviors of students on social media?" The results and conclusions are presented via the conduct of three different studies and the summary provides insights and explain the overall contribution of the research. For each study we developed a research model for which data was collected separately for each of these models. Hypotheses of each model were tested by partial least squares- structural equation modeling techniques using SmartPLS 2.0. Our findings confirm the hypotheses and showed that all the predictors positively influence online social networking behaviors. Active social media presence is operationalized as predictors such as SNS stalking awareness, Selective disclosure, desired differential persona, impression motivation, and information trustworthiness. Privacy concerns have been operationalized as SNS privacy awareness, technology awareness. Online behaviors have been operationalized as responsible image and reckless image.

Web archiving is the practice of preserving websites as a historical record. It is a technologically-challenging endeavor that has as its goal the creation of a high-quality archived website that looks and behaves exactly like the original website. Despite the importance of the notion of quality, comprehensive definitions of Information Quality (IQ) in a web archive have yet to be developed. Currently, the field has no single, comprehensive theory that describes what is a high-quality or low-quality archived website. Furthermore, most of the research that has been conducted on web archives has been system-centered and not user-centered, leading to a dearth of information on how humans perceive web archives. This dissertation seeks to remedy this problem by presenting a user-centered grounded theory of IQ for web archives. It answers two research questions: 1) What is the definition of information quality (IQ) for web archives? and 2) How can IQ in a web archive be measured? The theory presented is grounded on data obtained from users of the Internet Archive's Archive-It system, the largest web-archiving subscription service in the United States. Also presented are mathematical definitions for each dimension of IQ, which can then be applied to measure the quality of …

The purposes of this study are: a) to understand the treatments compliance behavior of the patient with chronic disease at the behavioral level, particularly, the relationship between treatments compliance behavior and normative beliefs; b) develop a behavioral model of patient's treatments compliance behavior that could be used for predicting, combating, treating, tracking and controlling the treatments compliance behavior of the patients with chronic disease. Seventy-two patients from senior daycare centers in the Dallas area, who suffer or had suffered from at least, one chronic disease, participated in the study. Data gathering was conducted using paper-based questionnaire. The most significant finding of this study is the relationship between normative beliefs and the treatments compliance behavior of the patient with chronic disease. Normative beliefs were found to have significant impact on the treatments compliance intent and behavior of the patients with chronic disease. Another important finding showed that side-effects of prescribed treatments have little or no influence on the treatments compliance behavior of the patient with chronic disease. A relationship between the effectiveness of medicine, particularly, predictive medicine, and treatments compliance behavior was established. The design of the study was intended to provide coverages for a set of constructs that may be …

Health officials estimate that the 2014 Ebola crisis disproportionately victimized women, who made up 75% of the disease's victims. This interdisciplinary study has two main goals. The first is to evaluate the news media's performance in relation to their representation of women caught up in the Ebola crisis because the media play an important role in influencing public responses to health. This study sought to understand the information behavior patterns of journalists who covered the Ebola crisis by analyzing how job tasks influence a journalist's information behavior. This study employed qualitative methods to study the perceptions of journalists who covered the 2014 Ebola outbreak. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with Liberian and American journalists who covered the outbreak to understand the choices that guided their reporting of the Ebola crisis. A content analysis of The New York Times, The Times, and The Inquirer was also conducted to examine the new media's representation of women in an outbreak which mostly victimized women. The findings suggest that covering a dangerous assignment like Ebola affected the information behavior patterns of journalists. Audience needs, the timing of coverage, fear, and the accessibility of sources, were some of the factors that influenced the news gathering decisions …

This poster highlights a project undertaken at the University of Houston by the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design to select and transition records into the University's archives. The relationship between colleges or department and the University archives is examined, and the workflows necessary to ensure consistency through the transfer. The poster was created as part of coursework for INFO 5375 Archival Appraisal in Spring 2020 at the University of North Texas.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the use of decisions support systems (DSS) by critical care physicians and to address the following questions: Does the use of a decision support system during diagnosis reduce diagnostic error and how are decision support systems used by critical care physicians? There are no studies that address these research questions in a clinical setting. The information assessment method (IAM) was used to guide the development of the survey questions. Critical care physicians from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center were surveyed. Chi squared test for independence was used to determine the relationship between DSS use and diagnostic error rates. There were three main findings of the study: (1) use of a DSS by a critical care physician can decrease diagnostic error by up to 60%; (2) 56% of critical care physicians are using a DSS during diagnosis to learn something new, confirm something they already knew, and/or to reassure themselves; and (3) the increased use of a DSS by critical care physicians can lead to a decrease in the belief of the ability of a DSS to reduce diagnostic error.

Subject of information entity is one of the fundamental concepts in the field of information science. Subject of any document represents its intellectual potential -- 'aboutness' of the document. Traditionally, subject (along with title and author) is the one of three major ways to access information, so subject metadata plays a central role in this process and the role is constantly growing. Previous research concluded that the larger bibliographic database is, the richer subject vocabularies and classification schemes are needed to support information discovery. Further, a high proportion of information objects are unretrievable without subject headings in metadata records. This exploratory study provides the analysis of the subject metadata in MARC 21 bibliographic records created in 2020; and develops understanding of the level and patterns of 'aboutness' representation in the MARC 21 bibliographic records. Study also examines how these records apply the recent RDA and MARC21 guidelines and features intended to support functionality in a Linked Data environment. Methods of Social Network Analysis were applied along with content analysis, to answer research questions of this study. Suggestions for future research, implications for education, and practical recommendations for library metadata creation and management are discussed.

Cultural heritage institutions, including galleries, libraries, museums, and archives are increasingly digitizing physical items and collecting born-digital items and making these resources available on the Web. Metadata plays a vital role in the discovery and management of these collections. Existing frameworks to identify and address deficiencies in metadata rely heavily on count and data-value based metrics that are calculated over aggregations of descriptive metadata. There has been little research into the use of traditional network analysis to investigate the connections between metadata records based on shared data values in metadata fields such as subject or creator. This study introduces metadata record graphs as a mechanism to generate network-based statistics to support analysis of metadata. These graphs are constructed with the metadata records as the nodes and shared metadata field values as the edges in the network. By analyzing metadata record graphs with algorithms and tools common to the field of network analysis, metadata managers can develop a new understanding of their metadata that is often impossible to generate from count and data-value based statistics alone. This study tested application of metadata record graphs to analysis of metadata collections of increasing size, complexity, and interconnectedness in a series of three related …

This study applied social disruption as a concept that highlights factors responsible for the breakdown of social relationships in societies. Social disruption has many forms, however, the focus in this study was on strikes, which create constant social disruption in Nigerian public universities and could have serious impact on students' information behavior. Two universities – Federal University of Technology Owerri (FUTO) and Imo State University Owerri (IMSU) – were chosen for the study, and data was obtained through an online survey across sample of approximately 250 participants from the two selected public universities in Nigeria. The study applied the principle of least effort theory and the model of information search process to investigate the research questions of this dissertation which were: (1) what kinds of information do university students in Nigeria seek, and to what extent do strikes have implications on their information behavior?; (2) how do Nigerian students perceive the impact of strikes on their information source location and information resource usage?; (3) to what extent can information and communication technology (ICT) minimize the impact of strikes on students' information behavior?; and (4) how can universities in Nigeria prevent strikes from impacting students' information behavior? t-Tests were applied to …

In the traditional agenda-setting theory, the agenda-setters were the news media and the public has a minimal role in the process of agenda-setting, which makes the public a passive receiver located at the bottom in the top-down agenda-setting dynamics. This study claims that with the development of Information communication technologies, primarily social media, the networked public may be able to set their own agendas through connective actions, outside the influence of the news media agenda. There is little empirical research focused on development and dynamics of public agenda-setting through social media platforms. Understanding the development and dynamics of public agenda-setting may be key to accounting for and overcoming conflicting findings in previous reverse agenda-setting research. This study examined the public agenda-setting dynamics through a case of gun violence prevention activism Twitter network, the #MarchForOurLives Twitter network. This study determined that the agenda setters of the #MarchForOurLives Twitter network are the key Never Again MSD student leaders and the March For Our Lives. The weekly reflected important events and issues and the identified topics were highly co-related with the themes examined in the tweets created by the agenda setters. The amplifiers comprised the vast majority of the tweets. The advocates and …

The word diaspora is currently understood as the large scale voluntary movement of people, along with capital and goods due to the mechanisms of globalization. Adopting a diaspora, gender and leisure perspective, this dissertation looked at the information and document experiences of a particular fan community of women belonging to the Indian diaspora and the online spaces created and occupied by them (fan fiction blogs which can be viewed as book clubs). The study also looked at memory making and documenting of the same as a part of document experience, resulting in what can be termed as "serendipitous memory archives." The blogs hosting fan fiction and the mediated practices they support were viewed as documents for the study. The online spaces were conceptualized as small worlds and the theoretical framework used for the study consisted of a preliminary model of a small world (based on literature review and my understanding of the world under study), information experience as a concept as well as document experience models. The results show that social ties play a big role in the information and document experience, while memory making and documenting of the same are also seen to happen as part of the document …

When people access online health information, unfortunately, they have access to both clinically accurate and inaccurate information that they may then utilize to make informed personal health decisions. This research fills a gap in the literature of online health communities as they relate to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The conduct of this research required a multi-phased and multi-method approach, best presented in three distinct essays. In Essays 1 and 2, data gathering within two online health communities specific to COPD allowed this study to address three research questions: (1) what are the information needs of COPD patients that result in their participation in online health communities; (2) what are the information sources offered to the participants in these online communities; and (3) is the information obtained via those communities credible. Essay 1 harvested data from a moderated website hosted by a non-profit organization for patients with COPD and Essay 2 harvested data from a non-moderated Facebook group also serving this unique group. Data Miner, a Chrome extension designed to extract data, was used to collect data, key words and themes which brought an understanding of the health information needs of participants and identified what health information sources were preferred. …

Research in scholarly communication is usually limited to the use and dissemination of scientific material by scholars. This excludes the transfer of knowledge from research producers to service providers. Some may argue the primary function of science is to investigate the conditions in the lab so everyday interactions with the environment are more effective and efficient. This is the underlying philosophy of the science of behavior analysis. Comprised of a basic science, an applied science and a philosophy the field of behavior analysis relies on research developments to inform effective practice. Guided by dissemination processes studied in information science, this investigation revealed the content layer in behavior analysis is primarily comprised of journal articles. Ninety four percent of the research artifacts cited in the current content layer are from journal articles. Other dissemination channels used to develop the behavior analytic content layer included scientific magazine articles, oral reports, dissertations and theses, and unpublished manuscripts. The information use environment for professionals in this field is very different than that of the scholars; most professionals do not have access to a university library. Therefore, the research producers are disseminating developments via communication channels some service providers cannot access. This investigation reveals the …

After more than two decades, bullying and cyberbullying is still negatively impacting the lives of many of our youth and their families. The prevalence of the phenomenon is widespread and part of the everyday life activities. The impact of cyber aggression and violation can have severe consequences, up to the destruction of lives. While cyberbullying prevention programs exist, not much progress seems to have been made in the effort to combat the phenomenon. This research provides new insights into how to extract information by using existing research and online news articles, with the aim to create new or improve existing cyberbullying prevention efforts. The intent is to inform prevention programs.

No published studies to date examined the practices in creation or adoption of metadata in cultural heritage institutions or evaluated metadata in bibliographic databases in the Arabian Gulf counties and assessed its potential interoperability in the aggregation that would provide a central point of access to bibliographic databases of cultural heritage institutions. This exploratory study aimed to address this gap with the goal of: (1) developing understanding of the current state of information representation and knowledge organization in cultural heritage collections in Arabian Gulf countries, and (2) exploring perspectives for future developments such as creating regional large-scale portals similar to Digital Public Library of America, Europeana etc. that facilitate discovery by aggregating metadata and possible barriers to these developments.. The study is focused on a Kuwaiti, Qatari, and Omani libraries, museums, and archives. The mixed-methods research combined semi-structured interviews of the bibliographic database managers at 15 cultural heritage institutions and in-depth content analysis of a sample of 412 metadata records that represent items in these bibliographic databases for accuracy, completeness, consistency, use of knowledge organization systems, etc. This study findings make a research contribution important for evaluating the feasibility and planning of future aggregations of cultural heritage bibliographic databases. Results …

Digital libraries have become valuable learning resources for information users. However, language barriers have greatly limited information access for many digital libraries, as users do not understand those languages. This study explored technical and operational challenges digital libraries faced in sustaining multilinguality. Using the multiple-case method, the study investigated two digital libraries that have sustained multilinguality for over a decade: the World Digital Library and the Digital Library of the Caribbean. On-site interviews were conducted at both digital libraries and the related documents were analyzed. The findings of the study showed that the two multilingual digital libraries faced many technical and operational challenges and employed various approaches to find solutions. A model of challenges and approaches in sustaining multilinguality was presented. As the first such case study, this research enriches the existing literature, and has theoretical, practical, and methodological implications for the research of multilingual digital libraries. The findings of the study provide useful guidelines and insights for the digital library community in sustaining multilingual services.

The U.S. National Library of Medicine brought the intensifying interest in open science to national attention when it joined enthusiastic scientists to introduce and host an Amazon-like rating forum on PubMed—the world's largest database of indexed biomedical and life sciences literature. The result was PubMed Commons. In June 2013, the commenting forum was introduced for open discussion about published scientific literature as part of a three-pronged approach to improve research rigor, reproducibility, and transparency. In Feb. 2018, the forum was unexpectedly discontinued. This retrospective explanatory case study research asked the question, "What happened on the way to the forum?" Answers came from a variety of resources using multiple methodologies for data collection and analysis. Historical data from PubMed Commons' 7,629 comments and 1,551 commenters; key informant interviews with PubMed Commons editors; and a systematized search for published articles, gray literature; and social media content about PubMed Commons were analyzed using computer-mediated discourse analysis and a social network analysis. Results from the quantitative content analysis described a forum with little participation, and the qualitative content analysis demonstrated that active forum members were focused primarily on providing links to other information resources and discussing aspects of post-publication peer review. The social network …