The Librarian BFF: A Case Study of a Cohort-Based Personal Librarian Program

This case study presents the development and implementation of a personal librarian program for a cohort-based, executive-style higher education administration doctoral program. Librarians and the program director collaborated to create a student-centered program based on individual research needs. The personal librarian program was designed to build a close relationship between the librarian and individual students; to help identify their research knowledge gaps; and to identify resources to meet each individual students' research needs.     

Traveling through: exploring doctoral demographics in archival studies

The growth of archival studies programs has prompted archival scholars to establish an international network for supporting collaborative research, curriculum development, and pedagogy. Doctoral education is key to the sustainability of such programs and the continuation of the network over time. We carried out longitudinal research to survey the population of doctoral students attending one or more Archival Education and Research Institutes (AERI), an annual meeting first held in 2009. Building on prior research on graduate archival education, we gathered demographic and qualitative data about doctoral students specializing in archival studies who are based in several countries including the USA. We sought to assess attendee motivations, guide conference planning, and help advance overall AERI objectives. Our study provides a baseline understanding of the disciplinary backgrounds, research directions, and specific professional development activities that doctoral students in archival studies pursued around the globe from 2013 to 2015. This paper argues that doctoral education should continue to be a particular subject of archival research and indicates how archival students’ range of academic interests is diversifying and strengthening the scholarly community.     

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.     

Teaching PEACE: A plan for effective crisis communication instruction

Courses: This unit activity is intended for public relations (PR), crisis communication, or journalism courses.

Objectives: The purpose is to equip future PR professionals with critical thinking skills and experience to manage crises. Students demonstrate mastery in two ways: by crafting clear crisis response messages and materials in a narrow time frame, and by applying a crisis communication heuristic to manage a simulated crisis event.     

Investigating the quality of interactions and public engagement around scientific papers on Twitter

This study explores science communication on Twitter by investigating a sample of tweets referring to academic papers in five different scientific fields. The specifications of science communicators on Twitter, the characteristics of those who initiate actions (by tweeting), the extent and quality of reactions (retweeting), individual and group interactions, and the distribution of tweets across types of engagement in the process of science communication (i.e., dissemination, consultation, and evaluation) were explored. A broad array of actors is involved in the communication of science on Twitter, with individual citizens and individual researchers playing an important role. In principle, this is promising for creating direct interaction, which can be difficult through more traditional mass media. The vast majority of communication activities regarding academic papers is undigested dissemination with almost no sign of debate, contestation, or collective reflection. Another general finding of this study is that bot accounts play a major role in the science communication landscape on Twitter.     

On the training of highly qualified scientific staff in the field of information security

This article considers the dynamics and specifics of training highly qualified scientific staff (philosophy doctors and doctors of sciences) in the field of information security and data protection in a 10-year period of 2004–2013 in basic research specialties as classified by the Higher Attestation Commission (VAC) of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation.