Institutional policy process improvement: using structurating activity theory to inform practice

Organizational communication scholars are increasingly called upon to use theoretical knowledge to address problematic processes in public institutions. This article reports a process improvement project focused on a university conflict of interest (COI) policy as an example of how scholars can engage theory to improve ongoing policy processes. The project team included communication scholars and research administration staff who designed, implemented, and evaluated the mixed-methods project guided by structurating activity theory. Baseline survey results were used to design the process improvement project. Results of the follow-up survey indicate that researchers who participated in some aspect of the process improvement project (i.e. attending a policy café, using the redesigned website, or reading the new Quick Reference Guide) reported higher levels of policy communication and knowledge and more positive attitudes toward the COI policy than researchers who had not engaged with process improvement efforts. We offer theoretical and practical implications of results for organizational communication scholars and practitioners.     

The use of information and communication technologies in public libraries in South Africa as tools for bridging the digital divide: the case of the Kempton Park public library

ABSTRACT

The information and knowledge society has resulted in the exponential growth of information and communication technologies (ICTs), thus creating a gap between those who use ICTs and those who do not; hence the emergence of the term “digital divide” in the 1990s. One of the milestones of South Africa’s National Development Plan, a policy that charts the country’s development up until 2030, is to ensure that high-speed broadband internet is universally available at competitive prices. Notwithstanding the importance of ICTs in public libraries, the provision of such is still taking place on a limited scale in South Africa. This article investigates the use of ICTs in public libraries in South Africa as a tool in bridging the digital divide. It also examines the inequalities in access and use and suggests ways in which ICTs may be used to reduce the digital divide. A qualitative research methodology was adopted. In order for public libraries to function as an important tool in bridging the digital divide, there is a need to standardize the provision of public library services with regard to the digital divide.     

基于Usage Metrics的中文学术论文用户平台偏好和兴趣偏好比较研究

研究中文学术论文用户使用模式有助于分析使用规律,为应用决策提供依据。本文以八个学科被CSSCI或CSCD收录的61本开放获取期刊发表于2014—2015年的学术论文为样本,以期刊官网和信息集成平台上的使用数据为来源,采用Usage Metrics的方法,从用户平台偏好和用户兴趣偏好两方面比较中文学术论文的用户使用模式。研究发现:①期刊官网与信息集成平台的用户平台偏好存在差异。一是从学科视角看,用户整体上倾向于使用期刊官网而不是信息集成平台获取所需论文,而社会科学的信息集成平台篇均下载次数均大于自然科学。二是从期刊视角看,社会科学用户比自然科学用户更倾向于使用信息集成平台获取所需论文;与信息集成平台相比,期刊官网的用户下载数据呈现更为明显的“两级分化”现象;期刊官网下载次数与信息集成平台下载次数整体上的相关性较低。②期刊官网与信息集成平台的用户兴趣偏好存在差异。每本期刊官网和信息集成平台下载次数前20%的学术论文的Jaccard相似系数较低;在所列举的图书馆、情报与文献学中,期刊官网与信息集成平台的用户关注主题不同。图7。表5。参考文献37。     

民国时期中美图书馆交流史序说:研究综述、理论基础与历史分期

民国时期的中美图书馆交流史不仅是理解中国图书馆与图书馆学缘起的重要议题,在回应图书馆领域史学研究的“双重困境”方面,也具有其特殊的价值。梳理民国时期中美图书馆交流史的相关文献和研究主题发现,本课题难点在于庞杂的线索、社群与诸多政治、经济因素的介入等。由此,本研究吸收“世界体系理论”“书籍交流圈”等跨学科的思想和方法,提出一个由宏观、中观和微观三个层次组成的理论视角,并阐述这一理论视角如何转化为具体的研究方法,以提高学界对民国时期中美图书馆交流史研究的整体理解和把控能力。研究发现,“专业交往”到“文化外交”的视角渐变是民国时期中美图书馆交流的核心轴线,以此可以将这段历史分为四个时期,帮助我们把握不同时期的交往脉络、主要成就和基本特点。表1。参考文献73。     

谢拉的文献工作教育思想与实践

在1952—1970年担任西储大学图书馆学院院长期间,谢拉积极探索文献工作教育:在学科理论方面,进行文献工作学科理论建设;在学术研究方面,设立美国图书馆学院第一个专门的文献工作研究中心“文献工作与交流研究中心”;在教学活动方面,在图书馆学教育项目中引入文献工作相关课程,强化以文献工作为重点的专业图书馆人才培养。谢拉的文献工作教育是对传统图书馆学教育的改造,适应了图书馆学教育专门化的发展趋势,其立足点是以文献工作提升图书馆职业的社会价值,服务于图书馆人才培养,体现出明显的图书馆本位立场。谢拉领导下的西储大学图书馆学院的文献工作教育是一种过渡形态的早期情报学教育,促进了20世纪美国图书馆学教育向图书情报学教育格局的转型。参考文献62。     

On the same page: Improving the connection between public services units in academic libraries

Communication quality between public service units in academic libraries can make the difference between mediocre and exceptional service. If units do not communicate well, patrons may receive inaccurate information and experience short-term frustration, leading to long-term damage to the library's reputation. Poor communication creates adverse effects on employees through decreased productivity, negative work culture, and low morale. This article explores the importance of quality communication through a review of the literature and a case study at one academic library. The authors share practical communication improvement strategies for libraries of every size and fiscal ability.     

Google Scholar and Web of Science: Examining gender differences in citation coverage across five scientific disciplines

Many studies demonstrate differences in the coverage of citing publications in Google Scholar (GS) and Web of Science (WoS). Here, we examine to what extent citation data from the two databases reflect the scholarly impact of women and men differently. Our conjecture is that WoS carries an indirect gender bias in its selection criteria for citation sources that GS avoids due to criteria that are more inclusive. Using a sample of 1250 U.S. researchers in Sociology, Political Science, Economics, Cardiology and Chemistry, we examine gender differences in the average citation coverage of the two databases. We also calculate database-specific h-indices for all authors in the sample. In repeated simulations of hiring scenarios, we use these indices to examine whether women's appointment rates increase if hiring decisions rely on data from GS in lieu of WoS. We find no systematic gender differences in the citation coverage of the two databases. Further, our results indicate marginal to non-existing effects of database selection on women's success-rates in the simulations. In line with the existing literature, we find the citation coverage in WoS to be largest in Cardiology and Chemistry and smallest in Political Science and Sociology. The concordance between author-based h-indices measured by GS and WoS is largest for Chemistry followed by Cardiology, Political Science, Sociology and Economics.     

Investigating the quality of interactions and public engagement around scientific papers on Twitter

This study explores science communication on Twitter by investigating a sample of tweets referring to academic papers in five different scientific fields. The specifications of science communicators on Twitter, the characteristics of those who initiate actions (by tweeting), the extent and quality of reactions (retweeting), individual and group interactions, and the distribution of tweets across types of engagement in the process of science communication (i.e., dissemination, consultation, and evaluation) were explored. A broad array of actors is involved in the communication of science on Twitter, with individual citizens and individual researchers playing an important role. In principle, this is promising for creating direct interaction, which can be difficult through more traditional mass media. The vast majority of communication activities regarding academic papers is undigested dissemination with almost no sign of debate, contestation, or collective reflection. Another general finding of this study is that bot accounts play a major role in the science communication landscape on Twitter.     

Bibliometric approximation of a scientific specialty by combining key sources,title words,authors and references

Bibliometric methods for the analysis of highly specialized subjects are increasingly investigated and debated. Information and assessments well-focused at the specialty level can help make important decisions in research and innovation policy. This paper presents a novel method to approximate the specialty to which a given publication record belongs. The method partially combines sets of key values for four publication data fields: source, title, authors and references. The approach is founded in concepts defining research disciplines and scholarly communication, and in empirically observed regularities in publication data. The resulting specialty approximation consists of publications associated to the investigated publication record via key values for at least three of the four data fields. This paper describes the method and illustrates it with an application to publication records of individual scientists. The illustration also successfully tests the focus of the specialty approximation in terms of its ability to connect and help identify peers. Potential tracks for further investigation include analyses involving other kinds of specialized publication records, studies for a broader range of specialties, and exploration of the potential for diverse applications in research and research policy context.     

Impact Factors and the Central Limit Theorem: Why citation averages are scale dependent

Citation averages, and Impact Factors (IFs) in particular, are sensitive to sample size. Here, we apply the Central Limit Theorem to IFs to understand their scale-dependent behavior. For a journal of n randomly selected papers from a population of all papers, we expect from the Theorem that its IF fluctuates around the population average μ, and spans a range of values proportional to $\sigma /\sqrt{n}$, where σ² is the variance of the population's citation distribution. The $1/\sqrt{n}$ dependence has profound implications for IF rankings: The larger a journal, the narrower the range around μ where its IF lies. IF rankings therefore allocate an unfair advantage to smaller journals in the high IF ranks, and to larger journals in the low IF ranks. As a result, we expect a scale-dependent stratification of journals in IF rankings, whereby small journals occupy the top, middle, and bottom ranks; mid-sized journals occupy the middle ranks; and very large journals have IFs that asymptotically approach μ. We obtain qualitative and quantitative confirmation of these predictions by analyzing (i) the complete set of 166,498 IF & journal-size data pairs in the 1997–2016 Journal Citation Reports of Clarivate Analytics, (ii) the top-cited portion of 276,000 physics papers published in 2014–2015, and (iii) the citation distributions of an arbitrarily sampled list of physics journals. We conclude that the Central Limit Theorem is a good predictor of the IF range of actual journals, while sustained deviations from its predictions are a mark of true, non-random, citation impact. IF rankings are thus misleading unless one compares like-sized journals or adjusts for these effects. We propose the Φ index, a rescaled IF that accounts for size effects, and which can be readily generalized to account also for different citation practices across research fields. Our methodology applies to other citation averages that are used to compare research fields, university departments or countries in various types of rankings.