Patrick Geddes and Museum ideas in Dundee and Beyond

One of the first things Patrick Geddes did on taking up the post of Professor of Botany at University College, Dundee was to establish a botanical museum. Throughout his life museums were of great importance to him, and were central to his theories as an educationalist. The Outlook Tower in Edinburgh was the most famous demonstration of these theories, but this short introductory paper also looks at less well known aspects of them, such as his ground-breaking paper to the Museums Association conference in Dundee in 1907, his unpublished book.

Museums

Actual and Possible, and his attempts to win the directorship of the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art.     

The e-Government evaluation challenge: A South African Batho Pele-aligned service quality approach

Over the past decade, governments have embarked on major Information and Communication Technology (ICT) investments in an attempt to take advantage of the benefits of the internet in extending the channels by which services are provided to their respective citizenries. With the increasing reliance on ICTs, one of the challenges facing public sector managers is how to evaluate the success or effectiveness of their ICT investments. Given the citizen-focused objectives of governments, service quality approaches offer a suitable frame for evaluating ICT effectiveness. This paper therefore extends current e-Service quality research into the e-Government domain. The paper reports on the development of a multi-item instrument for evaluating the e-Service quality constructs of an e-Government website in South Africa. The development of this instrument also takes into account the service delivery principles which have been adopted by the South African government viz. the Batho Pele program. The study shows that there are six service quality dimensions applicable in e-Government evaluation, viz. website design, navigation, communication, site aesthetics, information quality, and security. The generic instrument allows practitioners to modify and utilise it according to their needs.     

Achieving top management support with business knowledge and role of IT/IS personnel

The business-IT gap is still present in many companies and IT/IS professionals often impute the responsibility for this to management and claim they lack top management's support for their initiatives. The aim of this paper is to show how IT/IS personnel can achieve top management support. Based on more than 50 in-depth interviews with CIOs and CEOs in the last 10 years we hypothesize that top management support can be attained with the business and managerial knowledge and skills of IT/IS personnel as well as with the business-oriented role of the IT/IS department. The impact was empirically tested via structural equation modeling (SEM) using data from 152 Slovenian companies with more than 50 employees. Based on findings some implications for top managers and IT/IS professionals are given, especially for CIOs, on how IT/IS personnel can contribute to bridging the gap.     

Impacts of government website information on social sciences and humanities in China: A citation analysis

The purpose of this research is to investigate the current state and trend of government website information cited by social science and humanities (SS&H) journal articles in China. The Chinese Social Science Citation Index (CSSCI) was used as the benchmark and the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) journals as the reference samples. It analyzed 204,019 web citations (N = 5,063,237) found in 925,506 articles that were published in CSSCI journals during the 1998–2009 period. The findings unveil that web citations accounted for only 4.03% of the total number of citations (N = 5,063,237), and that citations of Chinese government websites constituted 6.6% of the total number of web citations (N = 204,019). The study disclosed detailed information regarding citations derived from ministries and commissions directly under the State Council websites (N = 69), government online media (N = 7), government website citation subjects (N = 21), and various types of government website information (N = 5). Although government website information has limited influence on SS&H, their impact is currently growing rapidly. In comparison with international research community, influence of government web information on Chinese social science is higher, while its influence on humanities is lower. Essentially, Chinese scholars put emphasis on citing information from authoritative central government websites or highly visible state-owned media information as supporting evidences in their articles. In general, the citation of information from Chinese government website tends to hot social issues of society. Finally, it is necessary to promote the visibility of local government websites, to develop policies and guidelines to encourage the disclosure and the diversity of data, so that there will be more citation balances between social and technological topics.     

Addressing below proficient information literacy skills: Evaluating the efficacy of an evidence-based educational intervention

Over the course of three years, an educational intervention was developed to teach information literacy (IL) skills, change perceptions of IL, and to recalibrate self views of the abilities of first year college students who demonstrate below proficient information literacy skills. The intervention is a modular workshop designed around the three-step analyze, search, evaluate (ASE) model of information literacy, which is easy to remember, easy to adapt to multiple instructional situations, and can provide a foundation for building information literacy skills. Summative evaluation of the intervention demonstrates that students who attend the workshop see an increase in skills and awareness of information literacy as a skill set. Increases in skills, however, were not sufficient to move participants into the proficient range. While workshop participants were able to reassess preworkshop skills, skills gained in the workshop did not result in recalibrated self-views of ability. Like the development of skills, the recalibration of self-assessments may require multiple exposures to information literacy instruction.     

The Cynefin framework: A tool for analyzing qualitative data in information science?

Interpreting qualitative research data and presenting it in ways that enable potential beneficiaries of the research to use it readily and appropriately is increasingly important in the context of the research impact agenda. One way of doing uses the Cynefin framework. Cynefin, which is rooted in knowledge management and complexity science, has been used in a range of contexts to support decision-making and strategy development in dynamic and challenging situations. However, it has not been widely used as a data analysis technique or in the information science discipline. An exploratory evaluation uses it to interpret the rich, nuanced qualitative data from a three-year research project that engaged people worldwide to explore issues and practical strategies for managing electronic records, a significant information management challenge. The evaluation demonstrates that the Cynefin framework provides a strategic lens through which to view electronic records management (ERM). Cynefin prompts new questions to be asked, leading to new insights and a deeper understanding of the ERM challenge. Most significantly, it provides a new construct for re-perceiving the challenge in a holistic way and offers a strategic approach to taking action for change. This evaluation suggests that it is an appropriate and effective framework for use in qualitative research on challenging information management problems, with the potential to support the transfer of research into practice.     

Modernizing Bangladesh public administration through e-governance: Benefits and challenges

More and more public administration emphasizes how Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can be used to support transformational change in governmental functions globally to achieve efficiency and cost-effective service delivery to citizens. Bangladesh public administration employs energies to achieve this goal. Experience in some developing countries has shown that e-governance can improve transparency which leads to, among other things, corruption control and poverty reduction. This article examines the role that e-governance can play in the modernization of public administration for efficient and effective service delivery to the citizens of Bangladesh, as well as its potential to control corruption and reduce poverty. Based on the lessons learned from successful practices in developing countries and literature review, it suggests that e-governance can play a significant role for corruption control and poverty reduction, and thus offers opportunities to cost-effective service delivery to the citizens in Bangladesh.     

Technology, politics, and e-commerce: Internet sales tax and interstate cooperation

Since the advent of the internet, state governments have been challenged to balance the forces of technological change against fundamental decisions about governance and administration. This research examines that balance in the case of electronic commerce and its relationship to state budgets and revenue raised by sales tax. Under the voluntary Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement of 2002, states can cooperate with one another and with sellers to collect sales tax on internet sales, yet only about half the states that levy sales tax have initiated this policy change. This research tests rival explanations for state membership in this interstate administrative agreement and implementation of its provisions from 2003 through 2007. State participation is enhanced by existing technological capacity and frustrated by requirements for shared governance and shared administrative responsibilities. Participation is fostered by more extensive implementation of e-commerce and certain political factors. State fiscal factors and e-Government implementation are not significant. Moreover, state legislative professionalism inhibits state participation in this agreement. These findings have implications for understanding the influence of future technological change on government practices and for intergovernmental relationships weighted toward shared governance.     

Increasing process orientation with business process management: Critical practices’

This paper studies the role of business process management in creating a higher business process orientation. The purpose is to analyze previously suggested practices to identify those that are critical at a certain business process orientation maturity level and those that are not. A case study is used to identify the critical success factors. Then a statistical analysis of a sample of 324 companies is undertaken to operationalize the success factors in the form of critical practices. Organizations following these critical practices at a certain level will reach higher process orientation sooner.