Foundations and methods for Knowledge Organization in European iSchools courses

Jens-Erik Mai is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto, where he previously served as Vice Dean and Acting Dean. His research interests lie in the broad area of representation and organization of information; his current scholarship questions the conceptual foundation of classification and seeks to establish an epistemological foundation that accepts the plu- rality of interpretations across communities. He has published on conceptual and methodological is- sues in the organization and representation of information—semiotics, theoretical frameworks, index- ing theory, domain analysis, and cognitive work analysis. His most recent publications explore author- ity and trust in information organization. Mai, Jens-Erik. Folksonomies and the New Order: Authority in the Digital Disorder. Knowledge Organization, 38(2), 114-122. 35 references. ABSTRACT: While the organization and representation of information and knowledge have historically been done by profes- sionals, the rise of social media has spread the notion that this can be done more collaboratively. A more collaborative approach would entail a change in the role of professionals and in the goals and values of the systems. This paper explores the notion of authority and the role of professionals in a changing environment where more people participate in the organization and repre- sentation of information and knowledge. The paper questions the traditional role of the professionals and argues that systems must be designed to facilitate trust and authority, and that the authority of folksonomies and systems comes from the users' collective interpretations and meaning production.

This is a discussion on indexing carried out in the area of ​​Librarianship and Museology which are areas that have common concepts such as organization, preservation, mediation, communication and dissemination of information, in addition to sharing concepts of the Knowledge Organization. The aim of the research is discuss the indexing process in the areas of Librarianship and Museology showing their approaches in the respective fields in the process of rapprochement on theoretical and methodological concepts between the two fields of knowledge. The praxis of indexing in libraries and museums is carried out in cataloging called subject cataloging in Librarianship and cataloging in Museology, made in the museological documentation. When discussing indexing in both areas, we sought to contribute to research on the Organization of Information and Knowledge for the field of Information Science. The importance of drawing up an Indexing Policy to underline the indexing procedures is emphasized.

English is vital in Ghana because it functions as the country's official language and arguably as the nation's lingua franca. It is also the primary language used for instruction and assessment at all levels of education. In this paper, I reflect on my over ten years of experience teaching English in Ghana. I highlight the marginalization of teachers in discussions about curriculum issues. Further, I present my teaching philosophy regarding reading and writing. I also discussed and reflected on my teaching practices in relation to the selection of texts for my reading and writing class. While discussing my role as a teacher, I also emphasized the role of students in the reading and writing class. This paper highlights the need for teachers to adopt learner-centred teaching approaches.

Academy of Management PerspectivesVol. 17, No. 3 ArticlesCountry Close-Up: ArgentinaPublished Online:1 Aug 2003https://doi.org/10.5465/ame.2003.10954713AboutSectionsView articleView Full TextPDF/EPUB ToolsDownload CitationsAdd to favoritesTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail View articleAbstractThe article presents the 2003 geographic statistics for Argentina. The population of Argentina is listed as 37 million. The country's major exports include edible oils, fuels and energy, and motor vehicles. Argentina's major imports include metal manufactures and plastics. The country's official language is Spanish.SourceWorld Desk Reference, Dorling Kindersley Publishing, Inc. 2002. http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ar.html. Google ScholarFiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Vol. 17, No. 3 Permissions Metrics in the past 12 months History Published online 1 August 2003 Published in print 1 August 2003 Information© Academy of Management PerspectivesKeywordsSTATISTICSARGENTINA -- Politics & government -- 2002-GROSS national productINTERNATIONAL trade -- StatisticsDownload PDF

PurposeThis study aims to showcase the effect of gender in the field of library and information science.Design/methodology/approachResearch and review articles published from 2005 through 2014 inThe Electronic Library, a prominent journal in the field of Library and Information Science, were examined from the perspective of authors’ gender. Influence of gender was assessed with respect to at individual and collaborative levels, quality in terms of citedness and citation count, and receipt of research grants.FindingsThere has been an increase in the proportion of male authors over the years with a resulting decline in female authors. Male authors are more productive as teachers, while females contribute more as working professionals or while they peruse their academic/research programmes. Though the productivity in collaborative works has increased in all gender combinations, it is more prominent when authors of opposite gender team up. No significant difference is observed in the number of national or international works produced in different collaborative authorship patterns. There is no difference in the number of male and female authors in male–female collaborative works. Works sponsored by grants are produced more frequently in groups comprising male–female or male–male members. No significant difference is observed in the number of cited or uncited works produced in different authorship patterns. The number of citations to works is independent of the nature of gender-wise authorship patterns.Research limitations/implicationsThe study examines the status of women in research, specifically in the field of library and information science. The findings of the study are based on the contribution of the authors involved with the journal, “The Electronic Library”. Readers are encouraged to expand the study by including authors that contribute to other library and information science journals.Originality/valueThe study is first of its kind to highlight the involvement and observe the influence of female authors in the field of library and information science research.

This study explored the impact of high‐immersion virtual reality (VR) as an innovative andragogical tool in undergraduate biology education. Amidst concerns about traditional lecture‐based teaching methods, VR can offer interactive hands‐on experiences. The study hypothesized that students who opt in for a supplementary VR experience will outperform the students presented with text‐based lectures and the students presented with video‐assisted content in content‐related quizzes and assignments. The study involved 456 students of an undergraduate contemporary biology course. Three conditions were presented over four semesters: a VR activity focused on teaching genetics and Punnett squares that supplemented a video lecture, video lecture only and long‐form text‐based materials only. Pre‐ and post‐VR activity tests were conducted to assess knowledge gains and perceptions of the VR experience of the 49 students who chose the additional VR experience. Results suggest significant improvements in the immediate content‐related post‐test scores, delivered in multiple‐choice format. A significant difference was observed in the mean scores of the genetics module assignments (delivered in long‐form text format) among the three groups (ie, VR‐and‐video‐assisted group; video‐assisted group; text‐only materials group). The text‐only group scored the lowest, while the video‐and‐VR‐assisted group scored the highest, but only marginally higher than the video‐assisted group. The results suggest that VR provides a viable, scalable and cost‐effective complement to traditional laboratory practice. Rather than outperforming lecture‐based approaches, VR offers an accessible way to practical experiences that would otherwise require specialized facilities or costly equipment. Our findings provide a baseline and highlight a need for further research to investigate the full potential and limitations of integrating VR in biology education. Practitioner notes What is already known about this topic Virtual reality (VR) has emerged as an increasingly viable method of engaging users in educational experiences. VR as a medium can engage users in ways traditional media struggle to achieve, such as fostering empathy and delivering immersive experiences. Hands‐on learning opportunities remain highly relevant to STEM education, an area highly appropriate for exploration in VR. VR has gained considerable traction in biology education. What this paper adds Evidence for the integration of VR into a high‐enrollment, accredited curriculum implemented in a naturalistic, ecologically valid context. A comparison of VR‐assisted biology lessons with more traditional, video‐ or text‐based lecture in high‐enrollment undergraduate courses. VR experiences may be more beneficial than lecture‐based instruction for complex topics in undergraduate education. Implications for practice and/or policy VR is particularly useful in addressing typically challenging learning concepts. The integration of VR technology with large‐enrollment undergraduate courses is possible. The availability of VR experiences and equipment remains necessary for the successful integration of VR.

Classification and the organization of information are directly connected to issues surrounding social justice, diversity, and inclusion. This paper is written from the standpoint that political and epistemological aspects of knowledge organization are fundamental to research and practice and suggests ways to integrate social justice and diversity issues into courses on the organization of information.

Applications of inferential statistical methods in library and information science

Reviewed by: The Early Information Society: Information Management in Britain before the Computer Genevieve Williams The Early Information Society: Information Management in Britain before the Computer. By Alistair Black, Dave Muddiman, and Helen Plant. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2007. 288 pp. $114.95. £60.00. ISBN 978-0-7546-4279-4. The information society, defined as a society where commerce in information is a significant activity, is generally supposed to have begun concurrently to the computer age. Certainly, the term "information society" as well as the concepts it embodies and the widespread use of the word "computer" began to enter common parlance in the 1970s. Such is the basis for Black, Muddiman, and Plant's thesis, upon which they build the argument that the information society as both [End Page 355] a concept and a reality actually began substantially earlier—at least in Britain, the area under study, and the United States. The rise of the computer and its subsequent rapid integration into every aspect of modern life may then be interpreted as a response to a need: the need for a technological solution to the exponential rise in volume of information in the twentieth century, particularly scientific and technical information. The Early Information Society, then, posits an origin of the information society in the nineteenth century, not the twentieth, and demonstrates from a variety of perspectives the developing information infrastructure that preceded the desktop computer, the computer network, and the Internet. In support of its argument, it acknowledges the early prescient contributions to the notion of the information society, particularly the observations of Fritz Machlup that led to his 1962 book The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States and Vannevar Bush's "As We May Think" from the July 1945 issue of Atlantic Monthly and claims that while these are also referred to by those who cite the origin of the information society around 1970, they are in fact products of a much earlier commodification of information. Instead of treating this history chronologically, Black, Muddiman, and Plant choose a faceted approach: in turn, they consider the environment in which the information society grew and developed (namely, infrastructure, networks, and the state), approaches to information management, and the information workforce during this period. Despite the fairly narrow focus of their study (a period of, at the outside, sixty years, and dealing largely with those organizations, collections, and services that fall under the designation "special" libraries or knowledge organizations), the authors uncover a wealth of previously largely invisible history that still influences libraries and information organizations. This includes the rapid proliferation of scientific and technical information, particularly after World War II; the development of professional library and information associations, especially the Association of Special Libraries and Information Bureaux (ASLIB); knowledge management in organizations of various kinds, notably the company library; and developments in education for the information professions. A chapter on the gendered nature of information work in Britain illustrates that the male domination of managerial positions in special libraries and knowledge organizations is nothing new and in fact can be said to have its origins in the period under discussion. Plant also shows how women's entries into lower-ranking special library positions were often their only access to scientific and research organizations that otherwise remained closed to them, often despite substantial academic preparation. Many of the themes revealed in this history will resonate with information professionals of the present day: the problem of managing burgeoning research literature; persistent issues of access, publication, and control; the recognized need for organization and coordination across an emerging professional discipline; separation and rapprochement between librarianship and information science; information overload and office management; and the emergence of the study of information as a distinct area of scholarship. Of course, it behooves the authors to draw these similarities between information-related concerns of the early twentieth century and those of the early twenty-first, since this supports their argument that these concerns are not new, and neither is the informational context from which [End Page 356] they arise. However, their case is a convincing one, not only detailing a previously little-known area of the history of library and information...

PurposeThe purpose of the study was to investigate factors promoting innovation and application of internet of things in academic and research information organizations.Design/methodology/approachQuantitative research design involved survey of selected academic and research information organizations in public and private chartered institutions. Information professionals, digital content managers, information systems and technologists that normally consume big data and technological resources were involved in the process of data collection using structured questionnaire and content analysis. Information organizations and information practitioners were selected from public and private academic and research institutions.FindingsInnovation of internet of things has increasingly transformed and changed academic and research information organizations as the source of knowledge in addition to expanding access to education, data, information and communication anywhere anytime through hyperconnectivity and networking. Internet of things technologies such as mobile of things, web of things, digital information systems and personal devices are widely applied by digital natives in academic and research information organizations. Mobilization platform and devices is the single biggest provider of data, information and knowledge in academic and research organizations. Modern trends in education and knowledge practices in academic institutions and information organizations depends upon internet of things, digital repositories, electronic books and journals, social media interfaces, multimedia applications, information portal hubs and interactive websites, although challenges regarding inadequate information communication technology infrastructure and social computing facilities still persist.Research limitations/implicationsInformation organizations in public and private chartered academic and research institutions were adopted in the study. Respondents handling and supporting information management, planning and decision-making provided the necessary data. Information professionals, digital content managers, information systems and technologists are proactively involved in data and information analytics.Practical implicationsAcademic and research information organizations are powerhouses that provide knowledge to support research, teaching and learning for sustainable development and the betterment of humanity and society. Innovation of internet of things and associated technologies provides practical aspects of attaining sustainable information development practices in the contemporary knowledge society. Internet of things technologies, principles of economies of scale and investment and customer needs entail that information organizations and practitioners should provide appropriate and smart systems and solutions.Social implicationsModern academic and research information organizations have the social corporate responsibility to offer technological innovations to heighten access to knowledge and learning in academic and research institutions. Economically, innovation and application of internet of things provide unlimited access to big data and information in organizations all the time anywhere anytime.Originality/valueData management is a growing phenomenon that information practitioners need to fully understand in the digital economies. Information professionals need to embrace and appreciate innovation and application of internet of things technologies whose role in sustainable development practices is critical in academic and research organizations.

Este artigo, resultado parcial de pesquisa, tem como objetivos (1) conhecer a contribuição da biblioteca na avaliação, pelo INEP, dos cursos de graduação da Universidade Federal da Bahia, tendo como foco as bibliografias básicas e complementares e os periódicos especializados; (2) demonstrar o modus operandi dos avaliadores e seu impacto no resultado da avaliação dos cursos de graduação. Analisaram-se as notas atribuídas aos cursos de graduação da UFBA pelos avaliadores, nas visitas in loco, entre os anos de 2010 a 2017. O estudo se configura como uma pesquisa qualitativa e quantitativa, de caráter descritivo, baseada na literatura pertinente e em levantamento documental referente aos instrumentos do INEP e aos relatórios de avaliação dos cursos, elaborados pelos avaliadores. A análise dos dados, comparativamente à realidade conhecida e vivenciada pelas bibliotecas da UFBA, revelou que os critérios de avaliação registrados pelos avaliadores se apresentam muitas vezes subjetivos, não revelando com fidedignidade o estado real das bibliotecas. Conclui-se que ter como únicos indicadores de avaliação da biblioteca universitária as bibliografias básicas e complementares e os periódicos especializados não é uma medida suficiente para configurar se ela cumpre sua função junto à comunidade acadêmica. Ademais, o peso de sua contribuição no cômputo total da avaliação do curso é ínfimo, uma vez que ela integra um elenco de itens da dimensão Infraestrutura. Ante esse cenário, propõe-se que a biblioteca universitária seja transformada numa quarta dimensão a ser avaliada – ao lado da Organização Didático-pedagógica, Corpo Docente e Tutorial e Infraestrutura – na perspectiva que ela tenha representatividade no total da avaliação, por sua função de estrutura fundante da Instituição e para justificar os investimentos feitos.

* Pitfalls and the Pendulum: Reconsidering Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information: Preface * A MATTER OF OPINION * Why Teach Cataloging and Classification? * Persistent Issues in Cataloging Education: Considering the Past and Looking Toward the Future * Why Does Everybody Hate Cataloging? * Cataloging: An Exciting Subject for Exciting Times * THE CONTEXT * Demographic Trends Affecting Professional Technical Services Staffing in ARL Libraries * A New Look at US Graduate Courses in Bibliographic Control * Textbooks Used in Bibliographic Control Education Courses * Where Are We and How Did We Get Here? or, The Changing Place of Cataloging in the Library and Information Science Curriculum: Causes and Consequences * If I Knew Then What I Know Now: UNCG LIS Graduates' Perspectives on Cataloging Education * Cataloging or Knowledge Management: Perspectives of Library Educators on Cataloging Education for Entry-Level Academic Librarians * EDUCATION FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES * Format Integration and the Design of Cataloging and Classification Curricula * Cataloging and Metadata Education: Asserting a Central Role in Information Organization * On Teaching Subject Cataloging * Education for Authority Control: Whose Responsibility Is It? * What Else Do You Need to Know? Practical Skills for Catalogers and Managers * ALTERNATIVES FOR INSTRUCTIONAL DELIVERY * Innovations in Standard Classroom Instruction * Online Mentoring: A Student Experience at Dominican University * Online Distance Learning with Cataloging Mentors: The Mentor's Viewpoint * When Donkeys Fly: Distance Education for Cataloging * An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of OCLC Online Computer Library Center's Web-Based Module on Cataloging Internet Resources Using the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules and MARC21 * Cataloging Internet Resources Using MARC 21 and AACR2: Online Training for Working Catalogers * The Program for Cooperative Cataloging and Training for Catalogers * Catalog Training for People Who Are Not Catalogers: The Colorado Digitization Project Experience * The Community of Catalogers: Its Role in the Education of Catalogers * Index * Reference Notes Included

There has been a long-standing interest within academic librarian community to provide support for graduate students involved in interdisciplinary research. This column focuses on challenges that researchers face when seeking information in an unfamiliar disciplinary area as well as what is known about information behaviors of interdisciplinary researchers. Using a framework of information seeking strategies, elements of a course for interdisciplinary graduate students are proposed. Topics that are addressed are learning about culture and language of an unfamiliar discipline; including scholarly communication apparatus and organization of information; mechanisms for identifying and locating key authors, publications, research institutions, and emerging research fronts; how to determine when enough information has been gathered; and keeping up with latest research.--Editor Given increase in number and interest in interdisciplinary programs and research in U.S. institutions of higher education, academic librarians should be involved in determining information literacy needs of graduate students in interdisciplinary areas. (1) Don Spanner expresses this need in his published study of a group of interdisciplinary researchers: Is it solely domain of scholars? What is trickle down effect on students as curriculum shifts to encompass interdisciplinarity? Such a determination would allow reference librarians to consider importance of developing necessary bibliographic instructional skills to support both scholars and students in their research. (2) Recent studies of information needs and behavior of interdisciplinary researchers, including graduate students, demonstrate that researchers have difficulties discovering authoritative information sources when venturing outside their major field of study. (3) What approaches have librarians and information scientists found for teaching graduate students about developing vocabularies and learning about core information sources outside of their main disciplinary domains? This article attempts to answer this question by first exploring information behaviors of interdisciplinary researchers and difficulties they face in locating key sources of information outside their disciplines. From this review and analysis, information literacy instruction approaches are proposed for creating a course for interdisciplinary graduate students on following topics: learning about culture and language of an unfamiliar discipline; how new research is communicated and made accessible to others; identifying and locating key authors, publications, and research institutions through chaining, or footnote chasing; probing activities to increase breadth of information gathered through searching multidisciplinary databases and federated search products; networking; keeping up with research literature; and integration and consolidation of interdisciplinary knowledge. CHALLENGES OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH Lynn Westbrook describes interdisciplinary research as the purposeful weaving together of two or more disciplines that are usually considered to be quite unconnected in order to reach a new understanding, create a new academic end product or advance research on a particular question. (4) From an extensive literature review of issues facing interdisciplinary researchers, themes that emerged are need to learn language and culture of discipline, information-scatter issue for highly distributed research areas, nature and quality of bibliographic apparatuses to search for information, and keeping up with current research. For interdisciplinary researchers, there is a need to become familiar with cultural assumptions, language, and organization of knowledge in other discipline. (5) Being able to communicate with those outside one's own discipline requires knowledge of vocabulary of discipline. …

The research seeks the line of social appropriation of information from experimentation, creation and contemporary informational criticism with archives in social projects of technology and audiovisual art. The development of interfaces and devices for the organization and experimentation of knowledge, production of information resources, means of communication and means of communication and criticism. New literacies that embrace artistic experimentation can provide creative and creative approaches to a critical pedagogy of cultural and scientific, personal and social archives and interfaces in logical and epistemological pluralisms. The neodocumental approach highlights the dynamics of the paradoxical information regimes between classification and fiction conceptualizing both a strategic disinformation and the emerging development of an intercultural ethics. By seeking to propose proposals for the study of modular dynamics of contemporary archives, the aim is to decolonial debate within the geopolitics of knowledge and media. Tracing regional and historical contributions to the development of intercultural, cartographic and audiovisual methodologies, it seeks to strengthen the conceptual debate on critical competence in information and media in the field of Information Science in Latin America.

Introduction: The open science movement has grown rapidly since the mid-2010s, and research has been conducted in various disciplines such as public health, medicine, education, and computer science. Research results have mainly been published in the journals of information science, computer science, and multidisciplinary fields. Method: To identify the intellectual structure of open science, we constructed a keyword bibliographic coupling analysis network. We examined a total of 1,000 articles on open science from the Web of Science, extracting and analysing 4,645 keywords. Then, we implemented and visualised the keyword bibliographic coupling network by constructing a keyword dataset and a reference dataset for each keyword. Results: By analysing the backbone keywords and clusters in the network, the study revealed that the most prominent keywords were open access, open data, and reproducibility. The analysis also uncovered nine clusters in open science research: open access, reproducibility, data sharing, preregistrations and registered reports, research data, open peer review, tools and platforms for reproducible research, open innovation, science policy, and preprints. These results indicated that open science research focuses on transparency and reproducibility. Additionally, it is noteworthy that this study revealed a considerable focus on the open innovation and science policy areas, which have not received much attention in previous studies. Conclusions: The findings can help to understand the landscape of open science research and may guide research funding institutes and research policymakers to design their policies to improve the open science scholarly environment.