Persona Design: Representativeness and Empathy through Cultural Integration

Persona design aims to increase students’ ability to understand their target users and address their needs. Yet, there is a lack of conceptual frameworks that help students systematically conceptualise user needs, specifically the two key requirements of persona design: representativeness and empathy. In this study, we find an alternative method using cultural dimensions to ensure that students conceptualise personas by reflecting representativeness and empathy in a systematic way. We justify cultural dimensions and engagement aspects and suggest a classified table for representative and empathetic persona design. In a design course, we analyse personas created by students in two different groups with the table (Group 1, n = 16) and without the table (Group 2, n = 17) through comparative thematic analysis to evaluate the qualities of representativeness and empathy. As a result, the cognitive aspect of engagement is predominated in Group 2, whereas the cognitive, emotional, behavioural, and social aspects of engagement are evenly distributed in Group 1. 11 cultural dimensions are identified in Group 2, whereas 20 cultural dimensions are identified in Group 1. In Group 2, a particular dimension is predominant (44.4% of individualism), whereas, in Group 1, the rate of the most used dimension is 12.2% (femininity and collectivism). The study results indicate that the method allows students to diversify and deepen their understanding of user needs and thereby conceptualising personas in in-depth and analytical ways. From instructional perspectives, it can be used by educators to help students systematically conceptualise user needs in design activities.     

UNDERSTANDING TEST‐TYPE ASSIGNMENT: WHY DO SPECIAL EDUCATORS MAKE UNEXPECTED TEST‐TYPE ASSIGNMENTS?

We interviewed special educators (a) whose students with disabilities (SWDs) were proficient on the 2008 general education assessment but were assigned to the 2009 alternate assessment based on modified achievement standards (AA‐MAS), and (b) whose students with mild disabilities took the 2008 alternate assessment based on alternate achievement standards (AA‐AAS) and then the 2009 AA‐MAS. We explored teachers’ rationales for test‐type assignment, student characteristics, and quality of instruction to determine the test‐type decisions’ appropriateness. All teachers based their decisions on combinations of factors in the guidelines plus subjective and noninstructional factors. Findings raised concerns about the subjectivity of the assessment assignment system and the inappropriate grade‐level instruction for SWDs. Future research, implications of these findings, and limitations are discussed.     

The Role of Rural Communities in the Postsecondary Preparation of Low-Income Students

In the past decade, rural education has been critiqued for contributing to brain drain and social stratification that saps the human, social, and economic resources of rural communities. This article, based on an investigation of six small rural school districts in the same state, offers an alternative view of the role of community groups and individuals in the academic preparation and postsecondary aspirations of local low-income students. From the accounts of 79 school and community residents, we developed a typology that categorizes local stakeholders by their involvement in three common functions: program support, program directing, and program initiation/administration. These proeducational activities, in combination, support the necessary tasks of qualification, graduation, application, and aspiration. Results not only increase understanding about the ways rural communities support educational preparation, but also clarify the links between particular community behaviors and the completion of essential college-preparation tasks.     

Putting the pieces together: endometriosis blogs,cognitive authority,and collaborative information behavior

Objective:

A discourse analysis was conducted of peer-written blogs about the chronic illness endometriosis to understand how bloggers present information sources and make cases for and against the authority of those sources.

Methods:

Eleven blogs that were authored by endometriosis patients and focused exclusively or primarily on the authors'' experiences with endometriosis were selected. After selecting segments in which the bloggers invoked forms of knowledge and sources of evidence, the text was discursively analyzed to reveal how bloggers establish and dispute the authority of the sources they invoke.

Results:

When discussing and refuting authority, the bloggers invoked many sources of evidence, including experiential, peer-provided, biomedical, and intuitive ones. Additionally, they made and disputed claims of cognitive authority via two interpretive repertoires: a concern about the role and interests of the pharmaceutical industry and an understanding of endometriosis as extremely idiosyncratic. Affective authority of information sources was also identified, which presented as social context, situational similarity, or aesthetic or spiritual factors.

Conclusions:

Endometriosis patients may find informational value in blogs, especially for affective support and epistemic experience. Traditional notions of authority might need to be revised for the online environment. Guidelines for evaluating the authority of consumer health information, informed by established readers'' advisory practices, are suggested.

Highlights

• Endometriosis patients who blog about the illness may determine authority of information sources through both cognitive and affective methods.

Implications

• Because patients with chronic illnesses might have different authority criteria than medical librarians do, it could be useful to carefully incorporate electronic patient discussion forums, medical blogs written by laypeople, and other nontraditionally authoritative resources into consumer health information selection policies. Standard biomedical resources are certainly important to recommend to consumers, but they do not convey the complete picture of a chronic illness and its related experience.
• Patients with chronic illnesses and caregivers can benefit from sources such as blogs and online discussion lists that provide social and emotional support as well as accounts of “lived experience.”
• An understanding of the patient''s potential epistemological community can make the librarian''s recommendations more appropriate for the individual user.

     

Analyzing the Roles,Activities, and Skills of Learning Technologists: A Case Study From City University London

This article reports on a case study carried out at City University London into the role of learning technologists. The article examines how the role developed by providing points of comparison with a report on the career development of learning technology staff in UK universities in 2001. This case study identified that learning technologists undertook diverse roles and acquired the skills to work in different communities (professional, academic, and research). It also found that although the core role and activities of learning technologists were similar to findings in 2001, the changing context in which they operated added complexity to the role and impacted the skills and experience required.     

RLG and OCLC: Combined for the Future

On July 1, 2006, The Research Libraries Group, Inc. (RLG) and the Online Computer Library System (OCLC) combined their organizations and resources. RLG's products and services were integrated with OCLC's, and RLG's program initiatives went forward within an expanded OCLC Research division. This was a historic moment for libraries and research institutions consonant with the incredible changes in the information environment that had been underway during the previous decade. The expansion of WorldCat that resulted and the renewed attention given to research libraries by OCLC in the merger has positively impacted libraries around the globe.     

Library-Led Faculty Workshops: Helping Distance Educators Meet Information Literacy Goals in the Online Classroom

ABSTRACT

At University of Maryland University College (UMUC), librarians have designed and led a number of multiday, asynchronous online workshops for faculty. The workshops teach faculty how to meet information literacy goals in the virtual classroom. Through hands-on activities and discussion among their colleagues, participants in the faculty workshops learn about the university's information literacy standards, library resources and services, free Web tools, and how best to design class assignments involving library research. Library-led faculty workshops at UMUC have increased library visibility and furthered collaboration between faculty and librarians. This article discusses 5 workshops, detailing workshop content and logistics and demonstrating how librarians can help distance faculty further information literacy goals for students.     

Peer Education in the Commons: A New Approach to Reference Services

In planning for a new library construction project for the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa, graduate students enrolled in the University of Oklahoma (OU) School of Library and Information Studies collaborated in an innovative effort to develop a commons-based reference service. By first considering a philosophical approach to the need for a commons, blending in the experiences of other libraries that have created similar spaces, and focusing on the workflow issues likely to be encountered by the graduate assistants staffing the commons itself, this planning team developed an uncommon peer-to-peer approach to reference and education services, one focused on the patron as student.     

Common Carrier

50 TEARS OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS REPORTS (Telecommunications Reports, 1036 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045—$100)

THE NEW TELECOMMUNICATIONS ERA AFTER THE AT&T DIVESTITURE: THE TRANSITION TO FULL COMPETITION (Practising Law Institute, 810 Seventh Ave, New York 10019—$40.00, paper)

TELECOMMUNICATIONS ACCESS & PUBLIC POLICY by Alan Bauchcum and Gerald Faulhaber (Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1984—price not given)

BILINGUAL DICTIONARY OF INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS: 2. TRANSMISSION EQUIPMENT by Andy Lauriston and Jocelyne Le Neal (Teleglobe Canada, Language Service, 680 Sherbrooke St. West, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2S4—$70.00 in Canadian funds)

CELLULAR TELEPHONES: A LAYMAN'S GUIDE by Stuart Crump, Jr. (Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Tab Books, 1985—$9.95, paper)

COMPUTER CRIME, ABUSE, LIABILITY AND SECURITY: A COMPREHENSIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY 1970-1984 compiled by Reba A. Best and D. Cheryn Picquet (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1985—$33.00, paper)