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.     

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.     

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.     

E-government discourses: An inductive analysis

This article offers a new perspective on e-government by documenting the categories of e-government discourses, and evaluating them within a public value framework. Understanding e-government discourses is significant, since these discourses represent contested visions of e-government, and one can derive a feel for public sentiment about e-government from the discourses used in the media. The findings are accumulated through an inductive analysis of 85 newspaper articles, published during the year of 2010, in three top-selling, ideologically different, nationally circulating Turkish newspapers. In these 85 articles, 98 discourses presented by 90 policy actors are found. Five positive and four negative discourse categories and their relationships emerged from the analysis of the data. The results show that, government reform efforts shaped by the New Public Management movement and Turkey's harmonization efforts with the global political system in general, and with the European Union in particular, are influential in the presentation of e-government projects to the Turkish public through newspapers.     

Information Thinness: Saudi Arabia

This article investigates the possibility that many users of the mobile phone communication apps communicate with one another but do not necessarily convey or receive any information, that is, anything that informs. A qualitative and quantitative investigation was carried out in Saudi Arabia, looking at how informative the messages were that Saudi society exchanged over mobile phone communication apps. The main finding was that a large number of the messages exchanged among Saudi users conveyed no actual information or only trivial information. In other words, with the increasing ease of digital communication, users may overuse technology merely to communicate for the sake of communication, with no interest in actually being informed by anything, thus suffering from “information thinness.”     

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.     

Children with Learning Disabilities Within the Family Context: A Comparison with Siblings in Global Self–Concept,Academic Self–Perception,and Social Competence

This study examined the global self–concept, academic self–perception, social competence, and behavioral problems of 19 children with learning disabilities within the family context. Comparisons were made between the target children and their close–age siblings and family psychological correlates were identified. The participants were administered child assessment scales and rated by their parents, who also completed family psychosocial measures. The results show that although children with learning disabilities do not differ from their siblings in global self–concept and academic self–perception, their parents rated them to have less social competence and more behavior problems than their siblings. Moreover, the social competence and behavioral problems of children with learning disabilities are related to their parents’ stress. Educational and research implications are drawn.     

The 2001 Benjamin Franklin medal in physics presented to Alan Guth, Ph.D. of Cambridge, Massachusetts

The Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, awarded the 2001 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics to Alan H. Guth for his efforts to advance our knowledge of physical science and its application of the inflationary scenario, in which the universe undergoes a rapid expansion in the first stages of the Big Bang.     

Understanding our link to the Great Apes—the 2003 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Sciences awarded to Jane Goodall

Jane Goodall is the recipient of the 2003 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Sciences for her long-term scientific studies of chimpanzee behavior. Not only were her studies the first of their kind, her meticulous behavioral recordings led to major changes in our understanding of the social links that exist between ourselves and our closest living relative, the chimpanzee. In discussing the importance of Dr. Goodall's work, Stephen Jay Gould (the late Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology at Harvard University) said ... “Science gains enormous power in replications of observations, but Homo sapiens is a single species and we can never know, by studying ourselves alone, whether important aspects of our behaviors and mental capacities reflect an ancestral evolutionary heritage (transmogrified through our uniquely evolved intelligence and its social correlates), or new features evolved or socially acquired only by our lineage. Chimpanzees are the best natural experiment we will ever have for exploring this central question, for chimps are our closest genealogical cousins and therefore hold more of our common evolutionary heritage than any other species can. Chimpanzees are not so much the shadow of man as our mirror, only slightly blurred by the mists of time”.