Information literacy self-efficacy: The effect of juggling work and study

Information literacy self-efficacy and academic motivation are both argued to play important roles in student academic development. The former is considered to be a predictor of student academic achievement while the latter is considered a key factor in developing information literacy self-efficacy. Today, many students undertake paid employment in conjunction with their academic studies and little is known about the effect this may have on their information literacy self-efficacy and academic motivation. As such, the relationship between information literacy self-efficacy, academic motivation, and employment has been unexplored. Data were collected via a questionnaire, comprised of existing scales, which was administered to undergraduate business students in an Australian higher education (HE) institution. A response rate of 58% resulted in 585 completed questionnaires. Findings suggest that whether or not students were engaged in paid employment did not appear to influence information literacy self-efficacy, although students in paid employment did exhibit significantly lower intrinsic motivation than students not in paid employment. Additionally, for students not in paid employment a significant relationship was found between amount of time spent on study and information literacy self-efficacy. Of some concern, the small amount of time students reported spending in academic pursuits outside of scheduled classes raises issues regarding the placement of information literacy instruction. For information literacy practitioners this study contributes to awareness regarding the conceptualization of information literacy instruction and its placement in the HE environment.     

E-mentoring: The adoption process and innovation challenge

The innovative nature of e-mentoring along with its ongoing adoption process provided the reasons for conducting an innovation–adoption study on e-mentoring. A sample of 234 mentors that have been employed by Ergani Center, a well respected Greek mentoring organization, were asked to identify with the use of an online questionnaire the factors that influence the adoption of e-mentoring. Gender, age, personal innovativeness, relative advantage computer self-efficacy, problems and pressures from mentees emerged as predictors of the innovation process.     

Reflection on the teaching-learning process in the initial training of teachers. Characterization of the issues on which pre-service mathematics teachers reflect

Our aim was to highlight the issues of the reflections of pre-service mathematics teachers in their learning portfolio about the teaching-learning process taking place in a university teacher-training classroom. Category systems were designed which, together with the analysis system used, could provide a method helpful to teacher educators, teachers and to future research. The pre-service teachers showed difficulty in considering themselves as ‘authentic’ mathematics teachers. The study revealed that the preparation of a portfolio can help pre-service teachers learn more about themselves and provide educators insight into how to help pre-service mathematics teachers engage in the teaching-learning process.     

Factors influencing intention to use e-government services among citizens in Malaysia

This study is an exploratory study on the e-government in Malaysia. With the liberalization and globalization, Internet has been used as a medium of transaction in almost all aspects of human living. This study investigates the factors that influencing the intention to use e-government service among Malaysians. This study integrates constructs from the models of Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) which been moderated by culture factor and Trust model with five dimensions. The study was conducted by surveying a broad diversity of citizens in Malaysia community. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 195 respondents but only 150 of the respondents with complete answers participating in the study. The result of the analysis showed that trust, perceived usefulness, perceived relative advantage and perceived image, respectively, has a direct positive significant relationship towards intention to use e-government service and perceived complexity has a significant negative relationship towards intention to use e-government service. While perceived strength of online privacy and perceived strength of non-repudiation have a positive impact on a citizen's trust to use e-government service. However, the uncertainty avoidance (moderating factor) used in the study has no significant effect on the relationship between the innovation factors (complexity, relative advantage and image) and intention to use e-government service. Finally in comparing the explanatory power of the entire intention based model (TAM, DOI and Trust) with the studied model, it has been found that the DOI model has a better explanatory power.     

How responsive is E-Government? Evidence from Australia and New Zealand

Governments around the world are increasingly moving toward online service delivery in what is commonly called e-government. There are high hopes for e-government, particularly that the associated technologies provide the scope to make government services more responsive. This article reports on a 2006 study of one aspect of e-government responsiveness, namely, the basic capacity to answer a simple question posted by email. To this end, federal and state agencies in Australia, and central and local government agencies in New Zealand were emailed (n = 273). Data related to locating contact email addresses and subsequent responses was collected. The key finding was that the Australian agencies consistently did not perform as well as their New Zealand counterparts, bringing into question one component of their higher ranking in international e-government studies and also their potential to deliver on the Australian government policy that e-government means more responsive government.     

American Indians and the United States patent and trademark office: The Native American Tribal Insignia database

The tribal insignia of American Indians offer a distinctive view into the history of these people. Recently, as the result of federal legislation, some of these materials have been brought together, for tribes that are either federally or State recognized entities, as part of the database collection maintained by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). This article focuses on the history and use of such images; the policy response by the USPTO to the charge by the Trademark Law Treaty Implementation Act (1998) to examine the USPTO's specific responsibility to protect such official insignia; and the Office's resulting digital product.     

Electronic government: Rethinking channel management strategies

This article explores how an alternative multichannel management strategy can improve the way governments and citizens interact. Improvement is necessary because, based on empirical data from various sources, the conclusion can be drawn that there is a gap between the communication channels governments prefer and those that citizens prefer. Governments may be too much guided by rational arguments like the cost efficiency of channels while citizens may choose channels depending on, e.g., task characteristics, personal characteristics or situational factors. In order to close the existing gap and to increase understanding about how different channel types may be positioned in multichannel management, this article proposes an alternative multichannel management strategy that takes both the citizen’s and the government’s perspective into account. This strategy is based on differences in channel types and channel modes via which governments and citizens interact.     

Zero-based budgeting: Does it make sense for universal service reform?

The FCC's proposal for Universal Service Fund (USF) reform proposes to replace current universal service funding programs with the Connect America Fund (CAF), a fund devoted to using government support to make broadband service available in un-served or under-served geographical locations. The goal is to maximize the bang-per-buck from available funds by looking at incremental upgrades to existing infrastructure in under-served areas and incremental infrastructure build-outs in un-served areas. The strategy is to encourage competition between broadband providers whether they are wireless providers or wireline providers.     

A proactive balanced scorecard

This paper describes a methodology for the development of a proactive balanced scorecard (PBSCM). The balanced scorecard is one of the most popular approaches developed in the field of performance measurement. However, in spite of its reputation, there are issues that require further research. The present research addresses the problems of the balanced scorecard by utilizing the soft computing characteristics of fuzzy cognitive maps (FCMs). By using FCMs, the proposed methodology generates a dynamic network of interconnected key performance indicators (KPIs), simulates each KPI with imprecise relationships and quantifies the impact of each KPI to other KPIs in order to adjust targets of performance.     

Sense through the wall system development and design considerations

This paper presents system design challenges and issues with sensing through walls at different standoff distances and wall types. Efforts for developing sense through the wall (STTW) systems, such as those undertaken by the US Army Technology Objective (ATO) program, aim at providing the soldier with situational awareness information before breaching a building in a military operations in urban terrain (MOUT) environment. STTW capabilities also support law enforcement and search and rescue applications. Since 2002, extensive evaluations of STTW technologies, most notably those performed by the Communications Electronics, Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC) Intelligence and Information Warfare Directorate (I2WD), have been made to determine which technology could be the most viable solution. After conducting comprehensive studies, I2WD initiated several Phase I efforts and Phase II efforts. The purpose behind both efforts was to develop various STTW technology demonstrators under a 5 year ATO. Many lessons learned during the development of Phase I systems were incorporated into the considerations for Phase II developments. This paper discusses design challenges and issues with sensing through walls at different standoff distances and wall types through lessons learned and results from modeling and simulations performed by the Army Research Laboratory.