The Power of Sharing Linked Data: Giving the Web What It Wants

Richard Wallis (OCLC) presented at the NASIG 2014 Conference in Fort Worth, Texas, describing how linked data can make the discoverability of libraries on the web instantaneous and ubiquitous. A technology evangelist, Richard explained how we can use these ideas to make better use of our data—redefining existing cataloging workflows in order to move away from record management to an “Internet of things” that can be recognized and consumed across the web.     

Competency based training and national qualifications frameworks: Insights from south africa

During the last thirty years, National Qualification Frameworks have emerged as an attempt by the state to ‘manage’ the relations between education, training and work. Drawing on South African experiences of ten years of development of a competency and outcomes based National Qualifications Framework (NQF), this paper highlights the areas of greatest contestation and achievement. We argue for a view of NQFs as a work-in-progress and as contestable artefacts of modern society, which can provide an opportunity to address, in a modest manner, aspects of lifelong learning that contribute to economic development, social justice and personal empowerment.     

Google Scholar coverage of a multidisciplinary field

This paper evaluates the content of Google Scholar and seven other databases (Academic Search Elite, AgeLine, ArticleFirst, GEOBASE, POPLINE, Social Sciences Abstracts, and Social Sciences Citation Index) within the multidisciplinary subject area of later-life migration. Each database is evaluated with reference to a set of 155 core articles selected in advance—the most important studies of later-life migration published from 1990 to 2000. Of the eight databases, Google Scholar indexes the greatest number of core articles (93%) and provides the most uniform publisher and date coverage. It covers 27% more core articles than the second-ranked database (SSCI) and 2.4 times as many as the lowest-ranked database (GEOBASE). At the same time, a substantial proportion of the citations provided by Google Scholar are incomplete (32%) or presented without abstracts (33%).     

Avenue T: using film as entrée in teaching about transgender

Educators from a variety of disciplines include the concept of transgender and multiple gender identities in course curricula. The ‘T’ (denoting the specific inclusion of transgender) in the popular acronym LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) often is given less pedagogical attention than is sexual orientation, and the transgender concept often is taught in the context of sexual orientation. An experimental study was conducted to determine if a brief film intervention would yield differences in knowledge of the transgender concept. Individuals were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. Conditions varied to include no exposure to the concept of being transgender, a 14-minute news documentary about the transgender concept, or a 28-minute news documentary about the transgender concept. Results supported hypotheses that a brief film intervention would produce higher accuracy of transgender knowledge. In addition, and supporting the contact hypothesis, participants with a transgender friend reported less transphobia and more empathy for transgender individuals.     

Physiologic Effects of Distance Running Training on Teenage Females1

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate selected physiological changes that occurred with distance training in teenage females. Two groups of untrained teenage females were matched on [Vdot]O₂ max, percent utilization of [Vdot]O ₂ @ 9.66 km/hr, peak heart rate, and percent body fat. One group served as control (n = 9) while the other (n =10) underwent a 20-week training program designed to gradually increase the subjects' average mileage from 0 to 32.2 km per week. At the end of the 20 weeks, a MANOVA revealed significant mean differences within the trained group and no significant mean differences within the control group. The univariate analysis revealed that significant (p <0.05) mean differences found within the training group were for [Vdot]O ₂ max (45.1 vs. 49.3 ml · kg ^–1 · min ^–1 ), percent utilization of [Vdot]O ₂ @9.66 km/hr (76.5% vs. 67.5%), and economy VO ₂ @9.66 km/hr (34.5vs.33.2 ml · kg ^–1 · min ^–1 ). Of the variables which exhibited significant training effects, percent utilization of [Vdot]O ₂ max showed the greatest relative change, a 12.2% decrease, with [Vdot]O ₂ max showing a 9.3% increase. The posttest results were similar to the research literature for training effects found for males and other age groups.     

Corporate social responsibility and social partnerships in professional football

Within the professional football industry one of the most prominent ways to address corporate social responsibility is through a social partnership involving a range of organizations such as a Community Sports Trust (CST), a professional football club, business organizations and local authorities. These partnerships are responsible for the delivery of community initiatives around a range of social issues. This article seeks to understand the managerial aspects of this type of social partnership, and in particular the objectives and motivations for partnering, by drawing on three analytical platforms that take into account how differences between sectors affect social partnerships. Based on a series of interviews, it is shown that organizations get involved in social partnerships for different reasons and perceive the partnerships in different ways; that from an individual organizational perspective it is difficult to perceive a social partnership entirely in the context of one of the theoretical platforms; and that despite what would appear to be a strong sense of homogenization of organizational form across the sector there are significant differences between social partnerships. The article concludes by arguing that further research is needed to better understand the differences between social partnerships.     

Existential being as transformative learning

In some ways, ‘a culture of the modern consulting room’ may be seen as having been initiated by Freud and followers. Here, social hierarchy, unconscious motivation and the authority of analyst may all be seen as manifestations of professional practice. With the contributions of Heidegger, Kierkegaard, May, Adler, Rogers and others of the existential and humanistic schools, it is argued that ‘transformative learning’ serves as a vehicle to ‘being’. It is not that the classroom becomes a consulting room. Rather, it is suggested that the change and transformation of ‘self’ and ‘being’ (‘Dasein’) are accompaniments of deep, relational learning. As such, they rightly occupy the activities of both classroom and consulting room. Far from being an abstract or irrelevant notion, the ‘existential classroom’ diverges radically from any lack of focus or neglect of ‘subjectivity’. Neither is it a ‘place apart’, as Freud would have it. The learning relationship itself furnishes a model of conviction for all who see; an expression of trust, symbol for community, and the way to Kierkegaard’s notion of self‐defining freedom.     

Assessing the Effectiveness of Online Information Literacy Tutorials for Millennial Undergraduates

This article reports on the findings of a study that evaluated the effectiveness of redesigning online information literacy tutorials in order to meet the learning needs and preferences of Millennial students. Using both quantitative and qualitative measures, this study compared two different online tutorials—a static, HTML-based tutorial and a dynamic, interactive, audio/video tutorial. This study found that, contrary to generalizations made in the library and education literature, Millennial students learned equally well from both tutorials. However, students expressed a much higher level of satisfaction from the tutorial designed to be “Millennial friendly.”     

Developing Online Tutorials to Improve Information Literacy Skills for Second-Year Nursing Students of University College Dublin

This article explores the process of developing online tutorials for a specified student group, in this case Second-Year Nursing students in University College Dublin. The product was commissioned by the Health Sciences Library and the UCD School of Nursing, Midwifery, and Health Systems. It was developed as a “Capstone Project” for part fulfillment of the MLIS in UCD.

We focused our research on three areas of scholarship to assist in the development of our product, namely Information Behavior, Learning Technologies, and Learning Science and Design. Flemings VARK model was used to inform the team of the four different learning styles (visual, auditory, reading, and kinesthetic) and to match the presentation style to these.

An initial difficulty in the assessment phase was one of access to a large group of students, as the students were on clinical placements. We created personas and a profile of nursing students to try and compensate for this. The tutorial was developed to cater for this specific group of students and later to act as a valuable support to the Library, which is under severe pressure in terms of staff availability to support student learning.

The product is relatively straightforward to produce (and maintain) and is something the Library will be able to develop and add to in future years.