Miami University, Ohio
Not a member yet
805 research outputs found
Sort by
Seeing the Forest by Counting the Trees
Get PDFLibraries, particularly academic libraries, are swimming in a sea of data. Librarians often contribute to this by counting every possible patron interaction in an attempt to both define their current situation and to predict future staffing, budgetary, and collection needs. This investigation assessed the effectiveness of using various data sources in predicting future library activity and needs. The authors collected data on in-person and chat reference transactions, electronic journal downloads, database queries, and catalog searches from 2009–12. By analyzing these data points, the authors hypothesized they would find correlations that might be predictive of changes in related library services. Results indicated that the strongest correlations track activity over the course of the academic calendar. While none of the data points examined had predictive properties, the strong correlations between the data points over the period of time studied indicated that any one of them might serve as a stand-alone indicator of usage
Aquatecture: Designing Water Adaptable Architecture in Ko Kret, Thailand as a Flood Solution
No full textThis paper will address a new approach towards architecture reflecting on the consequences of the city’s land based building practice in ecology that is predominantly water based. There is a need for opportunities to work with the natural water ecology as a solution for future flooding. Flooding threatens lives, infrastructure, and the economy. In the past fifty years Thailand has moved away from water-based communities and designs, which is what is creating some of the problems and contradicting the water-based design Bangkok should be utilizing. Bangkok was once designed as a liquid-based system, designed with a multitude of natural and constructed waterways to help with the flow of water in the Chao Phraya delta. The klongs were used to manage the seasonal surpluses and deficits in water, based on the monsoon rains. As industry grew in Bangkok, the klongs grew into asphalt ‘highway’ transport systems for the city. The most common solution is to float and rise up with the flood waters. Floating structure is a solution for whole complexes to float, as opposed to the many single unit floating houses. Many of the public amenities and utilities will not float; therefore the city will no longer be fully functioning. New developments need to incorporate building marsh landscapes as a temporary solution for the temporary flooding. The next step in this new design process is to design for the city or country as a whole. A flooding solution is not to have a single building which can float, but rather a whole city that can remain functional with water. We need to evolve design to welcome water as a part of the system of a city and to work with in. Creating a new water based vernacular
Common Sense for Caring Organizations: Results from a Study of High-Performing Home Care Agencies and Nursing Homes--Research Brief
No full textThis research brief provides highlights from the full report on a study of high-performing home care agencies and nursing homes
Migration and Update to CONTENTdm 6.1
No full textSlides from presentation given on experiences in migrating from DSpace to CONTENTdm and importing the CONTENTdm viewer into an Omeka exhibit
E-Resources, E-Reality
Get PDFPresentation given at E-Resources & Libraries (ER&L) on March 18th, 2013. Managing e-resources with free and proprietary tools
Finding Home: Opportunities for Placemaking in Albuquerque, New Mexico
No full textThis paper examines the process of placemaking. It examines the differences between placemaking strategies in single family detached houses and multiple residential buildings, i.e. apartments, condominiums, townhomes, etc. The transient nature of rental properties makes the process of placemaking more difficult. After considering these differences and the difficulties they create in the residents' placemaking ability, considerations are offered to aid in designing spaces that nurture a resident's placemaking process. These design considerations are context, memory, and pause. The issue of context includes addressing communal spaces within the building on one scale as well as the area immediately surrounding the building and the larger neighborhood on another scale. Memory is addressed in the personal and collective sense. Memory is considered in the objects and cultural biases and traditions that a resident will bring with them to a new space. Memory is also considered from the view of the cultural/historical memory of area in which a building is located. Pause is described as a place to be still and is an important consideration when designing spaces that may become places. An area of respite where a resident can be at peace is critical for them to develop a relationship with a space. The paper concludes with suggestions as to how these factors should be considered when designing spaces that other people may eventually call home, for however brief a time
Psuedo-dyadic "interaction" on Amazon's Mechanical Turk
No full textPsychological researchers have begun to utilize
Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) marketplace as a participant
pool. Although past work has established that
MTurk is well suited to examining individual behavior,
pseudo-dyadic interactions, in which participants falsely
believe they are interacting with a partner, are a key element
of social and cognitive psychology. The ability to conduct
such interdependent research on MTurk would increase the
utility of this online population for a broad range of psychologists.
The present research therefore attempts to qualitatively
replicate well-established pseudo-dyadic tasks on
MTurk in order to establish the utility of this platform as a
tool for researchers.We find that participants do behave as if
a partner is real, even when doing so incurs a financial cost,
and that they are sensitive to subtle information about the
partner in a minimal-groups paradigm, supporting the use of
MTurk for pseudo-dyadic research
Keep the Change: Clusters of Faculty Opinion on Open Access
Get PDFThe authors discovered faculty opinions about open access by employing Q methodology, a research method combining qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze subjects' attitudes about a given topic. Q methodology, using three main steps, identifies and isolates opinion types. The first step is the collection of subjective statements, largely from qualitative interviews. The next step, called the Q-sort, involves subjects sorting these statements along a continuum. Finally, Q-sort results are analyzed using a statistical technique called factor analysis. Using specialized software, factor analysis generates clusters of opinions. In this Q study, factor analysis revealed three distinct factors that outlined clusters of faculty opinions about open access. The authors described these factors as “Evangelists,” “Pragmatists,” and “Traditionalists.” Each of these factors represents a group of faculty on Miami University’s Oxford campus who hold specific attitudes and opinions regarding open access. Implications for future library initiatives implementing open access programs, services, and policies are discussed, as are directions for additional research