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.     

明确服务方向 提高服务质量

<正> 在师专学生阅览室工作中,我们着重抓了两个问题.一、掌握阅读动向,明确服务方向师专学生的阅读动向,大致可分为两大类型:一是对教学参考书的阅读需求,一是对课外读物的阅读需求.为了明确服务方向,我们曾对三百名学生读者作了一次粗略的阅读情况调查.情况表明:(一)学生的求知欲旺盛.表现在扩大专业知识的阅读和有目的的业余阅读,分别占被调查总人数的49.5%和44%;经常利用阅览室学习的,占被调查总人数的79.4%.(二)学生阅读内容因专业、年龄、性别而异.文科学生除本专业书刊外,偏重阅读文学、艺术、教育、青年修养等方面书刊;理科学生阅读兴趣比之文科学生更广泛些.高年级学生系统、连续性、有目的的阅读偏多;低年级学生随意     

期刊PR8指数:一个新的跨学科期刊评价指标及其实证研究

[目的/意义] 基于论文被引频次8个区段百分位数排序（percentile rank 8,PR8）赋分,尝试构建新的跨学科期刊评价指标：期刊PR8指数（journal index for PR8,JIPR8）,并检验JIPR8的跨学科期刊评价效果。[方法/过程] 选择JCR中8个学科301种期刊作为研究对象,分别计算每种期刊的JIPR8,并与其他几个跨学科期刊评价指标进行比较,检验JIPR8跨学科期刊评价的敏感度和稳定性,以及与其他跨学科期刊评价指标的相关性。[结果/结论] 在选择的所有指标中,8个学科301种期刊JIPR8的变异程度最低,说明其用于跨学科期刊评价的稳定性最好;不同分区期刊（Q1、Q2、Q3和Q4） JIPR8的组间差异性较为明显,仅次于期刊影响因子百分位（journal impact factor pencentile,JIFP）,表明其对优秀和一般期刊的区分度较好。认为JIPR8是一个非常理想的跨学科期刊评价指标。     

加快高校科技期刊实现产业化和集团化的发展步伐

基于当前期刊面向市场、走产业化和集团化发展道路的趋势,认为高校科技期刊编者应转变办刊观念,适应市场、满足市场需求,推动期刊实现产业化;应以重点学科为基础,加快高校科技期刊集团化步伐,实现集团化规模运作.