Modeling the Effects of Political Information Source Use and Online Expression on Young Adults’ Political Efficacy

This online survey conducted at a public university in the Northwest (N = 434) examines the influence of political involvement, information source attention, and online political discussion on young adults’ political efficacy. A factor analysis indicated that political information sources loaded into three factors including conventional and online hard news media such as newspapers, opinion and social media such as blogs or social networking websites, and public affairs websites including government and candidate websites. A path analysis revealed significant differences in their association with online political expression and external efficacy. As an entry point in the theoretical model, involvement in public affairs positively associated with attention to political information sources, online political expression, and external political efficacy. Attention to hard news and to public affairs websites positively predicted political efficacy. Attention to online opinion and social media and to public affairs websites positively predicted online political expression.     

Online scholarly publishing in China: Who? What? How?

This overview describes the general situation of online scholarly publishing in China from both the supply and demand points of view. Based on desk research, online survey, and face‐to‐face interviews, we identify scholars' perceptions as well as expectations of the current online publishing system. We offer some personal recommendations for change. We then provide a list of business models for stakeholders.     

Effects of Covid-19 on the Online Library and Information Science Degree at the University of León (Spain)

The Degree in Library Science and Documentation of the University of León started during the 1990–1991 academic year. This first curriculum suffered from a strong presence of subjects from the humanities, with a low fraction of experimental work in many subjects because of its inclusion within the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters. The first years attracted large numbers of students. However, the subsequent decrease in the number of students pursuing the degree drove us to initiate a change toward blended and online modalities.The Librarianship and Documentation Area of the University of León (ULe) already has a long history in blended teaching, starting with the Degree in Librarianship and Documentation, which has used the platform aul@unileon since the 2006–2007 academic year; the Degree of Information and Documentation has used the blended modality since the 2010–2011 academic year, and it has been offered in the distance learning modality since the 2014–2015 academic year.These new technologies have been fully introduced into university education and have facilitated the teaching–learning process through the use of interactive programs via the Internet.The main objective of this column is to determine and study the kind of multimedia tools used by professors of the Bachelor of Information and Documentation at the University of León during the teaching–learning process and in virtual teaching before the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as to report which new tools were introduced by the university for this reason. We study the student–teacher and student–student interactions to help promote communication and participatory learning through chats, forums, email, hangouts, Skype, Meet, videoconferences, etc.To carry out this study, two types of methodology were applied: satisfaction surveys implemented by the Quality Office of the ULe to determine the degree of satisfaction of students and teachers, and a study of annual reports.     

Students' Viewpoint: What Constitutes Presence in an Online Classroom?

In this exploratory study, a community of inquiry framework was used to investigate students' perceptions of the efficacy and quality of online information organization and abstracting and indexing classes. It was found that participants valued not only the flexibility of online education, but also the instructor's timely engagement and reflection. Study participants emphasized the necessity of the instructor's frequent engagement through various modes of communication, such as virtual and face-to-face office hours and email. Participants' interest in asynchronous instruction mode was also observed. These findings are in line with previous studies emphasizing the importance of teaching presence in online classrooms. This study contributes to understanding students' perceptions of the quality of online learning and teaching.     

Is the Confirmation Bias Bubble Larger Online? Pre-Election Confirmation Bias in Selective Exposure to Online versus Print Political Information

The Internet era has often been blamed for a predominant engagement with attitude-consistent information among citizens (labeled confirmation bias), which is thought to hurt political deliberation. This study offers the first rigorous evidence suggesting that online news fosters greater confirmation bias than traditional media. A 2 × 2 within-subjects experiment presented political articles, varying stance (conservative vs. liberal) and medium (online vs. print); selective exposure was logged or taped. Data were collected during the U.S. 2016 presidential primaries. As expected in the preelection context, partisans whose party was anticipated to lose the election (conservatives) did not exhibit confirmation bias. Liberals showed confirmation bias, but only online, suggesting print contexts reduce confirmation bias.     

Mortal or Moodle? A Comparison of In-person vs. Online Information Literacy Instruction

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of online and in-person instructional methods for teaching research skills, as well as to determine student preferences for each method. Undergraduate students received librarian-led research skills instruction either through an online course management system or in person at the library. Students were surveyed about their experience and format preference, and their grades on a subsequent literature review assignment were collected. The online group’s scores were significantly (p?=?0.002) higher, and a majority of eligible participants stated a preference for the online format. Many of the students in both groups reported increased skills and confidence in conducting speech-language-hearing science research following the library instruction. The results of this study support the possibility that online instruction may be more effective than in-person for improving performance on a literature review assignment and is preferred by on-campus students for learning information literacy skills.     

What is a Media Company? A Reconceptualization for the Online World

The current understanding of a media company is based on the idea of a publisher or broadcaster producing or aggregating, bundling, and distributing content. In this scenario, the content creation mainly is done by professionals. However, with the advent of mobile devices and ubiquitous Internet access, users have been enabled to produce content themselves. This gave rise to a new form of media companies: the platform operators, who aggregate, manage, and distribute user-generated content. Based on a historical summary, this article delineates the characteristics of this new approach of content distribution, draws comparisons to the traditional media companies, derives implications for the media markets, and provides a definition for the term media company that is valid in both the online and offline world.     

Librarianship and Information Science in the Maghreb 1966–1999: An Annotated Bibliography

This work is an annotated bibliography that consists of articles, books, conference papers, dissertations, reports, etc. published in various library and information science forums on the subject of librarianship in the Maghreb. The goal of preparing this work is to provide a list of citations with abstracts that librarians, library students, and library scholars can use to perform research within this subject area and further the body of knowledge. The research methodology that was used to find these citations involved searching the database versions of ERIC, Dissertations Abstracts Online, and Library Literature within the online public access catalog of the Auburn University library system. It also involved searching the online databases of Library and Information Science Abstracts (LISA), British Education Index, andEducation Abstracts within the DIALOG database as well as the respective print versions of these resources. While this work is by no means an exhaustive critique of the entire Maghrebi library and information science literature, it does strive to be comprehensive in terms of its country-by-country analysis of librarianship and information science within the region. In providing a citation for a non-English language work, the English equivalent of the title of that work will be given next to the non-English title.     

Nineteenth-Century Journalism Online—The Market Versus Academia?

In a climate of fear about funding for libraries and the arts, the preservation of many periodicals and newspapers is under threat. Digitisation is therefore justifiable as a conservation directive however what of those volumes that are not chosen? Are we creating an alternative version of Victorian culture through so selective a gaze? Indeed, who is choosing these titles? There is a question of access, both of what material is available to digitise and also what it is perceived ‘the audience’ want. However, a further question is raised—who are ‘the audience’? What are these archives going to be used for? This article will examine the different forms of nineteenth-century periodical and newspaper archives that are available, how they are organised and who their perceived audience is, before going on to consider the pedagogical utility of such sites. How can we enhance students' understanding of nineteenth-century culture by using these archives in our lecture theatres? And if we do, what are the implications for research in the future?     

He Asked Me What!?—Using Shared Online Accounts as Training Tools for Distance Learning Librarians

ABSTRACT

This study explores the idea of creating a knowledge base from shared online accounts to use in training librarians who perform distance reference services. Through a survey, follow-up interviews and a case study, the investigators explored current and potential use of shared online accounts as training tools. This study revealed that the participants viewed the concept positively, but many encountered barriers to effectively employing a local knowledge base as a training tool.     

Evaluating Legal Information Retrieval Systems: How Do the Ranked-Retrieval Methods of WESTLAW and LEXIS Measure Up?

Abstract

This article contends that the relative effectiveness of Lexis and Westlaw should be measured by their ability to find and rank relevant documents. It contains an evaluation of Boolean systems and includes discussion of the Blair and Maron and the Dabney studies in which high recall was the goal of online searches. It then suggests that when other means of discovering relevant cases are available, the need for high recall is diminished. Finally, the article examines and presents performance test results of Lexis' Freestyle and Westlaw's Win natural language search engines.     

Shortcuts to Well Being? Evaluating the Credibility of Online Health Information through Multiple Complementary Heuristics

Relying on the think-aloud method, this article explores how a diverse group of American adults seek health information online. Analyzing over 350,000 words of interview material and over 43 hours of video screen shots, the study identifies the specific strategies users rely upon in the health-information seeking context. People simultaneously deploy multiple complementary heuristics rather than engage in intensive systematic processing of online information despite the high-stakes nature of these searches. The results contribute nuanced understanding of how diverse adults find and evaluate online information in the important domain of health.     

Does Political Advertising Lead to Online Information Seeking? A Real-World Test Using Google Search Data

Though the political advertising literature has documented the effects of political advertising on political attitudes and voting behavior, less attention has been paid to the role of political advertising in stimulating information search. This study seeks to examine the impact of political advertising on real world information seeking using CMAG data from the Wisconsin Ad Project combined with Google Trends search data. Results suggest that increased advertising volume is associated with increased online information seeking. Additionally, this study tests the feasibility of using Google Trends search data as a proxy measure of political information seeking.     

Librarianship and Information Science in Islamic East Africa 1966–1999: An Annotated Bibliography

This work is an annotated bibliography that consists of articles, books, conference papers, dissertations, and reports, etc. published in various library and information science forums on the subject of librarianship in Islamic East Africa. The goal of preparing this work is to provide a list of citations with abstracts that librarians, library students, and library scholars can use to perform research within this subject area and further the body of knowledge. The research methodology that was used to find these citations involved searching the database versions of ERIC, Dissertations Abstracts Online, and Library Literature within the online public access catalog of the Auburn University library system. It also involved searching the online databases of Library and Information Science Abstracts (LISA), British Education Index, and Education Abstracts within the DIALOG database as well as the respective print copies of these resources. While this work is by no means an exhaustive analysis of the entire East African library literature, it does strive to be comprehensive in terms of its country-by-country breakdown of librarianship within the region. Islamic East Africa for the purposes of this work incorporates the nations of Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, and Tanzania. In providing a citation for a non-English language work, the English equivalent of the title of that work will be given next to the non-English title.