An Autoethnographic Approach to a Supervisor-Supported Climate Survey

Abstract

Academic libraries typically employ a top-down approach to employee performance evaluations, which often does little to reveal an employee’s needs within the workplace and fails to provide an opportunity for supervisors to assess and reflect on how their actions impact the work environment. Using an autoethnographic approach, a supervisor and a support staff member developed an assessment instrument to evaluate the supervisor-supported work climate in one department of an academic library. This project helped promote both individual and department-wide discussion on what elements make a supportive work climate and provided the supervisor an opportunity to reflect on ways to improve support efforts. This article includes practical information as well as the lived experiences of the collaborators.     

The impact of supervisor and subordinate immediacy on relational and organizational outcomes

Hypotheses were advanced based on the immediacy principle, accommodation theory, reciprocity theory, and previous research in another applied context which argue that increased nonverbal immediacy behaviors of supervisors have the potential to enhance subordinates’ perceptions of that supervisor, increase subordinate satisfaction with the supervisor and communication with the supervisor, and increase motivation and job satisfaction on the part of the subordinate. All of the hypotheses were supported by the results. The “principle of immediate communication” received strong support. It is concluded that increased immediacy on the part of either the supervisor or the subordinate is likely to generate reciprocity and accommodation leading to a more positive work environment and more desirable outcomes.     

The Expression of Dominance and Perceptions of Supervisor Credibility in Supervisor/Employee Relationships

In the workplace, a supervisor’s communication of dominance can be used to help accomplish tasks and complete work. Further, perceptions of credibility can be integral in influencing employees and creating an open work climate. The goal of this investigation was to understand how supervisors’ messages of dominance were related to perceptions of supervisor credibility. In this study, 303 participants working in various industries completed measures of interpersonal dominance and credibility about their direct supervisor. As hypothesized, influence and focus/poise were positively related to competence, goodwill, and trustworthiness, whereas conversational control was negatively related to goodwill and trustworthiness. Further, self-assurance was negatively related to goodwill. Regression analyses determined that influence and focus/poise had the strongest relationship to all three dimensions of credibility.     

我国图书情报与档案管理领域博士生导师群体特征分析

对我国图书情报与档案管理领域博士生导师的年龄、性别和地区分布特征及其学习经历进行分析,揭示我国该领域师资力量的现状,并针对今后这一领域的高层次人才培养特别是博士生导师培训提出建议。     

Question-answering systems as efficient sources of terminological information: an evaluation

Background: Question‐answering systems (or QA Systems) stand as a new alternative for Information Retrieval Systems. Most users frequently need to retrieve specific information about a factual question to obtain a whole document. Objectives: The study evaluates the efficiency of QA systems as terminological sources for physicians, specialised translators and users in general. It assesses the performance of one open‐domain QA system, START, and one restricted‐domain QA system, MedQA. Method: The study collected two hundred definitional questions (What is…?), either general or specialised, from the health website WebMD. Sources used by the open‐domain QA system, START, and the restricted‐domain QA system, MedQA, were studied to retrieve answers, and later a range of evaluation measures (precision, Mean Reciprocal Rank, Total Reciprocal Rank, First Hit Success) were applied to mark the quality of answers. Results: It was established that both systems are useful in the retrieval of valid definitional healthcare information, with an acceptable degree of coherent and precise responses from both. The answers supplied by MedQA were more reliable that those of START in the sense that they came from specialised clinical or academic sources, most of them showing links to further research articles. Conclusions: Results obtained show the potential of this type of tool in the more general realm of information access, and the retrieval of health information. They may be considered a good, reliable and reasonably precise alternative in alleviating the information overload. Both QA systems can help professionals and users can obtain healthcare information.     

谈新时期高校班主任工作

在现代大学校园内,传统意义上的"班级"概念已越来越淡化,但作者以为从领导科学的角度考虑,不但不能取消班主任制度,反而要强化班主任的地位和作用.文章就新时期如何做好班主任工作作些探讨.     

Using the Web for research evaluation: The Integrated Online Impact indicator

Previous research has shown that citation data from different types of Web sources can potentially be used for research evaluation. Here we introduce a new combined Integrated Online Impact (IOI) indicator. For a case study, we selected research articles published in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology (JASIST) and Scientometrics in 2003. We compared the citation counts from Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus with five online sources of citation data including Google Scholar, Google Books, Google Blogs, PowerPoint presentations and course reading lists. The mean and median IOI was nearly twice as high as both WoS and Scopus, confirming that online citations are sufficiently numerous to be useful for the impact assessment of research. We also found significant correlations between conventional and online impact indicators, confirming that both assess something similar in scholarly communication. Further analysis showed that the overall percentage for unique Google Scholar citations outside the WoS were 73% and 60% for the articles published in JASIST and Scientometrics, respectively. An important conclusion is that in subject areas where wider types of intellectual impact indicators outside the WoS and Scopus databases are needed for research evaluation, IOI can be used to help monitor research performance.     

Uncovering patterns in the supervision of Spanish theses: a comprehensive analysis

In academia, thesis supervision is a fundamental task in the good progress of PhD candidates and of the thesis itself. This task can be performed by a unique researcher (acting as a unique supervisor) or shared with other researchers (acting both as co-supervisors). Whether this demanding task is performed alone or in collaboration depends (or may depend) on many factors, among them, on the degree of independence of the researcher, the research topic and current regulations. This implies that, at some point in time, the PhD candidate should leave the exclusive guidance of his/her own supervisor to assume the role of thesis supervisor, alone or with others.The main aim of this paper is thus to analyze thesis supervision roles in Spain in order to identify patterns of behavior. To achieve this, we used the data on all Spanish theses stored in the TESEO database from 1 January 1980 to 20 July 2018, designing and applying a methodology to carry out a diachronic study. The data were divided into five consecutive time periods in order to determine the patterns in their evolution over the years, and analyze various aspects such as the interaction between different roles, the migration from one role to another, the factors that could influence these behaviors, and the independence of researchers from the perspective of thesis supervision. We identified four different roles that can be established in thesis supervision: Supervisor, Co-supervisor with own supervisor, Co-supervisor with PhD student, and Co-supervisor with other. Additionally, we have discovered how thesis researchers’ preference for one role or another has varied over the years, the most and least popular roles by period, and the main migrations between the roles studied, among others.     

基于公共产品理论的图书馆市场化运作研究

在介绍公共产品理论基本原理的基础上，分析图书馆的公共产品性质及其特征，阐述基于公共产品理论实行公共图书馆市场化运作的四种实践模式，指出推进公共图书馆市场化运作需要政府重新定位其角色，即政府应成为公共图书馆市场法律监管者、价格监管者、市场空缺补位者和运作绩效评估者。     

科技基础条件平台共享机制演化博弈分析

共享机制的建立是科技基础条件平台建设和运行的核心,文章在对科技基础条件平台共享机制的本质和 决定要素进行分析的基础上,运用演化博弈理论,从参与主体的有限理性出发,以局部动态的视角,构建了外部监督 条件下的科技基础条件平台共享机制的演化博弈模型,在此基础上借助数学上的相位图对平台共享机制的动态演变过 程进行了系统分析,提出影响平台资源共享的关键因素是共享主体的共享成本、平台监管机构对平台共享主体的激励 与惩罚、平台监管机构在进行严格监管时的收益和成本。     

柔性管理在图书馆工作中的应用

论文阐述了图书馆实行柔性管理的必要性，并着重从管理者和馆员两个不同角度解释了其在管理和服务工作中的具体运用。     

Speaker behavior to nonverbal aversive stimuli from the audience

Employment interviewers at large businesses in San Antonio, Texas, listened to taped speech samples of Mexican American males speaking English with varying degrees of accentedness in simulated employment interviews, evaluated speaker personality characteristics, and made a hiring prediction about whether each speaker might be hired for each of three level positions: supervisor, skilled technician, and semi‐skilled worker. Measures of interviewers’ degree of expectations (stereotypes), exposure, and language attitudes related to Mexican Americans were set in a multiple regression equation predicting hiring decisions. Results indicated that together, expectations, exposure and language attitudes did account for a significant amount of the variance for hiring predictions. The individual predictive power of each variable varied according to position. For supervisor, a measure of reactions to actual speech stimuli was the only significant individual predictor. For skilled technician, scores from each variable cluster proved significant, while for semi‐skilled worker, expectations and language attitudes were significant predictors. Language attitudes dropped off in importance with each level, confirming previous findings of the importance of language evaluations for higher level positions. Standard speakers were significantly favored (p <.001) for supervisor, while accented speakers were favored (p <.001) for semi‐skilled worker.     

Elucidating influences on superior‐subordinate communication: Attributional confidence and organizational control expectancies

The purpose of this study was to examine how differences in organizational control expectancies affect superior‐subordinate interaction and relational certainty. Employees (N = 280) from several organizations completed measures of perceived control, attributional confidence, and superior‐subordinate interaction. Results indicated significant relationships between subordinates ‘ work locus of control orientation with relational certainty and superior‐subordinate relationship quality. A large effect was observed between subordinates ‘ report of relational certainty with supervisor and supervisor leadership style.     

Applying reciprocity and accommodation theories to supervisor/subordinate communication

Reciprocity and accommodation theories were applied to communication between supervisors and subordinates. It was reasoned that supervisors and subordinates informally (and not necessarily consciously) negotiate communication styles with each other which become significantly correlated over time. It was hypothesized that the supervisors’ Socio‐Communicative Style and the subordinates’ Socio‐Communicative Orientation would be positively correlated with each other and both would predict the subordinates’ perceptions of the supervisors’ credibility, attractiveness, and the subordinates’ general attitude toward the supervisor and communicating with that supervisor. The results were consistent with the hypotheses.     

科技论文综合评价体系的研究与思考

科技论文的评价工作是科技期刊实现优质信息资源汇聚,进而创造经济效益和社会效益的重要保障,关系到读者、作者与编者的切身利益和正常的编辑出版秩序,是一项综合性的社会系统工程。围绕这一中心,阐述科技论文综合评价体系的基本结构,分析常用的评价方法并比较了各自相对于评价目标的优劣特点,指明科技期刊编辑部在这一体系中的枢纽地位和主要任务,并列举编辑利用期刊特有的语言传递评价意见的若干可行方法。     

Web traffic and organization performance measures: Relationships and data sources examined

Unlike Web hyperlink data, Web traffic data have not yet been the focus of considerable study in Webometrics research. The relationships between Web traffic data and academic/business performance measures have not been as firmly established as the relationships between Web hyperlink data and such performance measures. Although various traffic data sources exist, few studies have examined and compared their relative merits. We carried out a study that aimed to address this lack. We selected groups of universities and businesses from the U.S. and China and collected their Web traffic data from three sources: Alexa Internet, Google Trends for Websites, and Compete. We found significant correlations between Web traffic data and organizational performance measures, specifically academic quality for universities and financial variables for businesses. We also examined the characteristics of the three data sources and compared their usefulness. We found that Alexa Internet outperformed the others.     

The value of student evaluation of a web site

A collaborative project between the library and the biology department is in its fourth year. Conceived as a traditional lecture-based instruction session, it has evolved into a web-based, library skills tutorial which introduces students to topic development; a variety of types of resources to use, along with strategies for evaluating and using them effectively; guidelines for citation formats; and much more. Students are required to work through the site to gather sources for a paper. Student evaluations of the site taught its developers much about how students approach this kind of assignment and how it can be improved.     

Workplace Relationship Quality and Employee Information Experiences

This study examined the extent to which the amount and quality of work‐related information employees received was associated with the quality of their relationships with peer co‐workers and their immediate supervisors. Results indicated that supervisor–subordinate relationship quality was positively related to both the amount and quality of information employees received from their immediate supervisor. In addition, employees’ proportions of information peer relationships were negatively related, and their proportions of collegial peer relationships were positively related, to the quality of information they received from their co‐workers. Regression analyses also indicated that the quality of information employees received from their supervisors and co‐workers was positively related to their job satisfaction and commitment to the organization.     

图书馆联盟绩效评价体系构建

图书馆联盟绩效评价体系是由绩效目标体系设计、绩效评价指标体系设计、联盟业务运作、绩效评价、反馈等所组成的行为系统，文章分析了该系统的各组成要素，并构建了图书馆联盟绩效评价指标体系。