Funding public computing centers: Balancing broadband availability and expected demand

The National Broadband Plan (NBP) recently announced by the Federal Communication Commission visualizes a significantly enhanced commitment to public computing centers (PCCs) as an element of the Commission's plans for promoting broadband availability. In parallel, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has channelized part of the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) funding to PCCs. However, BTOP funding was the result of an unprecedented economic crisis, and is unlikely to be repeated. Future programs will need to evolve criteria for selecting projects for funding that maximize their cost-effectiveness. We argue in this paper that basing funding for PCCs on broadband availability (or non-availability), is not as cost-effective as considering a broader array of factors related to demand for internet access at public computer centers. We use data on public libraries from the National Center of Educational Statistics to identify factors predicting high demand for internet access at PCCs. Based on this analysis, we argue that low demand markets may benefit more from consumer outreach and digital literacy programs, than from infrastructure deployment. Also, we argue that markets with high availability, should receive more funding if there is high demand as well, as predicted by our model.     

Critical factors for evaluating the public value of e-government in Sri Lanka

This paper aims to identify the critical factors for evaluating the public value of e-government in Sri Lanka from the perspective of the delivery of public services and the efficiency of public organizations. To fulfill these aims of the study, a conceptual framework is developed based on a comprehensive review of the related literature by considering the delivery of public services and the efficiency of public organizations. With the collected survey data from Sri Lanka, the conceptual framework is empirically tested and validated by performing a confirmatory factor analysis using structural equation modeling. The study shows that the delivery of quality information and services, user-orientation of information and services, efficiency and responsiveness of public organizations, and contributions of public organizations to the environmental sustainability are the critical factors for evaluating the public value of e-government in Sri Lanka. As the first study in examining the critical factors for evaluating the public value of e-government in Sri Lanka, the findings of the study would be of practical significance to the continuous development of e-government in Sri Lanka and other countries in the world.     

Modeling Web-based library service quality

Studies of e-service quality have consistently used adaptations of service-quality measurement tools that have been adopted and extended from traditional service-quality frameworks. However, a fresh insight into the investigation of key determinants of Web-based library service quality, with an emphasis on how library customers perceive service quality, has much to offer. Key determinants were identified, and contributed to the development and empirical testing of a proposed conceptual model of service quality that encompasses environment, delivery, and outcome quality. Unlike the disconfirmation approach, the performance-only measure was used. Participants included postgraduates and academic staff from four research intensive universities in Malaysia. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis using structural equation modeling was carried out in order to develop and validate a measurement model for Web-based service quality, which included three second-order dimensions and eight first-order dimensions. Insights into the conceptualization of Web-based library-service quality as a multidimensional hierarchical construct are provided. The emergence of specific determinants specific to the Web services supports the notion that measurement of electronic-service quality is different from traditional services, though they may share some common factors.     

Use of library space and the library as place

Citizens' use of the public library in their local community is explored, focusing on social activities and how the libraries function as meeting places. The findings are important because of the need for meeting places across cultural, ethnic, generational, and social lines in a complex multicultural and digitized society. How library visitors use the library space and services, so that the overall societal goals of the library and the local community are obtained, is still rarely examined. An in-depth observational study was conducted in three library branches of Oslo, combined with interviews with patrons to establish the context and purpose of their library activities and to which life spheres they are linked. The research used concepts from social theory. The overall finding is that the public library use is very diverse. Patrons move easily between high and low intensive activities and float between life spheres and roles—student, family member, friend, neighbor, and citizen. The library is a complex arena. It is a public realm, in the sense that most of the visitors are strangers to each other; most of the individual uses belong to a private realm, and the library's community activities constitute it as a parochial realm. In the library, users are exposed to the plurality of the community and learn about otherness. People are not categorized by profession or as being unemployed, a patient or a client, but are all library users. This quality of the library contributes to social inclusion.     

Education and qualitative research in Mexico: issues and insights from the field

This co-editors’ introduction provides a context for the special issue on qualitative research in Mexico and introduces the five papers selected for publication. Papers present findings from qualitative research that explore the topics of teaching; school leadership; language education policy; and women in traditionally male, postsecondary engineering programs.     

Using Technology-Enhanced Inquiry-Based Instruction to Foster the Development of Elementary Students’ Views on the Nature of Science

The Next Generation Science Standards support understanding of the nature of science as it is practiced and experienced in the real world through interconnected concepts to be imbedded within scientific practices and crosscutting concepts. This study explored how fourth and fifth grade elementary students’ views of nature of science change when they engage in a technology-enhanced, scientific inquiry-oriented curriculum that takes place across formal and informal settings. Results suggest that student engagement in technology-enhanced inquiry activities that occur in informal and formal settings when supported through explicit instruction focused on metacognitive and social knowledge construction can improve elementary students’ understanding of nature of science.

     

UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES AND INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDY IN THE COMPUTER AGE

Through increasingly sophisticated computerization, libraries will evolve from being passive depositories of published materials to becoming dynamic information systems. Stored information will be analyzed and recoinbined in original ways which are similar to the processes occurring on the frontiers of disciplines which are giving rise to new combined disciplines: Thus the partnership of computerized information systems and interdisciplinary scientific research will vastly widen the frontiers of human discovery.     

Challenges of Implementing Contract Policies for University Academics in Malawi: A Case of Mzuzu University

Utilising critical theory, we explored the causes of the conflict that arose between academic staff on fixed-term renewable contracts and university administrators at Mzuzu University in Malawi in order to draw lessons. We collected data using semi-structured, in-depth interviews and document analysis. Ten university employees were purposively selected for interviews. The results showed that the causes of the conflict were, in the view of the respondents a mixture of: 1) a mutually antagonistic relationship between academics and university administrators; 2) less-than-effective administration of contracts by the university leadership; 3) dispute with respect to the university council’s views over the age of staff on contract; and 4) the university leadership’s negative response to a group of academics who criticised the administration. We argue that these results suggest leadership skills were less-than-satisfactory on the part of university senior management. We offer suggestions that could improve such leadership skills.