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.

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 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 …

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 …

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 …

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.

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. …

Event-based mediated participatory archives, in which communities of ordinary people contribute their records to archives during collection day events represent a paradigm shift within the archival field. Applying a qualitative approach, this study investigates event-based mediated participatory archives using Bastian's communities of records and memory as a guiding framework. Using the Mass. Memories Road Show as a case study, data collection and analysis took place over three phases. In Phase I, archive supporting documents were collected and analyzed using "against the grain" historical analysis methods. In Phase II, data from the Mass. Memories Road Show digital collections were collected and analyzed using grounded theory analysis methods. In Phase III, ethnographic research data, including a direct observation and semi-structured interviews, was collected and analyzed using ethnographic analysis methods. The results of this study suggest that community participants' motivations to contribute to participatory archives are rooted in self-fulfillment while institutional archives personnel members' intentions are based in inclusive community-building. Furthermore, the contribution of records to the archives allows community participants to share personal stories that serve as evidence of their historical legacies and as affirmation of their roles in their communities. Throughout the findings, moments of connection which enable the sharing of …

Educators often inquire about the readability of books and other documents used in the classroom, with the idea that readability supports students' reading comprehension and growth. Documents used in classrooms tend to be language-based, so readability metrics have long focused on the complexity of language. However, such metrics are unsuitable for multimodal documents because these types of documents also use non-language modes of communication. This is problematic because multimodal reading is increasingly recognized as a 21st-century skill. One information theoretic solution is transinformation analysis, an approach that measures readability as the difference between the objective entropy of a document and the subjective entropy of its reader. Higher transinformation indicates more information complexity. This study explored the viability of transinformation analysis as a measure of multimodal readability. Think aloud screen recordings from 15 eighth grade "advanced readers" of Episode 2 of the born-digital novel, Inanimate Alice served as the dataset. Findings showed that 14 of the readers attended to less than half the information in the story. Mean readability was .57, indicating a complex reading experience. Readers attended to and recalled information primarily from the linguistic mode, which may have been a strategy for reducing cognitive load, or it may have …

In their studies on student motivation in th4e 1990s, Gorham & Christophel and Christophel & Gorham found that students perceived their own demotivation to be caused by instructor behaviors. While there are studies that explore the topic of student demotivation and other studies that illustrate the great influence instructors have on student information seeking behaviors, research focusing on the connection between these two concepts is almost nonexistent. Using Gorham & Christophel's concept of instructor-owned student demotivation, this mixed-methods study sought to identify which instructor behaviors doctoral computer science and information science students found demotivating and to what extent their perceptions of these demotivating instructor behaviors influenced their information seeking behaviors in a face-to-face classroom. Demographic and student-perceived demotivating instructor behavior surveys along with semi-structured interviews and follow-up questions were used to collect data. The surveys will be analyzed using descriptive statistics in Excel, and the semi-structured interviews and follow up questions were analyzed using content analysis and Colaizzi's method of phenomenological enquiry in NVivo. The findings showed that instructor demotivating behaviors not only influence student information seeking behaviors in the classroom, but they also can lead to lasting effects on the student. In addition, the participants have expectations of instructor …

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.

Relevance is a core concept in the field of Information Science and a common term in everyday vernacular that generally refers to the usefulness of information. However, relevance has not been sufficiently or consistently defined or explored in the information science literature. Relevance criteria are the factors that information users employ when determining whether information they encounter is relevant. Identifying relevance criteria is a crucial step to understanding relevance. Relevance criteria employed with newer information formats like online video are especially important to study. Online video is now widespread, and people are increasingly likely to rely on video for information. This study identifies relevance criteria employed during relevance assessments of online video through a explanatory sequential mixed-methods study of frequent online video users including students, faculty, librarians, and video professionals. Methods included an online survey and interviews.

Cloud-based assistants like the Google Home and the Amazon Alexa have become ubiquitous in our homes. Users can simply communicate with the devices using a smartphone application. There are privacy concerns associated with cloud-based assistants. For example, users do not know what type of information is being sent to the device manufacturer, if the device is stealthily listening to conversations, data retention, or who else has access to the data. Privacy is about perception. The goal of this study is to determine user privacy concerns regarding cloud-based assistants by adopting a quantitative research method. The study used a privacy decision framework that lists three core components, which are technology controls, understanding user privacy preference, and government regulations. The research used Dervin's sensemaking model to describe users' privacy perception using the privacy decision framework and improved on a privacy perception survey instrument from previous dissertations. An understanding of user privacy concerns with cloud-based assistants is required to provide a comprehensive privacy guidance to stakeholders. The significance of this study is in the identification of the privacy perception of users of cloud-based assistants and the extent to which the components of the theoretical framework can impact user privacy perception. The results of …

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 …

Life coaching is a rapidly expanding industry that focuses on client development, enhancement of life experience, and goal attainment often when clients are experiencing personal, professional, and social change. Online communities of practice (CoPs) provide opportunity for individuals to connect, share experiences, and learn from each other under the auspices of a unifying theme or subject. Since the 1990s, CoPs have spread from education to other areas of business and industry and continue to shape participant professional development. However, the everyday life information seeking and practices of life coaches remains unexplored within information science literature from the perspectives of life coach engagement in seeking information, life coach engagement in CoPs, and life coach interactions with other coaches. The purpose of this research study was to explore life coach perspectives of coaching, the diverse information needs of life coaches, the types and strength of relationships between life coaches and CoPs, the role of coaching certification and/or licensing as contributing to the professionalization of life coaching, and the means of communication exchange by life coaches through information communication technologies. This mixed method study focused on life coaches who self-identify as belonging to a CoP and those that do not. Theoretical frameworks for …

This study analyzes the sociocultural factors that affect Saudi students in the U.S. as they seek information and explores to what extent these factors impact their everyday life information seeking (ELIS) behavior and their information technology behavior (ITB). The factors in this study illustrate the unique sociocultural values that distinguish Saudi students from other international student groups: gender segregation, emphasis on religion, social support, and utilization of the consultation concept. After collecting data from an online survey, the data from linear regression analyses revealed that only one culture factor (the language barrier) showed a significant impact on Saudi student ELIS in the U.S., while the other factors were not statistically significant. Also, the findings indicated that perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEU) were statistically significant to the ELIS of Saudi students. Furthermore, the study showed that after academic information, food and drink, entertainment, and health were the top student needs, the top ranking sources for everyday life seeking information were social media and the Internet. The findings of the study help to shed light on a sizable user group. As the fourth largest group of international students in the U.S., Saudi students have been underrepresented in research. …

Very few studies have examined information sentiment and explored other factors that contribute to health information dissemination and sharing. In particular, there is a lack of studies that performed these combined analyses in the modern social network environment during the disease outbreaks, such as with zika, ebola, SARS, or COVID-19. This study aimed to fill the gap in the literature by investigating what drives social media users to widely disseminate health-related information during a pandemic. Diffusion of innovation theory and theory of planned behavior were the basis of the theoretical approach utilized to answer the research questions. The two theories identified antecedents of sharing online health information. Data was collected through an online survey distributed to students in a higher education institution in the United States of America. The study revealed the extent of the relationships between the four major factors derived from the previous literature—attitudes toward sharing, beliefs toward source, peer influence, and information sentiment—and the behavioral intention to share information. The results would support the information science literature by offering and testing a new model that identifies the factors that affect users' intentions to share health information in the social network environment. This study will further the understanding …

This study explores information seeking behavior of second-generation Muslim immigrants utilizing factors such as critical, cultural, and religious literacy skills. The study examined the second-generation immigrants' ability to balance their parents' and grandparents' native culture and traditions with the culture and traditions of their country. The interview questions were designed using the cognitive authority theory and the figured worlds theory that provides an explanation for the mentality of those who are in environments influenced by culture or religion. An interesting main finding of the study is that participants sought more religious-based rather than culturally-based information. Participants seek information from their parents, communities, and religious leaders, but are particular with who they consider credible and reliable; if the person providing the information follows a similar lifestyle to the participants, they are more likely to hold cognitive authority. Four different themes emerged from the study. The first is "religious focus" where many participants stated that religion is rather static whereas culture can evolve and change with time, location, and events. The second theme emerged is the reliance on family members for religious literacy given the close upbringing of Muslim extended family system. The third theme indicated that although information seeking behavior relied …

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 …

Why is the term information in English an uncountable noun, whereas in information theory it is a well-defined quantity? Since the amount of information can be quantified, what is the meaning of a fraction of that amount? This dissertation introduces a quasi-entropy matrix which developed from Claude Shannon's information measure as an analytical tool for behavioral studies. Such matrix emphasizes the role of relative characteristics of individual level data across different collections. The real challenge in the big data era is never the size of the dataset, but how data lead scientists to individuals rather than arbitrarily divided statistical groups. This proposed matrix, when combining with other statistical measures, provides a new and easy-to-do method for identifying pattern in a well-defined system because it is built on the idea that uneven probability distributions lead to decrease in system entropy. Although the matrix is not superior to classical correlation techniques, it allows an interpretation not available with traditional standard statistics. Finally, this matrix connects heterogeneous datasets because it is a frequency-based method and it works on the modes of data rather than the means of values. It also visualizes clustering in data although this type of clustering is not measured by …