Exploring the role of a government authority in managing transformation in service re-engineering – Experiences from Dubai police

E-Government adoption and implementation has gained noticeable momentum across many developed and developing economies. Nevertheless, transitioning from the “electronic” to the stage of “transformational” domain – coined as t-Government – is posing the greatest challenge of how government services respond to changes in the broader economy and society. Despite considerable investments and the wide use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT), research literature on e-Government suggests that government services have yet to reach the full potential of seamless integration, where all transactions are completed electronically. Through a detailed analysis of the extant e-Government literature and a case study based empirical research, this paper explores the domain of e-Government in identifying the possible reasons for this potential shortfall in achieving full integration. Furthermore, the paper intends to highlight an aspect of complexity surrounding crossing the integration gap as the authors denote by “eChasm” in the e-Government conceptual model that leads to transformation. In addition, it focuses on radical change through Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) and the call for strategic style of leadership, for cross-agency collaboration leading to a successful realisation of transformational government (t-Government). It is interesting to note that researchers and public sector leaders have started to realise that implementing and managing the transformation of public services, copiously satisfying the users and stakeholders, is a task of multi-dimensional complexity.     

Resilience orchestration and resilience facilitation: How government can orchestrate the whole UK ports market with limited resources – the case of UK ports resilience

Government departments have limited resources but they are responsible for the healthy functioning of whole markets. This tension is amplified by the opportunities to generate, share and use information from new data sources and digital technologies. Huge increases in volumes and types of data produced by sensors and firms' IT systems can potentially be shared between firms which can cause information overload. This paper uses government orchestration theory to investigate the problems and opportunities of the UK's maritime transport ministry as it supports resilience planning for the whole country's ports system. We build on the developing Lean Government (l- Government) literature by theorizing on the differences between government and other stakeholders. We use a case study to investigate how these differences hinder as well as support the role of a government department. And how the special perspective of an orchestrator can integrate and filter information, motivate diverse collaborators and support the use of orchestration platforms in l-Government.     

Public service operational efficiency and blockchain – A case study of Companies House,UK

Despite the increasing interest and exploration of the use of blockchain technology in public service organisations (PSOs), academic understanding of its transformative impact on the operational excellence of PSOs remains limited. This study adopts an action design science research methodology to develop a proof of concept (POC) blockchain based application for Companies House, a government agency that is registering companies across UK. The application addresses the operational challenges of Companies House as well as issues citizens face when accessing its services. We draw from the public value framework proposed by Twizeyimana and Andersson (2019) and demonstrate the significance of the emerging blockchain technology in relation to their democratic practices based on six dimensions. We further discuss the related challenges and barriers for its implementation and evaluate the POC with the stakeholders of Companies House. We also present an illustrative case study, where we explored the appropriateness of the POC in relation to the draft legislation, “Registration of Overseas Entities and Beneficial Owners” (ROEBO) bill which proposes the introduction of a register of the beneficial owners of overseas legal entities that own real estate in the UK. Our research is one of the few studies that will provide in-depth empirical insights about the relationship between blockchain and operational excellence of PSOs.     

New Challenges in the Coverage of Politics for UK Broadcasters and Regulators in the “Post-Truth” Environment

The last two years have been times of turbulence for the BBC, and other broadcasters, in terms of their coverage of UK politics. Their reporting of the general elections of 2015 and 2017, of the 2016 European Union Referendum and the 2015 election of Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership of the Labour Party have been much criticised (as has that of other mainstream media outlets). And despite the rise of social media, the BBC remains the most used and most trusted source of news in the UK and hence is a vital element in the UK public sphere. Consequently, these journalistic failures—when its political coverage failed to reflect what turned out to be the reality on the ground - are particularly problematic. This brings into focus the issue of “the truth” in election and referendum campaigns. The example quoted here—about the Labour Party and antisemitism—illustrates the difficulties in arriving at the “truth”, even in the less frenetic atmosphere between campaigns. It demonstrates how there can be many truths and this, in itself, raises urgent questions about the nature of political journalism which pose challenges for public broadcasting in Britain with implications that go much wider.     

Citizen–government collaboration on social media: The case of Twitter in the 2011 riots in England

How social media can enable opportunities for collaboration between citizens and governments is an evolving issue in theory and practice. This paper examines the dynamic aspects of collaboration in the context of the 2011 riots in England. In August 2011, parts of London and other cities in England suffered from extensive disorder and even loss of human lives. Based on a dataset of 1746 posts by 81 local government Twitter accounts during or shortly after the riots, we explore how local authorities attempted to reduce the effects of the riots and support community recovery. Using Twitter's conversational and rapid update features, they produced a variety of informational and actionable messages with clear calls for offline or online action. In some cases, collective against the riots evolved in a mutual way: not only citizens were mobilized by local authorities, but also local authorities actively promoted actions initiated by citizens.     

The interdisciplinarity of research data: How widely is shared research data reused in the STEM fields?

The aim of this study was to examine the interdisciplinarity of research data in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. The findings revealed that interdisciplinarity was not distributed evenly across journals serving the STEM fields. Based on the diversity of the references as measured by the Gini coefficient index, the mathematical sciences showed the greatest inequality, followed by astronomy/physics, the earth sciences, the biological sciences, and technology. Based on the number of Essential Science Indicator (ESI) fields, the biological sciences showed the greatest variety, followed by the earth sciences, technology, the mathematical sciences, chemistry, and computing, while engineering showed no variety. Lastly, based on the Leydesdorff interdisciplinarity formula outcomes, the earth sciences showed the greatest diversity, but earth sciences articles were cited in articles in fewer fields than biological sciences articles. This study contributes to the study of interdisciplinary data citation for data sharing and reuse in STEM fields with respect to the measurement of the balance, variety, and diversity of research data.     

Is there light at the end of the tunnel? Relations between the UK and Europe in the library world

In this paper I will look at relations in the book world between the UK and the rest of Europe. I will consider the London International Book Fair in its European context and will go on to show some of the impact of the European Union on libraries, publishers and booksellers. I will look to see whether there is any light at the end of The Tunnel.     

“They Took It Down”: Exploring Determinants of Visual Reporting in the Toppling of the Saddam Statue in National and International Newspapers

This cross-national research examines the visual framing of the toppling of the Saddam Hussein statue. It explores the influences of competing contextual variables and newspaper attributes on frequency and overall tone of photographs. The results of examinations of the coverage in 43 newspapers of 30 countries suggest one important difference across newspapers involved the number of photographs each newspaper published. Further, findings indicate U.S. newspapers overall ran more visuals depicting a victory/liberation frame than newspapers from coalition and non-coalition countries.     

The end of reckoning – archival silences in the Germaine Greer Archive

The Germaine Greer Archive was created by Greer in the 1970s to document her career and provide-counter evidence against false claims about her work and personal life. Later attempts to address gaps in the archive in relation to her television career were hampered by the poor record keeping of production companies and film and television archives. The archive documents both an attempt to create a complete record and the deliberate creation of a counter-narrative through arrangement and juxtaposition of records.     

Cover Me,I’m going in: Exploring the needs of student veterans

Abstract

The number of military veterans taking advantage of post-911 educational benefits has increased significantly, and institutions of higher education have responded by creating veteran-friendly campuses. Accordingly, academic librarians have engaged in proactive, ongoing conversations about providing services to this unique student population. The authors went on reconnaissance to assess the needs of student veterans and their response to a recently created veterans lounge space in the library. The information gathered from this survey can help provide insight and possible strategies to improve library outreach and services.     

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure – Building capacities for the use of big data algorithm systems (BDAS) in early crisis detection

Public sector organizations at all levels of government increasingly rely on Big Data Algorithmic Systems (BDAS) to support decision-making along the entire policy cycle. But while our knowledge on the use of big data continues to grow for government agencies implementing and delivering public services, empirical research on applications for anticipatory policy design is still in its infancy. Based on the concept of policy analytical capacity (PAC), this case study examines the application of BDAS for early crisis detection within the German Federal Government—that is, the German Federal Foreign Office (FFO) and the Federal Ministry of Defence (FMoD). It uses the nested model of PAC to reflect on systemic, organizational, and individual capacity-building from a neoinstitutional perspective and allow for the consideration of embedded institutional contexts. Results from semi-structured interviews indicate that governments seeking to exploit BDAS in policymaking depend on their institutional environment (e.g., through research and data governance infrastructure). However, specific capacity-building strategies may differ according to the departments' institutional framework, with the FMoD relying heavily on subordinate agencies and the FFO creating network-like structures with external researchers. Government capacity-building at the individual and organizational level is similarly affected by long-established institutional structures, roles, and practices within the organization and beyond, making it important to analyze these three levels simultaneously instead of separately.     

A Survey of the Development of Library Automation and Networking in China

1　 Introduction　　 The automation of the Chinese libraries is developed on two bases.The first is library informationmanagement automation which is to implement the computerised management of acquisition,cataloguing,circulation,serials control etc.The second is information retrieval which is to provide information service toreaders by user- developed databases,on- line databases,or CD- ROM.In the nineties,along with theeconomic development,China has made great strides in the development o…     

Exploring the “awakening effect” in knowledge diffusion: a case study of publications in the library and information science domain

Inspired by “sleeping beauties in science”, we proposed that the awakening effect in knowledge diffusion is ubiquitous, whereas the “prince” paper has the strongest effect. To test this hypothesis, a three-layer super-network model depicting the knowledge diffusion trajectory is designed and the diffusion path of the awakening effect (defined on the basis of influential strength) is simulated. In detail, the model is built based on the citation network and collaboration network of 63785 publications in the library and information science domain. Through meta-paths in this super-network, the influential strength of a paper and the awakening effect from neighboring papers can be quantified into 36 numerical features. By testing the effectiveness of these features in citation counts prediction, we try to prove our hypothesis. Thus an effective predictor in machine learning is trained upon these features. Using this predictor, we showed that most neighboring papers in the super-network had effects on future citation counts. The effectiveness of these features is again demonstrated through experiments on papers with different publication years. We also did a case study on papers that were significantly affected by the awakening effect, and found that the model proposed in this paper can also be used to explain some common phenomena in knowledge diffusion. All results show that the awakening effect could be not only ubiquitous but also quantifiable.     

Clinical librarianship in the UK: temporary trend or permanent profession? Part I: a review of the role of the clinical librarian

BACKGROUND: This paper is the first of a two-part series of articles presenting the role of the clinical librarian (CL) in the UK today. It situates the CL concept historically, and specifically reports the findings from a study in 2002 (Skinner, The Role of the Clinical Librarian in the UK. MSc Dissertation. Loughborough University: Department of Information Science). RELEVANCE: The impetus for the 2002 study was the awareness of an increase in job advertisements within the NHS for roles seeking to enhance the practice of evidence-based medicine, which included elements of clinical librarianship. Therefore the research was undertaken to establish whether this increase was coincidental, or the beginning of a new professional role for librarians. METHODS: A content analysis of CL job advertisements, examining job titles and duties was undertaken. Twenty-three advertisements were scrutinized, and these results are presented here. As a complementary investigation, a postal questionnaire was sent to a sample of practising CLs in the UK. RESULTS: Several duties can be classified as core to the role of the CL. However there is a great diversity of duties attached to this core, reflecting an absence of nationally accepted practice. CONCLUSION: Further work was necessary to assess current practice and how clinical librarianship can continue to grow at local and national levels. This is addressed in Part Two of this series.     

Do altmetrics assess societal impact in a comparable way to case studies? An empirical test of the convergent validity of altmetrics based on data from the UK research excellence framework (REF)

Altmetrics have been proposed as a way to assess the societal impact of research. Although altmetrics are already in use as impact or attention metrics in different contexts, it is still not clear whether they really capture or reflect societal impact. This study is based on altmetrics, citation counts, research output and case study data from the UK Research Excellence Framework (REF), and peers’ REF assessments of research output and societal impact. We investigated the convergent validity of altmetrics by using two REF datasets: publications submitted as research output (PRO) to the REF and publications referenced in case studies (PCS). Case studies, which are intended to demonstrate societal impact, should cite the most relevant research papers. We used the MHq’ indicator for assessing impact – an indicator which has been introduced for count data with many zeros. The results of the first part of the analysis show that news media as well as mentions on Facebook, in blogs, in Wikipedia, and in policy-related documents have higher MHq’ values for PCS than for PRO. Thus, the altmetric indicators seem to have convergent validity for these data. In the second part of the analysis, altmetrics have been correlated with REF reviewers’ average scores on PCS. The negative or close to zero correlations question the convergent validity of altmetrics in that context. We suggest that they may capture a different aspect of societal impact (which can be called unknown attention) to that seen by reviewers (who are interested in the causal link between research and action in society).     

Making a difference? Measuring the impact of an information literacy programme for pre-registration nursing students in the UK

OBJECTIVES: To investigate whether an information literacy programme for pre-registration nursing students at a UK higher education institution is effective in developing their skills and confidence: examines students' skill levels, factors affecting their confidence, and relationships between skills, confidence and demographic characteristics. METHODS: Quantitative and qualitative techniques were used: pre- and post-tests to measure changes in students' skills and self-assessed confidence levels after two key sessions in their first semester (n = 29); semi-structured interviews to explore factors affecting confidence (n = 5). RESULTS: Findings demonstrated positive impacts on skills and confidence. Key areas of skill development included: identifying journal articles, selecting search terms and evaluating website quality. Factors affecting confidence included: successful 'mastery' experiences in searching for information and the programme itself, especially small-group sessions, handouts and staff support. Evidence on links between skills, confidence and demographic factors was inconclusive. CONCLUSIONS: The study demonstrated the programme's effectiveness and identified areas for development, including the need to help students understand the relative merits of search engines and other sources. Evidence has contributed to a change in departmental policy, making attendance at sessions mandatory. Further studies have been recommended.     

Platform,or technology project? A spectrum of six strategic ‘plays’ from UK government IT initiatives and their implications for policy

There is a markedly broad range of definitions and illustrative examples of the role played by governments themselves within the literature on government platforms. In response we conduct an inductive and deductive qualitative review of the literature to clarify this landscape and so to develop a typology of six definitions of government platforms, organised within three genres along a spectrum from fully centralised, through to fully decentralised. For each platform definition we offer illustrative ‘mini-cases’ drawn from the UK government experience as well as further insights and implications for each genre, drawn from the broader information systems literature on platforms. A range of benefits, risks, governance challenges, policy recommendations, and suggestions for further research are then identified and discussed.     

Where are citations located in the body of scientific articles? A study of the distributions of citation locations

We address issues concerning what one may learn from how citation instances are distributed in scientific articles. We visualize and analyze patterns of citation distributions in the full text of 350 articles published in the Journal of Informetrics. In particular, we visualize and analyze the distributions of citations in articles that are organized in a commonly seen four-section structure, namely, introduction, method, results, and conclusions (IMRC). We examine the locations of citations to the groundbreaking h-index paper by Hirsch in 2005 and how patterns associated with citation locations evolve over time. The results show that citations are highly concentrated in the first section of an article. The density of citations in the first section is about three times higher than that in subsequent sections. The distributions of citations to highly cited papers are even more uneven.     

A fair history of the Web? Examining country balance in the Internet Archive

The Internet Archive, an important initiative that maintains a record of the evolving Web, has the promise of being a key resource for historians and those who study the Web itself. The archive's goal is to index the whole Web without making any judgments about which pages are worth saving. The potential importance of the archive for longitudinal and historical Web research leads to the need to evaluate its coverage. This article focuses upon whether there is an international bias in its coverage. The results show that there are indeed large national differences in the archive's coverage of the Web. A subsequent statistical analysis found differing national average site ages and hyperlink structures to be plausible explanations for this uneven coverage. Although the bias is unintentional, researchers using the archive in the future need to be aware of this problem.