Book Reviews

Indexing from A to Z Second edition by Hans H. Wellisch, New York and Dublin: H.W. Wilson, 1996, 569 pp, $45, ISBN 0 8242 0882 X Winning the Publications Game by Tim Albert, Oxford and New York: Radcliffe Medical Press, 1997 100pp £15, ISBN 1-85775 183 3     

Professional capacity and organizational change as measures of educational effectiveness: assessing the impact of postgraduate education in Development Policy and Management

We tend to measure educational performance by students' attainment in coursework or examinations. In the case of professional education, the impact of the educational programme on the students' own capacities to enhance their work practices, and the wider organizational effects of the students' education and training, are also key ‘products’ of the educational process. This is particularly important with education for Development Policy and Management (DPAM), which is directly concerned with capacity‐building. This article adopts a work‐related approach to educational effectiveness and examines four professional programmes in DPAM—three in Southern Africa and one in the UK. Through the analysis of the results of surveys and case studies, the article demonstrates how a positive learning experience is related to the application of learning at work. However the conditions for applying learning also depend strongly on organizational context, as do the wider organizational impacts of learning. The article presents a broad approach to assessing educational effectiveness in professional programmes which incorporate these factors.     

Social software as support in hybrid learning environments: The value of the blog as a tool for reflective learning and peer support

This article reports on an investigation of blog technology's potential for encouraging interaction between students, and its consequences in terms of peer learning and peer support, on a module of an accredited library and information science (LIS) degree program. The findings consider the treatment of blogs in the domain of LIS with particular reference to educational settings. Content analysis revealed that blogs offer comparable and additional benefits to other projects designed to encourage reflective engagement with teaching material, such as learning journals. Most notable is the level of shared peer support evident in the online discussions between class members. The findings of this study are of particular interest to LIS educators who seek to develop their consideration of blogs in the classroom; blogs may be seen as learning tools in their own right and not simply an option for providing information online.     

No scholar is an island: The impact of sharing in the work life of scholars

The sharing of scholarly articles is an intrinsic and often ignored facet of the value and mission of scholarship. It is so entwined in the daily work life of scholars that it has almost become second nature, an integral part of the research process itself. This article addresses this often overlooked area of research in usage studies. In an international survey of 1,000 published scholars, the Beyond Downloads project examined their sharing behaviours in order to gain a more contextualized and accurate picture of their usage beyond download patterns and citation counts. Scholars share published articles with others as a mode of content discovery and dissemination, particularly if they work in groups, and most expect to increase their sharing in the future. While their methods of sharing articles may change, and their reasons for sharing may vary from self‐promotion to the more altruistic motives of scientific progress, they desire to share the final published versions of articles with their colleagues.     

Social media rumors as improvised public opinion: semantic network analyses of twitter discourses during Korean saber rattling 2013

Social media rumors are improvised and expressive forms of public opinion that especially arise under uncertain sociopolitical situations. This study utilizes early rumor studies as theoretical framework for textual analysis of Twitter public opinion. A content and semantic network analysis of Twitter messages spread during Korean saber rattling in 2013 was conducted for understanding public opinion in an uncertain context. The results show that, while non-rumor narratives focus on policy-level responses to the threat situation in a similar manner to institutionalized opinion polling, rumors are less concerned with official responses, instead reflective of hegemonic tensions between anti-leftwing political sentiments and the counteractive accounts. Some rumors reveal the public's coping with fears in the form of humor, guesswork, or wishes. Online rumor analysis helps understand how the society's collective memories interact with the current situational uncertainty in shaping public opinions and sentiments.