Impact Factor: Early Career Research & Digital Scholarship

It is becoming increasingly vital to publish and share research as well as get citations for the purpose of researcher visibility. The publishing options available for research distribution seem endless. It really is an academic jungle out there! This article reviews why early career researchers and graduate scholars should consider their research impact in the digital age.     

Multiple Copies of Bestsellers in Public Libraries: How Much Is Enough?

How do public libraries develop their collections of high-demand materials for the “I want it now” generation? Ten public libraries’ holdings of fiction and nonfiction bestseller titles were observed over a four-week period. The number of copies rose fairly consistently, with the five fiction titles having roughly about twice the number of copies as the five nonfiction titles. The ratio of holds to copies averaged 2.7:1 and ranged from 0.8:1 to 6.5:1. Demand for e-books was consistently higher than the number of copies available, averaging more than 4:1 across all libraries.     

Analysis of a laminar-flow diffusional mixer for directed self-assembly of liposomes

The present work describes the operation and simulation of a microfluidic laminar-flow mixer. Diffusive mixing takes place between a core solution containing lipids in ethanol and a sheath solution containing aqueous buffer, leading to self assembly of liposomes. Present device architecture hydrodynamically focuses the lipid solution into a cylindrical core positioned at the center of a microfluidic channel of 125 × 125-μm² cross-section. Use of the device produces liposomes in the size range of 100–300 nm, with larger liposomes forming at greater ionic strength in the sheath solution and at lower lipid concentration in the core solution. Finite element simulations compute the concentration distributions of solutes at axial distances of greater than 100 channel widths. These simulations reduce computation time and enable computation at long axial distances by utilizing long hexahedral elements in the axial flow region and fine tetrahedral elements in the hydrodynamic focusing region. Present meshing technique is generally useful for simulation of long microfluidic channels and is fully implementable using comsol Multiphysics. Confocal microscopy provides experimental validation of the simulations using fluorescent solutions containing fluorescein or enhanced green fluorescent protein.     

Factors affecting the speed of free writing

Factors affecting the free writing speed of 11‐year‐old students were investigated using the Group and Individual Assessment of Handwriting Speed. Intelligence, gender, legibility and whether the student has special educational needs or speaks English as an additional language were all found to impact on writing speed to a significant extent. In one of the two schools studied, the students wrote significantly faster than the students in the other school. This ‘teacher effect’ was found to be independent of the other significant factors examined in the study and was attributed largely to instructional differences between schools and teachers. The average writing speed was 36% lower than published norms for this test, implying that 70.2% of the students would be eligible for extra time in examinations and raising doubts regarding the validity of these norms. It was concluded that vulnerability to teacher effects and other factors makes free writing an unreliable method of measuring writing speed, especially when group administered, and calls into question its use to justify the provision of examination access arrangements or accommodations.     

Using Web-Based Key Character and Classification Instruction for Teaching Undergraduate Students Insect Identification

The purpose of the study was to determine whether undergraduate students receiving web-based instruction based on traditional, key character, or classification instruction differed in their performance of insect identification tasks. All groups showed a significant improvement in insect identifications on pre- and post-two-dimensional picture specimen quizzes. The study also determined student performance on insect identification tasks was not as good as for family-level identification as compared to broader insect orders and arthropod classification identification tasks. Finally, students erred significantly more by misidentification than misspelling specimen names on prepared specimen quizzes. Results of this study support that short web-based insect identification exercises can improve insect identification performance. Also included is a discussion of how these results can be used in teaching and future research on biological identification.     

Preschoolers' Attention to Print During Shared Book Reading

Seventy-six children ages 3 to 5 were individually read two storybooks that had been specially formatted to contain salient printed words within the text, and illustrations and text on left or right-facing pages. The reader pointed to each word while reading to half of the children. After each book, children were asked to recognize elements of the illustrations and the specially formatted text elements from among a set of foils. Videotaped sessions were coded for the time children spent looking toward the pages with print versus illustrations. Analyses showed that the percentage of time looking at print was less than 2% in the no-pointing condition but increased with age. Pointing to the words increased print-looking time for all age groups and print target recognition for 4-year-olds. After controlling for receptive vocabulary, visual memory, and maturation associated with these scores, emergent orthography and letter-word identification predicted time looking at print and recognition of the print elements.     

Library Space Redesign and Student Computing

Academic libraries are spending considerable time and study on redesigning spaces. The use of technology is often an important part of these redesigned spaces. The space redesign goals at F.D. Bluford Library focus on creating open, activity-promoting, colorful spaces that are designed to be attractive to students. The goals also focus on implementing hybrid spaces that allow students to work alone or in groups, with support for mobile technologies like laptops or tablets. The space redesign goals focus on upgrading the quality of desktops available but reducing the number of desktops. This study examines the question “Does our library renovation significantly change computer use in the redesigned area?” Key findings include that, in defiance of expectations, there is no significant decrease in desktop usage despite the decreased number of computers. However, findings show there is a significant difference in tablet use, despite tablet-friendly spaces and charging options. Surprisingly, our students use fewer tablets. Laptop usage shows no significant difference. In summary, our research shows desktop computing—especially high-quality desktop computing—appears to still have a role in academic libraries even in the mobile technology age.