Evidence Based Library and Information Practice (Journal)
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Measuring Scholarly Productivity of Long Island Educational Institutions: Using Web of Science and Scopus as a Tool
No full textObjective – This paper explores how to utilize two well-known library databases, Thomson Reuter’s Web of Science and Elsevier’s Scopus, to quantify Long Island educational institutions’ scholarly productivity.
Methods – Institutions located in the Long Island region and within Nassau and Suffolk counties, including the State University of New York (SUNY) colleges, private institutions, and technical schools, were examined for the last 14 years (2000–2013). Eight Long Island institutions were represented in both databases and were included in the study.
Results – Of the eight institutions, Stony Brook University produced the most publications indexed in Web of Science and Scopus during the period of 2000–2013. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory yielded the second most publications during 2000–2013 in both Web of Science and Scopus, but it produced the highest quality publications compared with other institutions excluding Stony Brook University. Although the annual growth rates of Farmingdale State College and New York Institute of Technology increased dramatically in both Web of Science and Scopus, the large proportional increase did not represent a large increase in total value. Additionally, some institutions had a higher number of publications indexed in Web of Science than in Scopus, and others had a higher number of publications indexed in Scopus than in Web of Science.
Conclusions – Data were collected from institutions in Long Island with various institutional sizes, the number of faculty members employed may have made an impact on the number of publications. Thus, publication data in this study cannot be used to compare their rankings. Institutions with a similar type and similar size of faculty members should be selected for comparison. Due to the different coverage and scope of Web of Science and Scopus, institutions should use both databases to examine their scholarly output. Furthermore, institutions should consider using altmetrics to capture various impacts of the scholarly output to complement the traditional metrics
The Relationship Between Student Demographics and Student Engagement with Online Library Instruction Modules
No full textObjective – To investigate whether there are any demographic trends affecting student engagement with online library instruction which might have implications for practice, the authors designed a case study to examine the relationship between student demographic
characteristics and engagement with online library instruction modules in English 102 courses at a single university.
Methods – The authors recruited 181 students from English 102 (ENG 102), a research-based composition course, to participate in the study. ENG 102 instructors asked all participants to complete an online library instruction module embedded in the university’s course management system, either before in-person library instruction or in lieu of face-to-face library instruction. No external incentive was provided for online module completion. The research team measured levels of student engagement by recording the amount of time students spent on each page of the online module. In collaboration with the Office of Institutional Research, the authors then pulled demographic data on each participant using the university’s student information system. Pearson chi-square tests were performed to determine whether there were any notable associations between levels of student engagement and student age, grade point average, gender, and race/ethnicity.
Results – Observable trends tied age and higher grade point average to higher levels of engagement with online instruction. There was additionally a slight trend linking female participants to higher levels of engagement than their male peers. In the category of race/ethnicity, the two largest subgroups, Hispanic and Caucasian students, exhibited similar levels of engagement.
Conclusions – The authors conclude that there may be demographic implications for practice in designing online library instruction programs, especially when considering student age and academic performance indicators. They also conclude that, owing to this case study’s limited sample size, further study is warranted to investigate these conclusions, and to further examine the possible impact of gender and race/ethnicity on engagement with online library instruction modules
Disadvantaged Youth in Southern Scotland Experience Greater Barriers to Information Access Resulting from Poor Technology Skills, Information Literacy, and Social Structures and Norms
No full textA Review of:
Buchanan, S., & Tuckerman, L. (2016). The information behaviours of disadvantaged and disengaged adolescents. Journal of Documentation, 72(3), 527-548. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JD-05-2015-0060
Objective – To describe the information behaviours of adolescents living in disadvantaged and disengaged circumstances in relation to social integration and self-efficacy.
Design – Mixed methods design using observation, semi-structured interviews, and focus groups.
Setting – Public agencies offering drop-in support services for employment and training at three locations in South Ayrshire, Scotland.
Subjects – Adolescents aged 16-20 not in education, employment, or training (NEET status) seeking public agency support services in South Ayrshire, Scotland; and public agency support workers.
Methods – The South Ayrshire region was identified using the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (2012) and selected because nearly 20% of the region fell into the most deprived decile. Participants were recruited using purposive sampling of NEET youth attending drop-in support groups. Over a period of 4 weeks, the 36 NEET youth attending these sessions were observed regarding their information behaviours, social interactions, and experiences with support workers. Following observation, the investigator used the critical incident technique during interviews to discuss real life scenarios and needs with 15 participants. One focus group of four interview participants was held to explore how groups discuss information behaviours. An information resource sorting activity was used as a discussion prompt. To gain further insight into the information needs, sources used, and barriers experienced by the adolescents who sought support, six support workers were also interviewed. These data were analyzed using iterative deductive coding and thematic analysis.
Main Results – Internet usage of participants is similar to general population peers, with general browsing, social networking, and music and gaming usage as the most popular activities. Information needs included employment, education, and training such as finding appropriate job vacancies, identifying employer addresses and contact details, and accessing public transportation schedules. Other personal needs such as financial, health, and housing were identified. Some of these information needs were unmet, which could have implications for their wellbeing. Approximately one third of the interview participants described challenges identifying or meeting needs.
Teens frequently rely on people as sources of information, preferring face-to-face interactions. They turn to family, friends, and support workers for information as important members of their social network who listen and “usually have the answer.” Other frequently used sources include the Internet and television news. A third of the interview participants described scenarios in which they used multiple sources – the Internet, family and friends, books and leaflets, and local youth clubs and health clinics. A majority of interview participants (73%) did not use the public library because they were not interested (“I don’t read books”) or thought there was nothing there for them. Of the four who used public libraries, none considered themselves regular users. Focus group participants rated support workers and television news as having high credibility, friends and family as having low credibility, and the Internet as having medium credibility.
The information seeking behaviours of NEET teens are often passive and non-motivated, with abandonment and incompletion occurring frequently. Many observation participants appeared visibly withdrawn and were reluctant or unable to engage in discussion with support workers. Throughout the study, participants demonstrated an unwillingness to engage in lengthy discussions. Support workers noted that attendees rely on them to find the information, evaluate it, and give the teens advice about what to do next. Participants exhibited bonding social capital with family and friends, though evidence for bridging social capital was found only with support workers. These adolescents appear to be relatively isolated and have more inward-facing social capital, which puts them at risk for social exclusion.
Though nearly two thirds of interview participants reported no barriers to finding information, evidence from observations and support worker interviews suggest that deficits in technology and literacy skills are substantial. Despite assistance from support workers, NEET youth often abandoned tasks before completing them due to literacy and technological barriers. Support workers described a variety of barriers to meeting information needs: home life, isolation, literacy and access, institutional regulations, motivation, lack of confidence, and poor social skills. Common circumstances relating to motivation are familial unemployment, substance abuse issues, and inability to focus.
Conclusion – NEET youth faced increased access and behavioural barriers beyond those of typical adolescents. Access barriers are influenced by technology and literacy skills deficits, while behavioural barriers are influenced by social structures. Considering the range of personal needs expressed to support workers in combination with pervasive barriers to information, further study of everyday information needs is warranted. Public and third sector (e.g., typically voluntary and community organizations, associations, etc.) agencies should make remedial literacy education a priority. Since the perception of public libraries is poor, librarians should collaborate with third sector agencies to develop tailored outreach and services to build sustained relationships with these disengaged adolescents. Generally, these adolescents exhibit self-protective behaviours (e.g., deception, risk-taking, secrecy) in seeking out information as well as situation relevance of information sources and inward-facing social networks, all of which suggest they live in an impoverished information environment
Embedded Library Guides in Learning Management Systems Help Students Get Started on Research Assignments
No full textA Review of:
Murphy, S. A. & Black, E. L. (2013). Embedding guides where students learn: Do design choices and librarian behavior make a difference? The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 39(6), 528-534. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2013.06.007
Abstract
Objective – To determine whether library guides embedded in learning management systems (LMS) get used by students, and to identify best practices for the creation and promotion of these guides by librarians.
Design – Mixed methods combining quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis (survey, interviews, and statistical analysis).
Setting – A large public university in the United States of America.
Subjects – 100 undergraduate students and 14 librarians.
Methods – The researchers surveyed undergraduate students who were participating in a Project Information Literacy study about their use of library guides in the learning management system (LMS) for a given quarter. At that university, all course pages in the LMS are automatically assigned a library guide. In addition, web usage data about the course-embedded guides was analyzed and high use guides were identified, namely guides that received an average of at least two visits per student enrolled in a course. The researchers also conducted a qualitative analysis of the layout of the high use guides, including the number of widgets (or boxes) and links. Finally, librarians who created high use library guides were interviewed. These mixed methods were designed to address four research questions: 1) Were students finding the guides in the LMS, and did they find the guides useful? 2) Did high use guides differ in design and composition? 3) Were the guides designed for a specific course, or for an entire department or college? and, 4) How did the librarians promote use?
Main Results – Only 33% of the students said they noticed the library guide in the LMS course page, and 21% reported using the guide. Among those who used the guide, the majority were freshmen (possibly because embedding of library guides in the LMS had just started at the university). Library guides with high use in relation to class enrollment did not significantly differ from low use guides in terms of numbers of widgets and links, although high use guides tended to have slightly fewer widgets. Of those guides, 55% were assigned at the course level, 30% at the department level and 13% at the college level. Over half the librarians with at least one high use guide conducted a library instruction session in which they used or promoted that guide. For 39% of the courses with high-use guides, the librarian was actively engaged with the faculty and students via the LMS, but others reported no specific involvement in courses.
Conclusion – Those students who used library guides reported the guides helped them get started on their research paper or assignment and find research materials, two areas for which previous studies show students have great difficulty. Since the majority of students did not notice the link to the library guide in the LMS, librarians could emphasize it in the news section of the course, which gets much more attention. Within library guides, simpler groupings of links might be easier for students to use, but this conclusion would require further research to confirm. In any case, nearly half of all high use guides were not promoted in any way by librarians, but simply automatically embedded in the LMS, a sign that passive embedding may provide an easy way for the library to reach a large number of students early in their academic career. Since the automatic embedding of guides began, guides have seen a dramatic increase in usage
Evaluating Approaches to Quality Assessment in Library and Information Science LIS Systematic Reviews: A Methodology Review
No full textObjective – Systematic reviews are becoming increasingly popular within the Library and Information Science (LIS) domain. This paper has three aims: to review approaches to quality assessment in published LIS systematic reviews in order to assess whether and how LIS reviewers report on quality assessment a priori in systematic reviews, to model the different quality assessment aids used by LIS reviewers, and to explore if and how LIS reviewers report on and incorporate the quality of included studies into the systematic review analysis and conclusions.
Methods – The authors undertook a methodological study of published LIS systematic reviews using a known cohort of published systematic reviews of LIS-related research. Studies were included if they were reported as a “systematic review” in the title, abstract, or methods section. Meta-analyses that did not incorporate a systematic review and studies in which the systematic review was not a main objective were excluded. Two reviewers independently assessed the studies. Data were extracted on the type of synthesis, whether quality assessment was planned and undertaken, the number of reviewers involved in assessing quality, the types of tools or criteria used to assess the quality of the included studies, how quality assessment was assessed and reported in the systematic review, and whether the quality of the included studies was considered in the analysis and conclusions of the review. In order to determine the quality of the reporting and incorporation of quality assessment in LIS systematic reviews, each study was assessed against criteria relating to quality assessment in the PRISMA reporting guidelines for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (Moher, Liberati, Tetzlaff, Altman, & The PRISMA Group, 2009) and the AMSTAR tool (Shea et al., 2007).
Results – Forty studies met the inclusion criteria. The results demonstrate great variation on the breadth, depth, and transparency of the quality assessment process in LIS systematic reviews. Nearly one third of the LIS systematic reviews included in this study did not report on quality assessment in the methods, and less than one quarter adequately incorporated quality assessment in the analysis, conclusions, and recommendations. Only nine of the 26 systematic reviews that undertook some form of quality assessment incorporated considerations of how the quality of the included studies impacted on the validity of the review findings in the analysis, conclusion, and recommendations. The large number of different quality assessment tools identified reflects not only the disparate nature of the LIS evidence base (Brettle, 2009) but also a lack of consensus around criteria on which to assess the quality of LIS research.
Conclusion – Greater clarity, definition, and understanding of the methodology and concept of “quality” in the systematic review process are required not only by LIS reviewers but also by editors of journals in accepting such studies for publication. Further research and guidance is needed on identifying the best tools and approaches to incorporate considerations of quality in LIS systematic reviews. LIS reviewers need to improve the robustness and transparency with which quality assessment is undertaken and reported in systematic reviews. Above all, LIS reviewers need to be explicit in coming to a conclusion on how the quality of the included studies may impact on their review findings
