Collaborating with Information Technology: Implementing Web Search at the University of New Mexico

The University of New Mexico (UNM) has used the Google Search Appliance (GSA) to provide search for the University's Web content. When the GSA license expired, the campus Information Technologies (IT) department and the University Libraries (UL) took the opportunity to collaborate on a re-launch of the service as a joint project. By collaborating closely with IT, the UL personnel gained insight and first-hand information on how to optimize the Libraries’ Web presence. Outcomes were positive, both in the resulting product and in building bridges between the work cultures.     

Next Generation Cataloging

During the past several years the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) noted increasing concern from the library community regarding the future of cataloging. In response to this concern and to the rapidly changing metadata environment, OCLC is taking steps to further a paradigm shift toward early acquisition of metadata in WorldCat directly from the entities responsible for content purchased by libraries—chiefly the publisher supply chain. This shift in thinking requires the acknowledgement that metadata is dynamic and will change over time and relies upon the automated capture of metadata early in the publishing cycle as well as automated processes to help make the early metadata “good enough.”     

Teaching history on the border: teachers voice their views

The overall objective of this investigation was to explore the views of border history teachers on a wide variety of issues that influence their instructional approaches, curricular content choices, and capacity to teach history more effectively. More specifically, the focus was on identifying factors that affect their ability to utilize culturally relevant pedagogy and to integrate into their classroom instruction elements of the local border community, and of the Latin American, Latino, and Mexican American experience. Findings confirmed that structural factors such as mandated curriculum standards, adopted textbooks, and high-stakes tests all serve to limit the teachers’ ability to integrate the Latino and minority experience into their classroom narrative. Although most teachers expressed support for the inclusion of Latino history, in actual practice they reported having insufficient time, training, or resources to adequately do so. The implications that Latino curricular exclusion has for students on the border are also discussed.     

Book reviews

This study examines Black student and parental perceptions of exclusionary practices of Black school principals. I ask why students and parents viewed two Black principals as contributing to abusive and exclusionary school environments that marginalized Black students. After a two-year ethnographic study, it was revealed that exclusionary behaviors toward Black students—which was viewed as “abuse” by students and parents—was a reproduction of the district's racism, and thus adds new considerations for discussions around the value of racially-like (i.e., all Black) educators and students. Parents perceived these two Black principals as dealing more harshly and rigidly with the Black students and their families; moreover, analysis of the interview data revealed that the principals rejected the cultural and social capital, and proclivities of Black students, and blamed Black students for their lower achievement and unique behaviors. I draw significant attention to the larger contexts of White supremacy and racism as I examine how Black principals negotiate their own roles, how they understand their own treatment of urban Black students, and how they are (knowing or unknowingly) reproducing oppressive practices of White supremacy on Black students in school.     

契约性视野中的大学教育教学质量优化研究

在规模扩张之后,大学当前最重要的使命是提升高等教育教学质量。质量的提升无论对于哪类参与主体都意味着＂利益＂,人们也正是为了各自的利益而走进大学,这样大学本质上就是利益相关者组成的＂契约网＂。大学与政府之间的关系、大学与教师之间的关系、大学与学生之间的关系是这一契约网中最为核心的三对关系。教育教学作为一种契约行为和交易活动主要表现为交易是以知识为核心的,交易过程具有自主性与间接性的特点,交易方式具有联合性与非排他性的特点,交易责任主体具有多元化的特点。从契约的视角看,优化教育教学质量的办法主要有防范大学法人的双界性,提高学生的维权意识,加强问责机制,提高教师待遇和实施平衡激励等。     

An Exploration of Indexed and Non-Indexed Open Access Journals: Identifying Metadata Coding Variations

The intent of this investigation was to learn what factors may have contributed to low usage of a small set of reputable open access scholarly journals, as evidenced in graduate student reference lists. Inquiry into differences among open access sources referenced between 2005 and 2014 revealed that non-indexed journals were being used notably fewer times than their commercially indexed counterparts. A comparison of HTML source code between indexed and non-indexed journals illustrated that certain metadata and other coding features may have affected the visibility of non-indexed journal content. The study suggests to librarians the presence of less visible empirical literature on the web and to smaller, independent academic publishers, the need to apply better quality metadata and optimization strategies to their open access journal content.     

Building Culturally Responsive Communities

This article offers a variety of culturally responsive approaches and activities so as to better know and understand our students' diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. These methods will not only help to make more equitable classrooms where we make meaningful connections with our students—but also yield useful data so as to inform our yearly curriculum and instruction.     

Freeing the Mind of the Oppressed

This article examines the evidence that supports and rebuts the claims of school resegregation. By examining both types of evidence and considering them complementary (James 1986 James, F. 1986. A new generalized “exposure-based” segregation index: Demonstration in Denver and Houston. Sociological Methods and Research, 14(3): 301–16. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Kelly and Miller 1989 Kelly, P. and Miller, W. 1989. Assessing desegregation efforts: No “best measure.”. Public Administration Review, 49(5): 431–37. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), the author gives the reader a deeper understanding of the current trends in school segregation. First, the literature on the topic of school segregation is discussed. Then follows a discussion of the methods used in the study and the findings. The conclusion includes implications of the findings.     

Socioaffective Issues and Concerns Among Gifted Filipino Children

There is a dearth of information regarding the socioemotional realities of gifted children from ethnically diverse backgrounds, which this research attempts to address. Multiple semistructured narrative interviews were conducted with 22 intellectually superior children aged 4–9 years and with their parents. Manifestations of perfectionism, hypersensitivities, and overexcitabilities were evident among the Filipino gifted children. The implications of such manifestations of heightened sensitivities for educators and diagnosticians were discussed. Cross-cultural contrasts were likewise discussed to demonstrate whether predominant socioaffective traits, characteristics, and issues in the West are likewise evident among gifted children from a culturally different background like the Philippines.