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 …

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 …

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 …

Job centers aid businesses seeking qualified employees and assist job seekers to select and contact employment and training services. Job seekers are also offered the opportunity to assess their skills, abilities, qualifications, and readiness. Furthermore, job centers ensure that job seekers are complying with requirements that they must meet to benefit from job assistance programs such as unemployment insurance. Yet, claimants often procrastinate and/or suspend their job search efforts even though such actions can make them lose their free time and entitlements, and more importantly they may lose the opportunity to take advantage of free information, services, training, and financial assistance for getting a job to which they have already made a claim. The current work looks to Chatman's "small worlds" work, Johnson's comprehensive model of information seeking, and Wilson's "costly ignorance" construct for contributions to understanding such behavior. Identification of a particular trait or set of traits of job seekers during periods of unemployment will inform a new Job Seeking Activities Model (JSAM). This study purposely examines job seeker information behavior and the factors which influence job seekers' behavior, in particular, family tangible support as a social norm effect. A mixed method, using questionnaires for job hunting completers and …

The goal of this study was to investigate visual sources of nutrition information relied upon by young adults, specifically college-aged students between 18-30, as this is an under-represented population within current academic literature. A sample of more than 700 18- to 30-year-old college students were surveyed regarding their use of nutrition-driven information, with specific questions regarding the participants' awareness and use of the Food and Drug Administration's standardized nutrition facts labels, as well as the use of smartphone applications for tracking one's food and beverage consumption on a regular basis. Using structural equation modeling, a statistically significant theoretical model was developed with regards to individuals finding greater long-term satisfaction in their dieting efforts if they tracked their consumption on a regular basis, with even greater significance being found through the aid of smartphone applications for recording consumption. An analysis of the content of three online diet and exercise-driven brands was also conducted to determine the currently optimal social media platform for nutrition information exchange, and to identify the type of diet-driven information that generates the greatest amount of engagement within an online network. Of the social media platforms analyzed, Instagram proved to be the most optimal for nutrition information-exchange, and …

Data science employment opportunities of varied complexity and environment are in growing demand across the globe. Data science as a discipline potentially offers a wealth of jobs to prospective employees, while traditional information science-based roles continue to decrease as budgets get cut across the U.S. Since data is related closely to information historically, this research will explore the education of U.S. iSchool professionals and compare it to traditional data science roles being advertised within the job market. Through a combination of latent semantic analysis of over 1600 job postings and iSchool course documentation, it is our aim to explore the intersection of library and information science and data science. Hopefully these research findings will guide future directions for library and information science professionals into data science driven roles, while also examining and highlighting the data science techniques currently driven by the education of iSchool professionals. In addition, it is our aim to understand how data science could benefit from a mutually symbiotic relationship with the field of information science as statistically data scientists spend far too much time working on data preparation and not nearly enough time conducting scientific inquiry. The results of this examination will potentially guide future directions …

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 …

Using a case study approach this study investigated how college students in Vlore, Albania seek and use information resources for academic and personal needs and whether they follow a pattern similar to Brenda Dervin's sense-making, or Marcia Bates' berry-picking information seeking models. Influencing factors studied were economic factors, information communication technologies and information culture/policy. A literature review showed that no previous published research has studied information seeking behavior of college age students and faculty in Albania. Thirty-four college students and two full time faculty completed a survey and a smaller group were interviewed. The results of the study indicate that Google is the main source for seeking information for both academic and personal purposes. College students are not introduced or taught on how to evaluate information sources. The information communication technology needs improvement to support information needs. The library as a major information resource was not apparent to most students. College students utilize berry-picking as the information seeking model and faculty use sense-making, as a model of information seeking. This study adds to the knowledge of the information seeking behavior of college students in a developing country, the need for information literacy courses at the university level, and the identification …

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 …

There is an increasingly number of students taking online classes in lieu of or in addition to the traditional face-to-face format. With this trend, there are questions that naturally come to the surface. The biggest question being "is teaching in the online arena just as effective as the face-to-face arena?" This dissertation aims to pursue that line of questioning by analyzing students' perceptions of the teaching effectiveness for instructors who teach the same course in both an online and face-to-face format in the same semester. The data are analyzed through the lens of the social capital theory. Social capital has never been applied to the classroom before as its focus has traditionally been on community development. However, social capital theory addresses interpersonal relationships and their impact on knowledge sharing behavior. This theory identifies three dimensions, which appear to have a parallel track with the student evaluation components; each is analyzed against each other. These dimensions include structured, cognitive and relational and are compared to the components of the student evaluation tool, which includes organization and explanation of materials, learning environment and self-regulated learning.

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 …

In Kuwait, an increase in the use of social media by the Kuwait National Assembly (KNA) has allowed it members to reach out to the public and so advance their political agenda. This study examines social media influences on the decision making process; addresses the lack of academic research in relation to KNA members; and seeks to understand the extent to which public political engagement using social media might affect the outcome of their decision making. The proposed social media influence model (SMIM) was used to explore the relationships and relative importance of variables influencing legislator decision making in a social media environment. The second decade of the twenty-first century saw a number of major issues emerging in Kuwait. A core mixed method design known as explanatory sequential was applied to multiple sets of data generated during KNA members' 14th (2013-2016) and 15th (2016-2018) terms. These data included Twitter messages (tweets), the KNA Information Center Parliamentary Information System legislation documents, and the news media articles. The sample was drawn from KNA membership, some of which used Twitter to comment on major events with specific hashtags and the Kuwaiti news media articles related to the same. Study results confirm and support …

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 …

Information seeking and information avoidance are the mechanisms humans natural used for coping with uncertainties and adapting to environmental stressors. Uncertainties are rooted in knowledge gaps. In social sciences, the relationship between knowledge gaps and perceived risk have received little attention. A review of the information science literature suggests that few studies have been devoted to the investigation of the role of this relationship in motivating information-seeking behavior. As an effort to address the lack of theory building in the field of information science, this study attempts to construct a model of information seeking under risk (MISR) by examining the relationships among perceived risk, knowledge gap, fear arousal, risk propensity, personal relevance, and deprivation and interest curiosity as antecedents to motivation to seek information. An experimental approach and a scenario-based survey method are employed to design the study. Partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) analysis was conducted to test the relationships in the proposed model. Perceived risk was found to be a highly significant predictor of information seeking in moderately high-risk situations. Similarly, personal relevant has a significant negative effect on perceived risk and its interaction with knowledge gap motivates information seeking.