The relationship of information science to the social sciences: A co-citation analysis

A co-citation cluster analysis of a three year (1975–1977) cumulation of the Social Sciences Citation Index is described, and clusters of information science documents contained in this data-base are identified using a journal subset concentration measure. The internal structure of the information science clusters is analyzed in terms of co-citations among clusters, and external linkages to fields outside information science are explored. It is shown that clusters identified by the journal concentration method also cohere in a natural way through cluster co-citation. Conclusions are drawn regarding the relationship of information science to the social sciences, and suggestions are made on how these data might be used in planning an agenda for research in the field.     

Developing Performance-Oriented Models for University Resource Allocation

This article examines some methodologies for allocating instructional resources within a large, public university. Models are developed for allocating equipment and current expense funding that incorporate objective or performance-oriented variables, as well as weighting variables that enable decision makers to quantify the more subjective elements of the allocation process. As examples, the recent application of the models at Kent State University is described in order to illustrate the flexibility of these approaches in use.     

Affirmative action at Virginia Tech: The tail that wagged the dog

Editor's Note: A pair of articles in the Spring 1992Academic Questions received considerable attention. Printed under the rubric “The Trivialization of Sexual Harassment,” one detailed the case of Allan Mandelstamm at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and the other the case of the Department of Scandinavian Studies at the University of Minnesota. Both were stories of extraordinary abuses of power by midlevel administrators who vigorously promoted charges of sexual harassment against professors wholly and obviously innocent of harassment. The following articles attempt to explain how these same two institutions reached the point where such abuses of power and violations of elemental justice became possible.     

On two effects of signaling the consequences for remembering

Five pigeons were trained to perform a delayed matching-to-sample task in which red- and green-colored keys were presented as sample and choice stimuli, and the duration of a delay interval varied across trials. Experiment 1 investigated the effects on delayed-matching accuracy of signaling different durations of food access for the two correct responses (the differential-outcomes effect), and of signaling nondifferential but larger durations for both responses (the signaled-magnitudes effect). In Condition 1, a vertical bar on either sample signaled different rewards (or different outcomes, DOs) for correct red and correct green responses (0.5 and 3.5 sec, respectively), and a horizontal bar signaled equal durations of food access (or same outcomes, SOs) for these responses (1.5 sec). In Condition 2, the horizontal bar signaled equally large rewards for the two correct responses (3.5 sec), and the vertical bar signaled equally small rewards (0.5 sec). Delayed-matching accuracies were higher on DO trials than on SO trials, and they were higher on large-reward trials than on small-reward trials. However, analyses of discriminability estimates as a function of delay-interval duration revealed differences between the forgetting functions reflecting these two effects. Signaling DOs increased the initial level of the function and reduced its slope relative to signaling SOs, whereas signaling larger rewards increased the initial level of the function but did not affect its slope relative to signaling smaller rewards. Experiment 2 investigated whether the difference between the initial levels of DO and SO functions in Condition 1 resulted from overall longer food access on the former trials. However, varying the food-access times on SO trials across three conditions (0.5, 3.5, and 1.5 sec) failed to produce systematic effects consistent with this hypothesis. The results are discussed with respect to the mechanisms that could be responsible for the two effects.