International Collaboration and Openness in Jordanian Research Output: A 10-year Publications Feedback

Previous reports stressed on the importance of international collaboration and open access (OA) publishing, as they increase the quality of the research and increase its benefits. In this study, we will assess Jordanian international research collaboration and OA publishing in the past 10 years. We performed a Scopus search for Jordanian publications in the years 2008–2017, where we extracted and calculated the total number of publications, publications in OA journals, publications with international collaborations. Moreover, we assessed the disciplines Jordanians usually publish in. During the 10-year interval, we found a total of 20,359 Jordan-affiliated publications indexed in Scopus. We found a dramatic increase in number of publications with international collaboration from 38% in 2008 reaching 53.3% in 2017, and an increase in OA publications from 7.3% of the total publications in 2008, reaching 18.7% of the total publications in 2017. Total number of Scopus indexed publications from Jordan has increased by 57.9% over the past 10 years. Although international collaboration and OA publications have dramatically increased in recent years, Jordanian researchers should focus more on international collaboration with developed countries and on self-archiving their publications.     

The Dynamic Landscape of Marketing Children’s Books: Publishers Find Consistent Success Through a Combination of Online and Traditional Marketing to Adults and Children

There are a number of challenges unique to the children’s book sector faced by publishers in today’s digitally-dominant business market, making it more crucial than ever for children’s book marketers to create multifaceted marketing plans that include differing but complementary approaches. Among the common marketing challenges specific to children’s books are overabundance of content, competition, access to the library market, the digital versus print dichotomy, difficulty of marketing directly to young readers on the Internet, and the dual (child and adult) target audience. While some marketing tactics must effectively attract the attention of the child reader, it is of fundamental importance (with some exceptions) for publishers, authors, and marketers of children’s books to also ensure their marketing techniques target the adult gatekeepers who are likely to purchase those books. Depending upon various factors, including age range of the reader and subject matter, marketers of children’s books are most successful when applying a mix of traditional and digital marketing techniques.     

Features of Islamic Children’s Books in English: A Case Study of Books Published in Malaysia

The purpose of this study is to investigate the elements of Islamic children’s books that are written in English by focusing on books that are available in the Malaysian market and published in Malaysia. This study applies the content analysis method, by examining the selected books of their subject matter as well as the language. The results of the study reveal that Islamic books written for children in English are distinctive in terms of the content and language features.     

Clustering small-sized collections of short texts

The need to cluster small text corpora composed of a few hundreds of short texts rises in various applications; e.g., clustering top-retrieved documents based on their snippets. This clustering task is challenging due to the vocabulary mismatch between short texts and the insufficient corpus-based statistics (e.g., term co-occurrence statistics) due to the corpus size. We address this clustering challenge using a framework that utilizes a set of external knowledge resources that provide information about term relations. Specifically, we use information induced from the resources to estimate similarity between terms and produce term clusters. We also utilize the resources to expand the vocabulary used in the given corpus and thus enhance term clustering. We then project the texts in the corpus onto the term clusters to cluster the texts. We evaluate various instantiations of the proposed framework by varying the term clustering method used, the approach of projecting the texts onto the term clusters, and the way of applying external knowledge resources. Extensive empirical evaluation demonstrates the merits of our approach with respect to applying clustering algorithms directly on the text corpus, and using state-of-the-art co-clustering and topic modeling methods.     

Decolonising higher education curricula in South Africa: factoring in archives through public programming initiatives

South African higher education curricula are largely Eurocentric, to such an extent that indigenous knowledge is marginalised (Horsthemke in Transform High Educ 2(1)–9, 2017). Consequently, the decolonisation of university curricula has become a necessity. The nationwide ‘FeesMustFall’ student protests in 2015 and 2016 have underlined the need to address this matter urgently. Free quality education and the decolonisation of university curricula were among some of the students’ demands (Le Grange in SAJHE 30(2):1–12, 2016). Fundamentally, decolonising curricula involve a serious investigation of history and the strategising of future actions (Ngulube in Historia 47(2):563–582, 2002). Little is known about the potential role of archives in the process of decolonising higher education curricula in South Africa. Perhaps this can be attributed to a lack of awareness about archives and their significance in South Africa (Sulej in ESARBICA J 33:13–35, 2014). This paper explores the role of archives in the decolonisation of higher education curricula in South Africa. It appears that sub-Saharan scholars rarely consult archives (Onyancha et al. in ESARBICA J 32:67–77, 2013). Therefore, public programming is investigated as a means to get more members of the academic community to use archives as centres of critical inquiry. The relevant literature was consulted and discussed. Unique outreach or public programming initiatives will help the academic community to better understand the significance of archives in the decolonisation process.     

Spanish historic archives’ use of websites as a management transparency vehicle

Against the backdrop of Spain’s Transparency Act, this article discusses the presence or otherwise of a series of document types, proposed as management-related transparency indicators, on 61 (8 national and 53 provincial) historic archive websites. Although examples of good practice were identified, the information provided was found to be scant, in particular as regards lines of action, organisational objectives and yearly reports. The information most commonly provided on the websites included the collection classification chart, service use regulations and citizen charters. The inference drawn was that archives, so intently focused on their role in the application of the Act by the organisations they serve, neglect their own administrative obligations in respect of its provisions. The recommendation is that as government-funded and subsidised public service institutions, historic archives should exercise transparency by furnishing the information stipulated in the Act on their websites.     

“Seeking Information from the Lips of People”: oral history in the archives of Qatar and the Gulf region

The turn to oral history in Qatar and the Arabian (also known as Persian) Gulf is not a rejection of traditional archival authority as has been the case in other parts of the world. In the Gulf, oral history has been embraced out of a desire to fill the silences of the largely unwritten record attributable to previous low levels of literacy and strong oral traditions in the region. Today, oral history is seen as the best method to capture details about traditional ways of life during the pre-oil era. After discussing archival concerns about the evidentiary nature of oral histories, this paper explores how it has come to be a crucial documentation tool in the Gulf, adapted to the specific nation building and cultural heritage priorities of the region.     

饱和链烷烃沸点的拓扑研究

本文从距离矩阵和邻接矩阵出发,结合矩阵的数学知识,提出了一种新的拓扑指数Qx=(W×V)1/8,用最小二乘法拟合b.p.(℃),得到线性回归方程为:b.p.(℃)=-277.814+165.248Qx(r=0.993)     

全国高校图书馆专业干部进修工作座谈会在南京召开

<正> 7月7日至10日,全国高校图书馆工作委员会秘书处在南京召开了全国高校图书馆专业干部进修工作座谈会.华东师大、北京师大、东北师大、南开大学、南京大学、兰州大学、大连工学院、武汉大学、上海大学文学院、安徽大学、山东大学、西南师范学院、南京工学院、湘潭大学以及河南、江苏两省高校图书馆工作(协作)委员会秘书处的同志参加了会议.一九八二年八月教育部转发《关于举办高等学校图书馆专业干部进修班的暂行规定》以来,已有12所高校的图书馆学系(专业)或图书馆受教育部委托,举办了16期专业干部进修班,先后培训了600多名近几年留在图书馆工作的非图书馆学或情报学专业大专毕业生.一九八四至八五学年度还将有210名在职人员参加一年的进修.这次会议就是为了总结经验,互通信息而召开的.     

科学研究与研究图书馆的未来

《科学研究与研究图书馆的未来》是丹麦数字研究图书馆于2009年12月发布的一份报告。这份报告试图回答:研究图书馆有未来吗,它可能会扮演怎样的角色,能够描绘一幅地图以引领我们到达期望中全新的未来吗?报告分为十个部分,前四部分概述了整个研究图书馆系统的现状、挑战和发展趋势;第五部分在访谈基础上分析了研究图书馆是如何体现其文化和特性的;最后五部分详细分析了现状,并提出一系列必须解决的问题以及可以用来应对未来挑战的工具,主要是价值创造、利益相关者以及决策以形成战略和构建地图。