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Personal factors and personal information activities behaviors of faculty in selected universities in Ghana
Abstract
This study examined how demographic characteristics of faculty influence their personal information activities behaviors, namely information creation, information organization, and information storage. Data was collected from a sample of 235 faculty in six universities in Ghana using a questionnaire. Age, gender, rank and university of affiliation predicted personal information activities behaviors in different directions and with different magnitudes. Gender made a difference in information organization and information storage while age made a difference in respect of information creation and information organization only. Faculty ages 4049 years created information the most, followed by those above 50 years. Males stored information more than females. Rank made a difference in information creation, organization and storage, but university of affiliation made a difference in information creation and information storage, and not information organization. It is common among information system designers and managers to implement information management systems without considering the differential influence of personal variables on human information behaviors. This omission denies information users adequate access and maximum use of the information in their information space. Institutional leaders and PIM systems designers should consider demographic and other personal factors of faculty in information literacy programs. Profiling of users' personal characteristics when designing personal information management systems will enhance maximum access and utilisation of personal information.
... Very significantly, information is a nonphysical resource; its creation, use, storage and, refinding present different challenges from those of physical items. People are constantly creating, collecting, organizing, keeping and disseminating personal information whether at work or home to meet their personal and private, or official knowledge and learning needs (Davis and Zhong, 2017;Donkor and Nwagwu, 2019;Nwagwu and Donkor, 2022). ...
... Personal information is a fundamental part of peoples' everyday lives because personal activities define almost the entire tasks of human beings (Donkor and Nwagwu, 2019). Managing personal information is difficult (Jones, 2007b); it practically amounts to handling a person's world of fantasies and realities. ...
... But the literature on PIM is fraught with discrete examinations of the effects of factors many of which are in Grotkamp and colleagues' classing. Three of the factors have been used in many studies on faculty PIM recently (Donkor and Nwagwu, 2019). They are the general characteristics namely age and gender and a socio-demographic factor namely, rank. ...
Purpose
The study examined the personal information management (PIM) challenges encountered by faculty in six universities in Ghana, their information refinding experiences and the perceived role of memory. The study tested the hypothesis that faculty PIM performance will significantly differ when the differences in the influence of personal factors (age, gender and rank) on their memory are considered.
Design/methodology/approach
The study was guided by a sample survey design. A questionnaire designed based on themes extracted from earlier interviews was used to collect quantitative data from 235 faculty members from six universities in Ghana. Data analysis was undertaken with a discrete multivariate Generalized Linear Model to investigate how memory intermediates in the relationship between age, gender and rank, and, refinding of stored information.
Findings
The paper identified two subfunctions of refinding (Refinding 1 and Refinding 2) associated with self-confidence in information re-finding, and, memory (Memory 1 and Memory 2), associated with the use of complimentary frames to locate previously found and stored information. There were no significant multivariate effects for gender as a stand-alone variable. Males who were aged less than 39 could refind stored information irrespective of the memory class. Older faculty aged 40–49 who possess Memory 1 and senior lecturers who possess Memory 2 performed well in refinding information. There was a statistically significant effect of age and memory; and rank and memory.
Research limitations/implications
This study was limited to faculty in Ghana, whereas the study itself has implications for demographic differences in PIM.
Practical implications
Identifying how memory mediates the role of personal factors in faculty refinding of stored information will be necessary for the efforts to understand and design systems and technologies for enhancing faculty capacity to find/refind stored information.
Social implications
Understanding how human memory can be augmented by technology is a great PIM strategy, but understanding how human memory and personal factors interplay to affect PIM is more important.
Originality/value
PIM of faculty has been extensively examined in the literature, and limitations of memory has always been identified as a constraint. Human memory has been augmented with technology, although the outcome has been very minimal. This study shows that in addition to technology augmentation, personal factors interplay with human memory to affect PIM. Discrete multivariate Generalized Linear Model applied in this study is an innovative way of addressing the challenges of assimilating statistical methodologies in psychosocial disciplines.
... The findings revealed that the technology factor, personal history factor and memory factor seem to affect the digital archiving practices of individuals [10]. Donkor and Nwagwu [11] examined the influence of demographics on academics' personal information management activities -information creation, information organisation and information storage. ...
... Males stored information more than females. Rank made a difference in information creation, organisation and storage, but the university of affiliation made a difference in information creation and information storage, and not information organisation [11]. The individuals' personal digital archiving strategies, factors affecting personal digital archiving and challenges faced were investigated in an online survey in the United States. ...
... The statements of information-finding activities were adopted from Swigon's [25] study, the statements of personal digital information keeping and information organising were adopted from Donkor and Nwagwu's [11] study. The statements of information-re-finding activities were adopted from Yasmin et al.'s [21] study. ...
The study aimed to investigate the influence of demographic characteristics, Internet use, computer knowledge and technology self-efficacy on personal digital information management (PIM) activities – information finding, information keeping, information organising and information re-finding. The design of the study was quantitative and a survey method was used to get the objectives of the study. Three independent institutes of art and design – the Institute of Art and Culture, the National College of Arts and Design and the Pakistan Institute of Fashion and Design – were chosen as the research setting of the study. The population of the study was an academic community of three art and design institutes. The questionnaire was distributed to faculty and students of respective institutes and 229 responses were received after follow-up. The findings of the study indicated that both demographic characteristics and technology-related factors influenced the arts and design academic community’s PIM activities. However, the second set of variables – Internet use, computer knowledge and technology self-efficacy influenced more than demographic variables on PIM activities. Academic role, university and technology self-efficacy appeared significant predictors of all PIM activities. The findings might be helpful for arts and design institutes librarians to make strategies to improve academic community’s personal information management skills. In arts and design institutes, better efficiency in faculty and students’ PIM could be achieved if PIM literacy programmes are designed paying attention to differentials in demographic factors and technology-related factors, as revealed in this study.
... Researchers in the social sciences, for their part, have identified and underpinned PIM as a social problem that deserves attention, while other subject areas have either focused on one or both sides of the problem. In recent studies, Donkor and Nwagwu (2019), Nwagwu and Donkor (2020) and Nwagwu (2021b) have argued that the dominant devotion to information technology distracts attention from investigations of the effects of personal and individual variables, and differences in human memory and other contextual Analysis of all keywords in the PIM literature, 1988PIM literature, -2020 Altogether, the 887 papers were described with 4430 keywords -about five keywords per publication. ...
... Although data acquisition has been technically defined as the process of 'sampling signals that measure real world physical conditions and converting the resulting samples into digital numeric values that can be manipulated by a computer', it would appear that White et al. (2008: 12) were using this term in its everyday sense, such as information acquisition/creation. The observation by Donkor and Nwagwu (2019) that a major component of PIM is information creation, acquisition, storage and retrieval resonates here. Information acquisition links to individual maturity and discipline in deciphering what should be read, stored and/or discarded (Nwagwu, 2021b). ...
... The keywords 'information use', 'behavioural research' and 'information behaviour' have entered the list of keywords for the first time. The significance of this observation relates to the focus and findings in Donkor and Nwagwu's (2019) study, which Application programmes 3 17 5 5 highlighted the significance of personal factors in PIM. Evidently, the search for how to ease the difficulty of finding kept information has focused more on technology applications, despite early studies that highlighted the roles of other factors (Fuller et al., 2008;Maccoby and Jacklin, 1974). ...
This study was designed to examine the structure of the literature on personal information management during the period 1988–2020 through the mapping of author and indexer keywords. The article also examines the volume, quantity and growth of personal information management literature during the period. The Scopus database was searched with the phrase ‘personal information management’ within the title, abstract and keyword fields on 18 February 2021. The annual growth in publications is presented as the number of retrieved documents each year, and the annual growth rate of publications on the subject is analysed. A total of 887 documents have been written on the subject since 1988. The major focus in addressing the problem of personal information management appears to be on technology applications, but research from 2015 onwards starts to address individual factors as they relate to personal information management.
... Studies reported technological factors, such as technology efficacy, technology dependency , type of device (smartphone or computer) (Bergman and Yanai, 2018) and folder depth (Bergman et al., 2020;Bergman and Yanai, 2018). The impact of personal factors such as gender (Alon and Nachmias, 2020) age (Donkor and Nwagwu, 2019) and qualification (Hashemzadeh and Salehnejad, 2015) on PIM variables were also measured in extant literature. ...
... Previous literature provided different activities and practices of PIM which include information finding, keeping and organizing as fundamental activities in PIM (Lush, 2014); information creating, organization and storage (Donkor and Nwagwu, 2019); searching, keeping, sharing and creating with the context of Personal Knowledge and Information Management ( S wigo n, 2013). An earlier study provided acquisitions, organizing and storage, maintenance, retrieval and output as components of PIM system (Barreau, 1995). ...
Purpose
Although, smartphones have facilitated users to keep their personal information, nonetheless, less has been investigated about factors affecting personal information management (PIM) practices. Therefore, this study aims to investigate how personal innovativeness, perceived ease of use (PEOU) and mobile self-efficacy affect PIM (e.g. finding/re-finding, keeping, organizing and maintaining) practices.
Design/methodology/approach
Quantitative research design was used in this study. The authors collected data from 222 students of information management from public sector universities using a questionnaire. PLS modeling technique was used to analyze data.
Findings
The authors noted that personal innovativeness significantly impacts finding/refinding information, whereas it insignificantly affects keeping, organizing and maintaining information practices. In addition, smartphone PEOU significantly influences information finding and refinding, information keeping and organizing information, whereas insignificantly influences information maintaining. Moreover, mobile self-efficacy was noted to be significantly associated with finding and refinding information, information keeping, information organizing and information maintaining.
Originality/value
This research is an important contribution to the body of existing literature, as it proposed an integrated model based on constructs extracted from Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Social Cognitive Theory, personal innovativeness and PIM. This study also has practical significance because the findings of this study would be helpful for smartphone application developers and LIS school directors to design programs for information literacy.
... Wilson, T.D. (2000) defined information behavior as the totality of human behavior in relation to sources and channels of information, including both active and passive information seeking and information use. Personal information management is concerned with the processes and activities individuals employ to locate, acquire, create, maintain and organize information as to the information in future (Donkor & Nwagwu, 2019). ...
The intent of this article is to explore the information needs and resources used by historians in searching and retrieving information for their research projects. The objective is to drive behavioral models of the information-seeking patterns of historians
... Also, the Right to Information Act grants unlimited access to information albeit with exemptions to disclosing some personal matters. In as much as personal information behaviour (Donkor and Nwagwu, 2019;Nwagwu and Donkor, 2021) and privacy issues (Darko, 2020;Avuglah et al., 2021) are studied in the Ghanaian context, personal information Human resource records management culture privacy from the perspective of HR records management remain scarce. The foregoing led to the examination of the roles of employee experience and top management commitment (human factors) on the relationship between HR records management culture and HR records privacy control in organisations in Ghana. ...
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to investigate the roles of employee experience and top management commitment in the relationship between human resource (HR) records management culture and HR records privacy control in organisations in Ghana.
Design/methodology/approach
Structural equation modelling was used in analysing the data. Following the specification of the model, three main types of analyses were carried out. They were reflective measurement model analyses to test reliability and validity; formative measurement model analyses to test redundancy, collinearity, significance and relevance of the lower-order constructs; and structural model analyses to ascertain the explanatory and predictive powers of the model, significance of the hypotheses and their effect sizes.
Findings
The study confirmed that communication, privacy awareness and training and risk assessment are dimensions of HR records management culture. Concerning the hypotheses, it was established that HR records management culture is related to HR records privacy control. Also, the study showed that employee experience positively moderated the relationship HR records management culture has with HR records privacy control. However, top management commitment negatively moderated the relationship HR records management culture has with HR records privacy control.
Practical implications
Organisations committed to the privacy control of HR records need to ensure the retention of their employees, as the longer they stay with the organisation, the more they embody the HR records management culture which improves the privacy control of HR records. For top management commitment, it should be restricted to providing strategic direction for HR records privacy control, as the day-to-day influence of top management commitment on the HR records management culture does not improve the privacy control of HR records.
Originality/value
This study demonstrates that communication, privacy awareness and training and risk assessment are dimensions of HR record management culture. Also, the extent of employee experience and top management commitment required in the relationship between HR records management culture and HR records privacy control is revealed.
... Pervious literature showed that questionnaire is appropriate tool for data collection in studies related with information behavior (Ameen, 2016;Awan et al., 2019;Donkor and Nwagwu, 2019;Yasmin et al., 2019) For measuring PIM practices and mobile self-efficacy of undergraduate student, structured questionnaire was used that consisted of general information, personal information management practices through mobile phone and mobile self-efficacy. ...
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of mobile self-efficacy on personal digital archiving (PDA) practices of undergraduate students.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used a quantitative research design for achieving the objectives. The population consisted of undergraduate students from public sector universities (the top five) of Punjab, Pakistan, listed in the Higher Education Commission recognized general universities. The data were analysed by using SmartPLS, mobile self-efficacy was the independent variable that consisted of two constructs (basic mobile phone operations and using the internet and emails). PDA practices was the dependent variable (information backup, clearing and deleting).
Findings
The analysis consisted of two major parts: first the assessment of measurement model and second the structural equation modelling analysis. A significant impact of mobile self-efficacy (basic mobile phone operations, using internet and email) was found on all the sub-constructs (information backup, information clearing and information deleting) of PDA practices. However, using internet and email has no significant impact on the information clearing practices of undergraduate students of Pakistani universities.
Originality/value
This study is a valuable addition to the extant literature because no comprehensive research has been carried out on the impact of mobile self-efficacy and PDA through mobile phones. It also contributes theoretically in the form of the development of a validated instrument on mobile-based PDA. Additionally, it possesses practical value for information literacy instruction programs.
... Many studies on ICT users' characteristics have focused on personal and professional variables such as gender, age, experience, educational level, rank and location (Donkor & Nwagwu, 2019;Guillén-Gámez & Mayorga-Fernández, 2020;Karatsoli & Nathanail, 2020;Sánchez Prieto et al., 2020;Wu & Hong, 2022). For instance, a study (Vroman et al., 2015) found that educated adult users (65 to 70 years) are more likely to use ICT than those above the age range. ...
This study analysed the behavioural characteristics of ICT users among postgraduate students leveraging the Latent Class Analysis (LCA). The study, anchored on the Planned Behaviour Theory, followed the exploratory research design. It adopted the cluster random sampling technique in selecting 1,023 respondents from a population of 2,923 postgraduate students in four federal universities in South-South Nigeria. "Behavioural Characteristics and Job Creation Questionnaire (BCJCQ)", developed by the researchers, was used for data collection. Upon data collection and LCA analysis, the five-class solution was accepted as the best fitting model, based on statistical fit indicators (such as AIC, BIC, entropy, Gsq, and Chsq) and theoretical grounds. Consequently, five classes of behavioural ICT users were identified and named based on their item-response probability, conditional on class. The five classes were named Trendy, Outmoded, Pragmatic, Disciplined and Social users of ICT, with their unique characteristics discussed. The study tested for job creation differences among the classes using a one-way ANOVA and found a significant difference. On average, pragmatic users of ICT created more jobs than social, disciplined, and outmoded users. Trendy users were, on average, the minor job-creating class of ICT users. The study compared the bivariate differences in job creation among the classes using the Tukey HSD test of multiple pairwise comparisons. Based on the results obtained, discussions were made with implications for further research in the evolving area of LCA.
... Two major constraints are in selecting of search terms and poor connectivity. Search term selection capability resonates regularly in various aspects of information management, for instance personal information management (Donkor andNwagwu 2019, Nwagwu andDonkor 2021). Use of e-resources in the library constitutes an aspect of the myriads of issues in personal information practices. ...
The objective of this study is to investigate the factors influencing the use of electronic resources by undergraduate students in academic libraries in selected Universities in Oyo State, Nigeria. Data was collected from 352 undergraduate students, 51.42% females and 48.58% males, from three universities in Southwest Nigeria. Data was analysed using binary logistic regression to understand the odds that favour use or non-use of the resources. The model successfully distinguished between the types of electronic resources and use non-use of the e-resources, and only three of the ten variables namely e-books, reference books and reference database made unique statistically significant contribution to the model. Also, pleasure, currency of information and availability of help in the library predicted undergraduate use of e-resources in the libraries. On the question of constraints, selection of search terms was very significant in determining use of the resources. Library user education provided to students at entry into the university should find roles for students in higher levels of their study who could provide help to the undergraduate students. Also, such information literacy programmes should consider including information search and retrieval methods.
... PIM practices in the working environment have been specifically compelling to many researchers as Barreau (1995) investigated PIM practices of managers, and Pikas (2007) explored the PIM practices of senior engineers in the research environment. University faculty has also been the subject of PIM studies (Donkor and Nwagwu 2019;Shirazi et al. 2017). Diekema and Olsen (2011) who studied the PIM practices of teachers found that teachers organise information according to their scheme and the scheme may differ if their information packages differ. ...
The study investigated personal knowledge and information management (PKIM) practices of life sciences research students and also compared their PKIM practices based on gender and research programme. The study employed survey reserach design in which questionnaire was used to collect data. All MPhil. and PhD. life sciences research students at the University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan were sampled. Altogether 196 questionnaires were distributed and 114 were successfully returned with a response rate of 58 percent. The findings are presented based on the five aspects of PKIM practices of research students: (a) gathering and searching; (b) organising, keeping and securing; (c) selecting and evaluating; and (d) spreading and sharing; and (e) creating, analyzing, and presenting. The findings revealed that research student were exceptionally confident about their PKIM practices. The research students also acclaimed that they were gaining information literacy skills in practising PKIM. The PKIM practices validated in the study may help educators to design training programmes for research students in Pakistan. This study recommends library and information science researchers to investigate PKIM practices on larger scales with different populations as the idea needs more exploration to thoroughly understand the academic research environment.
... Pervious literature showed that questionnaire is appropriate tool for data collection in studies related with information behavior (Ameen, 2016;Awan et al., 2019;Donkor and Nwagwu, 2019;Yasmin et al., 2019) For measuring PIM practices and mobile self-efficacy of undergraduate student, structured questionnaire was used that consisted of general information, personal information management practices through mobile phone and mobile self-efficacy. ...
This study aims to explore personal information management (PIM) practices of undergraduate university students on ubiquitous devices such as mobile phones. The purpose was to investigate the relationship between mobile self-efficacy and mobile-based PIM practices of the respondentsin terms of finding/re-finding, keeping and organizing information. This study was the offspring of a PhD project. The quantitative research design was used to conduct this study. Structured questionnaire was used to collect data from undergraduate students Regression analysis was applied to investigate the relationship between mobile self-efficacy and their mobile based PIM practices. The findings revealed that undergraduate students search, browse, and scan information through mobile phones. They used keywords, searched from recently opened file, and from send item to find/re-find information. They save their personal information in folders, use mobile applications, and take screen shot of information to keep it for future use. Current study reported “ Sharing as keeping ‘as a new phenomenon in mobile based personal information keeping (ubiquitous environment). This study also reported ‘ Ubiquity’ as an emerging trend in PIM among young generation. Study found positive correlations between mobile self-efficacy and mobile based PIM. Current study developed a model of mobile self-efficacy and PIM. Based on new phenomena “ sharing as keeping’ (which occurred in current study), a model “mobile based personal information keeping” may be developed. This study helps software developers of smartphones to develop mobile phone applications according to users’ needs. This study provides better understanding of PIM model (finding/re-finding, keeping and organizing information) through ubiquitous devices (smart phones). Although studies have been conducted to know the impact or relationship between mobile self-efficacy and PIM, but no comprehensive study has been conducted to explore the relationship between mobile self-efficacy and the holistic picture of mobile based PIM (finding/re-finding, keeping, and organizing information) especially in developing countries like Pakistan.
... Characteristics that make up user profiles include age, gender, work experience, field of study (domain), level of education, revenue, and personality types as defined by Isabel Myers (2010). In the context of HEIs in developing countries, age, gender, and university affiliation were found to influence the information behaviors and needed to be considered when designing information systems to ensure the optimal use of information by users (Donkor & Nwagwu, 2019). Thus, students affiliated with universities that provide them with access to academic databases and/or free or affordable internet services are more likely to use digital information that their peers without access. ...
Using technology to facilitate learning in universities and other higher education institutions (HEIs) has become common practice due to its ability to reduce barriers related to time and space in traditional learning environments. However, current literature mostly focuses on the use of the technology and not on the use of the information it conveys. Also, very few studies focus on technology adoption in universities and HEIs in developing countries, especially those in Africa. Thus, we propose a model that explains the changing information behaviors of students in this digital age and the effect this has on their learning outcomes. We collected questionnaire data from 303 students and analyzed the data using structural equation modelling partial least squares (SEM-PLS). We found that our proposed model explains 60.2 % of student satisfaction, 24.2 % of academic performance, 24.1 % of information sharing, and 19.8 % of their information exchange behavior. This study confirms that the use of digital information and its antecedent factors have significant effects on the college experience of students. This has several implications for information systems research and practice, especially in the design and assessment of technology use in learning environments.
Purpose
Personal information management (PIM) has evolved with advances in information technology. This study focused on how ordinary people use various technologies and tools for PIM practice in daily tasks.
Design/methodology/approach
A web-based questionnaire survey was presented to 3,278 individuals in the United States and Japan between January and February 2022. The survey included 35 items for PIM activities assigned to three elements – task, format and management level – and three items for demographic data.
Findings
Descriptive analysis showed that the use of digital format exceeded that of paper format in PIM activities. However, the paper format was preferred for certain tasks and among older age groups. In terms of the management level, retrieving information without management was the most frequent. Hierarchical clustering identified six behavioral types of PIM activities: omnivorous, selective, early adopters, conservatism, minimalist and no PIM. The conservatism cluster mainly used the paper format, whereas the no PIM cluster had almost no PIM activity. This demonstrates the diversity in the adoption of PIM practices.
Originality/value
This study provides a snapshot of the current state of PIM practices when digital tools are commonly accessible and categorizes the PIM practices of ordinary people in the two countries. The results indicated that some people tend to retrieve information on specific tasks without managing it in advance. Moreover, the rising use of generative AI has the potential to fundamentally change PIM practices. This study suggests that examining the effect of information technology on PIM practices could be an important topic for the future.
Information plays a significant role in teaching, learning and research. It is an essential resource for all the professionals to work effectively in their respective fields. Information is a basic input for business firms, government departments, public enterprises, and non-profit organisations. To acquire, understand and use of relevant information involves a critical process of collection, organization, evaluation and dissemination. It also calls for adequate awareness of the domain knowledge, skills of access, credibility of sources, authenticity and timeliness etc. This study makes a sincere effort to collect the data from the research scholars regarding their perception, method of accessing and using the information.
Notre étude vise à comprendre l’activité menée par les enseignants d’institut universitaire de technologie (IUT) dans le cadre de la préparation de leurs cours avec les ressources éducatives. Il s’agit également d’identifier ce qui fait ressource éducative pour ces enseignants. Nous nous demandons si des spécificités émergent du fait de la nécessaire et forte relation des enseignants avec le secteur professionnel. Quatre filières d’IUT sont étudiées : génie biologique (GB), gestion des entreprises et des administrations (GEA), informatique (INFO) et métiers du multimédia et de l’Internet (MMI). Avec comme point de départ la caractérisation de processus déjà identifiés chez les enseignants de l’enseignement secondaire technologique, nous relevons au travers de l’analyse d’entretiens semi-directifs, quatre processus en œuvre chez les enseignants de l’IUT : la transmission-héritage, la collection de ressources, la constitution d’un réseau de confiance, c’est-à-dire la reconnaissance de la fiabilité et/ou de la pertinence d’une ressource et la participation à des collectifs producteurs de ressources. Une grille de codage des entretiens est établie, avec l’unité sémantique comme unité de codage retenue. Si l’analyse des entretiens fait apparaître des différences en fonction de la filière, le processus de constitution d’un réseau de confiance est majoritairement présent. Nous confrontons nos résultats à ceux d’enquêtes par questionnaire sur les pratiques informationnelles des enseignants dans l’enseignement supérieur.
Information plays a significant role in teaching, learning and research. It is an essential resource for all the professionals to work effectively in their respective fields. Information is a basic input for business firms, government departments, public enterprises, and non-profit organisations. To acquire, understand and use of relevant information involves a critical process of collection, organization, evaluation and dissemination. It also calls for adequate awareness of the domain knowledge, skills of access, credibility of sources, authenticity and timeliness etc. This study makes a sincere effort to collect the data from the research scholars regarding their perception, method of accessing and using the information.
University rankings have altered the landscape of higher education around the world, and it is expected to continue to affect higher education institutions (HEI). The objective of this book chapter was to explore the implications of global university ranking systems on higher education in Ghana. Three ranking systems; times higher education (THE) world university rankings, webometrics ranking, and quacqarelli-symonds (QS) rankings in which the University of Ghana features were reviewed. Further, this book chapter discusses the impact that ranking systems have on higher education and its stakeholders. The study established that collaboration between the faculty and libraries is critical to ensuring higher scores by the ranking systems. This book chapter concludes that HEI in Ghana need to reposition libraries to better support universities in enhancing the visibility and ranking of the university globally. Finally, the authors have provided specific local solutions to be adopted by stakeholders in HEI.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the personal information management (PIM) behaviours of social science faculty in Africa. The study examined the experiences and encounters of selected social scientists in Africa in organising and finding and re-finding of the information they previously created or stored. More specifically, the study sought to examine how faculty keep and refind information, the files and folders in which they store the information. Also, the study examined the nature and characteristics of faculty information spaces with particular respect to electronic documents including emails and paper documents.
Design/methodology/approach
Sample survey research design and a mixed methods approach consisting of qualitative and quantitative were used. Data was collected using a discursive technique, an interview schedule and a questionnaire. Data analysis was conducted using factorial analysis of mixed data design, guided by a combination of category and codes identification using NVivo and Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 17. Principal component analysis (PCA) of factor analysis was executed to identify key components.
Findings
Eleven issues, namely, time, infrastructure, importance of the information, folder/file management, document characteristics and organisational context played significant roles in the PIM behaviours of the respondents. Others were importance of the information, document overload, memory, workload and computer literacy. PCA extracted four major components, namely, document overload, time, computer literacy and importance of the information.
Research limitations/implications
An expansion in the number of faculty involved in this study would probably yield a more reliable outcome. Extending the study to cover Africa would also yield a more applicable result.
Practical implications
The key PIM issues identified in this study, namely, document overload, time, computer literacy and importance of the information should constitute the focus of continuous information literacy education aimed at improving PIM social scientists’ faculty in Africa.
Social implications
Improved PIM of social science faculty will result to improved research productivity and good health.
Originality/value
PIM of social scientists has not been examined in the literature, and yet it is crucial for further understanding their learning and information behaviours, and improving their productivity. The design and administration of a questionnaire constructed based on codes extracted from qualitative and discursive sessions to the same respondents from whom the qualitative data was collected makes the findings very strong. A further deployment of factorial analysis of mixed data design to handle qualitative data makes the contribution of the study very significant.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how individuals' personal information organization reflects their social environments in order to understand social aspects of personal information organization.
Design/methodology/approach
By using a cognitive sociological approach and based on the personal information organization process (PIOP) model (Oh, 2019), this study investigates the social aspects of personal information organization by analyzing the pre-diary interview, a diary, and two post-diary interviews conducted with each of the 18 information users in social science academic environments.
Findings
Social dimensions of personal information organization were found in differences between organizing academic and non-academic files, the way participants identified and made distinctions among files, common folders they created, and with the impact of participants' professional age on personal information organization. This study shows that information organization is a process of construction and that the participants' social foundations are reflected in the way they view and organize their files.
Originality/value
This study makes a unique contribution to the field by explaining the social aspects of personal information organization. The findings of this study deepen our knowledge of personal information organization by providing different ways to understand how and why people organize their files in certain ways, and by showing that this is not just individual behavior. In practice, this study provides insight into the design of applications and tools that support personal information management of people in specific social environments.
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the usefulness and challenges of personal digital information management (PDIM) as perceived by engineering faculty members.
Design/methodology/approach
Quantitative research strategy based on survey design was used to collect data through structured questionnaire. Simple random sampling technique was applied to obtain a representative sample from faculty members of University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore.
Findings
Findings indicate that faculty members understand the usefulness of PDIM practices for their teaching and learning. They opined that these practices improve their performance along with effective utilization of resources. PDIM practices save their time, energy and money. Nevertheless, they have to face challenges in managing their personal information in digital format including technology obsolescence, bulk of incoming emails, prediction of future value of information, information fragmentation and memory load in remembering the location of information. It is also noted that PDIM practices are equally useful for both male and female faculty members. However, female faculty members have to face more PDIM challenges than male faculty members.
Practical implications
Overall, findings of the study reveal that there are benefits of PDIM and it is useful for faculty members with certain challenges. This study identified five major challenges. All these challenges were from technological and cognitive psychology domain. It is noted that assessing future value of information plays important role in overall process of PDIM.
Originality/value
The present study would be valuable addition in literature and it would be helpful in devising information literacy instructions programs in academic libraries. This study would also helpful for improving quality services for teaching as required by Pakistan Engineering Council. Findings of this study would helpful for system engineers, software developers and system librarians in designing and developing personal information management systems in Pakistan.
Research dealing with various aspects of* the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1985,
1987) is reviewed, and some unresolved issues are discussed. In broad terms, the theory is
found to be well supported by empirical evidence. Intentions to perform behaviors of different
kinds can be predicted with high accuracy from attitudes toward the behavior, subjective
norms, and perceived behavioral control; and these intentions, together with perceptions of
behavioral control, account for considerable variance in actual behavior. Attitudes, subjective
norms, and perceived behavioral control are shown to be related to appropriate sets of salient
behavioral, normative, and control beliefs about the behavior, but the exact nature of these
relations is still uncertain. Expectancy value formulations are found to be only partly
successful in dealing with these relations. Optimal rescaling of expectancy and value
measures is offered as a means of dealing with measurement limitations. Finally, inclusion of
past behavior in the prediction equation is shown to provide a means of testing the theory*s
sufficiency, another issue that remains unresolved. The limited available evidence concerning
this question shows that the theory is predicting behavior quite well in comparison to the
ceiling imposed by behavioral reliability.
Social media environments and online communities are innovative collaborative technologies that challenge traditional definitions of information literacy. Metaliteracy is an overarching and self-referential framework that integrates emerging technologies and unifies multiple literacy types. This redefinition of information literacy expands the scope of generally understood information competencies and places a particular emphasis on producing and sharing information in participatory digital environments.
Executive Summary This study examined the validity of Selwyn's computer attitude scale (CAS) and its implication for technology-based performance of randomly sampled (n=167) multidiscipline teaching faculty in higher education in Ghana. Considered, computer attitude is a critical function of computer attitude and potential performance. Composed of four constructs, and using a five-point Likert rating scale, the CAS measured affective, perceived behavioral control, behavior, and perceived usefulness attitudes as multi-construct of computer attitude. The reliability of the overall com-puter attitude and all four constructs scales are positive with high internal consistencies (> .70) and significant construct validity (p < 0.001). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed significant mean differences across all four constructs at p = 0.001. Affective attitude was the highest con-tributor of computer attitude followed by perceived usefulness, behavior, and perceived behav-ioral control attitudes. The teaching faculty has relatively high positive computer attitude; with purposeful practice and enabling environment, they can manage technology-oriented proficien-cies and professional performances effectively. Further studies in private and public universities worldwide are proposed for practical and academic significance. In addition, relational and in-variance of CAS across demographic factors such as gender, age, academic status, and subject discipline are proposed for their differential influence.
Purpose
The aim of this study is to investigate the personal information management (PIM) practices of students and its implications for library services at the University of Ghana.
Design/methodology/approach
This was a survey research, and questionnaires were administered to 150 students across their various programs of study. Questionnaire design was based on the literature reviewed and research objectives.
Findings
Results showed that, format, skills, size of collection, memory, and habits accounted for diverse PIM practices among students. Among the major drawbacks were inadequate skills, information fragmentation, inappropriate habits, and imperfect memory. These aspects when improved, would enhance the effectiveness of students' PIM practices tremendously.
Research limitations/implications
The study adopted the PIM framework developed by James and Teevan and focused on the core activities of PIM namely: keeping, organizing and re‐finding. In order to provide a fair rounded picture of the PIM situation of students, it is expected that subsequent studies would cover the remaining variables notably‐ information maintenance; selection and implementation of a scheme; managing privacy and the flow of information; matters of security; measurement and evaluation; and making sense of things.
Practical implications
The study concludes that, through comprehensive information literacy training programmes offered by libraries; student‐oriented PIM researches; the formation of PIM clubs spearheaded by librarians and supported by university administrators, benevolent organizations and individuals, the PIM practices of students can be made better. PIM efforts should aim at shaping, improving, integrating and supporting students' PIM habits, skills, personal information collections and memories respectively.
Originality/value
PIM practices of students is among the least explored topics in the field of library and information studies in Ghana. This research would not only create awareness about PIM practices, but would also draw attention to the efforts that can be made to improve PIM practices of students in Ghana.
An implicit, but pervasive view in the information science community is that people are perpetual seekers after new public information, incessantly identifying and consuming new information by browsing the web, and accessing public collections. One aim of this review is to challenge this consumer characterisation which regards information as a public resource containing novel data that we seek out, consume, and then discard. Instead I want to focus on a very different view: where familiar information is used a personal resource that we keep, manage and (sometimes repeatedly) exploit. I call this information curation. I first summarise arguments against the consumer perspective. I then review research on three different information curation processes: keeping, management and exploitation.
This paper presents an outline of models of information seeking and other aspects of information behaviour, showing the relationship between communication and information behaviour in general with information seeking and information searching in information retrieval systems. It is suggested that these models address issues at various levels of information behaviour and that they can be related by envisaging a 'nesting' of models. It is also suggested that, within both information seeking research and information searching research, alternative models address similar issues in related ways and that the models are complementary rather than conflicting. Finally, an alternative, problem-solving model is presented, which, it is suggested, provides a basis for relating the models in appropriate research strategies.
This paper reports a study of Personal Information Management (PIM), which advances research in two ways: (1) rather than focusing on one tool, we collected cross-tool data relating to file, email and web bookmark usage for each participant, and (2) we collected longitudinal data for a subset of the participants. We found that individuals employ a rich variety of strategies both within and across PIM tools, and we present new strategy classifications that reflect this behaviour. We discuss synergies and differences between tools that may be useful in guiding the design of tool integration. Our longitudinal data provides insight into how PIM behaviour evolves over time, and suggests how the supporting nature of PIM discourages reflection by users on their strategies. We discuss how the promotion of some reflection by tools and organizations may benefit users.
A study explores the way people organize information in support of projects ("teach a course", "plan a wedding", etc.). The folder structures to organize project information - especially electronic documents and other files - frequently resembled a "divide and conquer" problem decomposition with subfolders corresponding to major components (subprojects) of the project. Folders were clearly more than simply a means to one end: Organizing for later retrieval. Folders were information in their own right - representing, for example, a person's evolving understanding of a project and its components. Unfortunately, folders are often "overloaded" with information. For example, folders sometimes included leading characters to force an ordering ("aa", "zz"). And folder hierarchies frequently reflected a tension between organizing information for current use vs. repeated re-use.
The personal archive is not only about efficient storage and retrieval of information. This paper describes a study of forty-eight academics and the techniques and tools they use to manage their digital and material archiving of papers, emails, documents, internet bookmarks, correspondence, and other artifacts. We present two sets of results: we first discuss rationales behind subjects' archiving, which go beyond information retrieval to include creating a legacy, sharing resources, confronting fears and anxieties, and identity construction. We then show how these rationales were mapped into our subjects' physical, social and electronic spaces, and discuss implications for development of digital tools that allow for personal archiving.
This paper describes a series of interviews focusing on the way professional and clerical office workers organize the information in their desks and offices. A number of implications for designing "natural" and convenient computer-based information systems are discussed. Two principal claims are made: (1) A very important function of desk organization is to remind the user of things to do, not just to help the user find desired information. Failing to support this function may seriously impair the usefulness of electronic office systems, and explicitly facilitating it may provide an important advantage for automated office systems over their nonautomated predecessors. (2) The cognitive difficulty of categorizing information is an important factor in explaining how people organize their desks. Computer-based systems may help with this difficulty by (a) doing as much automatic classification as possible (e.g., based on access dates}, and (b) including untitled "piles" of information arranged by physical location as well as explicitly titled and logically arranged "files." Several other implications for the design of electronic office systems are discussed, and some differences in how people organize their desks are described.
This article describes a system that produces web based learning modules as a by-product of regular classroom teaching. The lecturer uses a pen sensitive display in place of the traditional chalkboard. In addition to drawings, the electronic chalkboard handles a range of multimedia elements from the Internet. The system records all actions and provides both a live transmission and a replay of the lecture from the web. Remote students follow the lecture looking at the dynamic board content and listening to the recorded voice of the instructor. Several use cases of the system as well as a systematic evaluation in two universities are presented.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss new approaches for managing personal knowledge in the Web 2.0 era. The paper questions whether Web 2.0 technologies (social software) are a real panacea for the challenges associated with the management of knowledge. Can Web 2.0 reconcile the conflicting interests of managing organisational knowledge with personal objectives? Does Web 2.0 enable a more effective way of sharing and managing knowledge at the personal level?
Design/methodology/approach
Theoretically deductive with illustrative examples.
Findings
Web 2.0 plays a multifaceted role for communicating, collaborating, sharing and managing knowledge. Web 2.0 enables a new model of personal knowledge management (PKM) that includes formal and informal communication, collaboration and social networking tools. This new PKM model facilitates interaction, collaboration and knowledge exchanges on the web and in organisations.
Practical implications
Based on these findings, professionals and scholars will gain a better understanding of the potential role of Web 2.0 technologies for harnessing and managing personal knowledge. The paper provides concrete examples of how Web 2.0 tools are currently used in organisations.
Originality/value
As Web 2.0 has become integrated in our day‐to‐day activities, there is a need to further understand the relationship between Web 2.0 and PKM.
Each of us has an ever-growing collection of personal digital data: documents, photographs, PowerPoint presentations, videos, music, emails and texts sent and received. To access any of this, we have to find it. The ease (or difficulty) of finding something depends on how we organize our digital stuff. In this book, personal information management (PIM) experts Ofer Bergman and Steve Whittaker explain why we organize our personal digital data the way we do and how better design can help us manage our collections more efficiently
Bergman and Whittaker report that many of us use hierarchical folders for our personal digital organizing. Critics of this method point out that information is hidden from sight in folders that are often within other folders; so that we have to remember the exact location of information to access it. Because of this, information scientists suggest other methods: search, more flexible than navigating folders; tags, which allow multiple categorizations; and group information management. Yet Bergman and Whittaker have found in their pioneering PIM research that these other methods that work best for public information management don’t work as well for personal information management.
Bergman and Whittaker describe personal information collection as curation: we preserve and organize this data to ensure our future access to it. Unlike other kinds of information management fields, in PIM the same user organizes and retrieves the information. After explaining the cognitive and psychological reasons that so many prefer folders, Bergman and Whittaker propose the user-subjective approach, which does not replace folder hierarchies but exploits the unique characteristics of PIM.
Although people engage in a range of information behaviors, the majority of previous models and empirical research in information behavior tend to focus just on information seeking and use. This panel will discuss the need of extending the territories of information behavior research beyond seeking and use. Panelists will explain their own research studies that explore different forms of information behavior, and introduce emerging models including serendipitous finding of information, information-organizing behavior, and information-creating behavior. Theoretical and methodological issues concerning modeling the new modes of information behavior will be discussed. This panel will involve the audience in identifying under-investigated areas of information behavior and discussing potential impacts of studying various forms of information behavior on individuals, society, organizations, systems & technology, and culture. Copyright
Aim. The purpose of the study is to understand the impact of personal and professional factors on Kuwaiti public managers' information behaviour. Method. Data were gathered using a questionnaire sent to a total of 400 staff in eighteen ministries. A response rate of 80% was obtained. Data were collected on six person-related variables: age, sex, education, management level, job experience and information system use, and three information behaviour dimensions: information characteristics, information types, and information sources. Analysis. The statistical analysis package, SPSS, was used to carry multivariate analysis of variance, analysis of variance, and multiple comparisons with the Scheffe test. Results. The study's findings indicated that age, education, and information system use are the only contextual variables that make a difference in the three information dimensions. The three independent variables were further subjected to a more detailed analysis to understand which of the subgroups' means differ significantly from the others and what direction the differences (positive/negative) take. Conclusion. The general finding is that there are subgroup differences in terms of the impact on information behaviour of age, educational level and information system use.
The article presents some of the results from research on Icelandic citizens’ behaviour regarding information about health and lifestyle in the context of their everyday life. The focus is on the socio-cognitive aspects of information behaviour. The research was carried out as a postal survey using a random sample of 1000 people aged 18–80. The findings support the notion that human information behaviour is being shaped by cognitive and social factors together. The results demonstrate a relationship between respondents’ information seeking styles, sex and education. Women were found to seek more information than men, and they were also found to be more likely to consider the information useful than men. Respondents’ level of education appears to affect their information seeking habits, especially among women. Level of education also relates to how people value the reliability of information from the different sources.
The literature suggests that personal information management is a serious challenge for many computer users. Online faculty are especially challenged because of the large number of electronic files necessitated by teaching online. Those who have experience in this environment may offer valuable insights regarding information management challenges and practices. Faculty who teach online courses as part of the WISE (Web-based Information Science Education) Consortium responded to a survey that questioned the ways they manage e-mail, computer desktops, web-based information, and learning management systems. The authors concluded that "filter failure" rather than information overload is the key issue in information management. The study concludes with a list of recommendations for faculty to manage their personal information.
This study assessed the relationship between ICT investments in relation to organizational performance with specific focus on knowledge-imbibed organizations - universities. The study focusses on drawing possible relationships between ICT investment and ICT cost efficiency and, various indicators of organization performance such as return on capital employed, net profit margin and return on assets. The study uses data generated from the annual report of 37 universities in South West Nigeria over the period between 2001 and 2010 in dynamic panel environment. Controlling for structural differences and time-varying dynamics among these universities, the analyses show varying effects of ICT investment on performance. The findings indicate that ICT investment and ICT cost efficiency have positive and significant relationship with performance indicators. The study recommends that ICT investment should be guided in order to stimulate organizational performance.
WE ARE ADRIFT IN A SEA OF INFORMATION. We need information to make good decisions, to get things done, to learn, and to gain better mastery of the world around us. But we do not always have good control of our informationnot even in the "home waters" of an office or on the hard drive of a computer. Instead, information may be controlling uskeeping us from doing the things we need to do, getting us to waste money and precious time. The growth of available information, plus the technologies for its creation, storage, retrieval, distribution and use, is astonishing and sometimes bewildering. Can there be a similar growth in our understanding for how best to manage information and informational tools? This book provides a comprehensive overview of personal information management (PIM) as both a study and a practice of the activities people do and need to be doing so that information can work for them in their daily lives. Introductory chapters of Keeping Found Things Found: The Study and Practice of Personal Information Management provide an overview of PIM and a sense for its many facets. The next chapters look more closely at the essential challenges of PIM, including finding, keeping, organizing, maintaining, managing privacy, and managing information flow. The book also contains chapters on search, email, mobile PIM, web-based support, and other technologies relevant to PIM. * Focuses exclusively on one of the most interesting and challenging problems in todays world * Explores what good and better PIM looks like, and how to measure improvements * Presents key questions to consider when evaluating any new PIM informational tools or systems.
This paper reviews the literature concerning organisation, finding and keeping activities in personal information management (PIM). A brief background to the field of PIM research, which also notes the implications of a better understanding of these activities for librarians, is followed by an analysis of the literature regarding PIM practice that examines various organisational approaches, finding techniques and keeping strategies, and the role that memory and context plays in those activities. The paper concludes with an overview of the research direction in the field, points to long-term issues for the management of digital personal information, and notes the positive relationship between insight into PIM activities and potential for improvement in professional practice for librarians.
The study investigated the level of job satisfaction of male and female administrative staff in South West Nigeria Universities. The research design used was a descriptive survey type. The population consisted of all the senior administrative staff in the universities, out of which a sample of 400 respondents made up of 100 respondents from each of the state and federal universities. Two research questions were raised while one hypothesis was generated and tested at 0.05 level of significance, using t-test statistical method. The result of the analysis showed that the level of job satisfaction of administrative staff in both federal and state universities was high. It was also revealed that there was no significant difference in the job satisfaction of administrative staff in the universities. It was revealed that there was significant difference in the job satisfaction of male and female administrative staff in the universities. Based on this findings, it was recommended that the university management should provide more motivational factors that would sustain the tempo of the workers. Also, the university management should design a programme that would make the female workers satisfied value and their work like their male counterparts. So that educational goals would be achieved.
Students today collect and organise information on a daily basis in their PCs, laptops and mobiles, creating a personal information archive that contains items related to their learning tasks. Personal information management (PIM) is the activities users perform in order to organise the information items in their personal information spaces (e.g., desktops, folders and e-mails). PIM is a new digital literacy which plays a central role when students work on their assignments; therefore, it is important to understand PIM activities in the learning context. The purpose of this article is to raise the main issues in PIM activities within the learning process, to suggest a PIM and learning conceptual framework and to present preliminary findings from the pilot research.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to investigate the affecting factors on faculty members’ psychological empowerment of agricultural colleges in Iran.
Design/methodology/approach
– A sample of 404 faculty members from 12 agricultural colleges participated in this survey study. Based on the literature a conceptual model of factors affecting psychological empowerment of agricultural faculty members was proposed. Regression analysis was used to determine the effect of proposed affecting factors.
Findings
– Results showed that professional skills, organizational culture and management-organizational factors, respectively, had the most positive significant effect on psychological empowerment of agricultural faculty members.
Research limitations/implications
– The measuring of professional skills, one of the effective factors on faculty members’ psychological empowerment, by asking their colleagues or students may lead to more accurate data while in this study was evaluated through self-assessment.
Practical implications
– The relative weakness/strength of agricultural colleges in different dimensions of faculty members’ psychological empowerment and also factors affecting them can be used as a basis for planning for improving agricultural faculty members’ psychological empowerment.
Originality/value
– The proposed conceptual model provided a framework for investigating the factors affecting psychological empowerment of agricultural faculty members and was empirically tested.
Purpose ‐ Personal information management (PIM) is an activity in which an individual stores personal information items in order to retrieve them later on. As PIM research moves from an infant stage of exploratory studies to more rigorous quantitative ones, there is a need to identify and map variables that characterize and account for the variety of PIM behaviour. This is the aim of the current research. Design/methodology/approach ‐ In an exploratory study, 20 semi-structured 90-minute interviews were recorded and transcribed. Variables were found by comparing the behaviors of participants who represent the two extreme poles of each variable's axis (i.e. when two participants showed a high and low degree of document redundancy, the redundancy variable was identified). In a later analysis, the variables were grouped into categories. Findings ‐ The paper identifies 15 variables grouped in five categories: organization related variables (order, redundancy and name meaning), structure variables (collection size, folder depth, folder breadth and folder size), work process variables (attendance time and modality), memory related variables (memory reliance, dominant memory) and retrieval variables (retrieval type, retrieval success, retrieval time and ubiquity). Research limitations/implications ‐ Future research could make use of these variables in order to: measure their distribution, find relations between them, test how they are affected by variables external to PIM (e.g. systems design) and find how they affect other dependent variables (e.g. productivity). Originality/value ‐ This is the first research that systematically explores PIM variables.
Primary and secondary (K–12) teachers form the essential core of children's formal learning before adulthood. Even though teaching is a mainstream, information-rich profession, teachers are understudied as information users. More specifically, not much is known about teacher personal information management (PIM). Teacher PIM is critically important, as teachers navigate a complex information space complicated by the duality of digital and physical information streams and changing demands on instruction. Our research study increases understanding of teacher PIM and informs the development of tools to support educators. Some important unknowns exist about teachers as information users: What are teachers' PIM practices? What are the perceived consequences of these practices for teaching and learning? How can PIM practices be facilitated to benefit teaching and learning? This study employed a qualitative research design, with interviews from 24 primary and secondary teachers. We observed various systems for information organization, and teachers report their systems to be effective. Important sources for teachers' information in order of importance are personal collections, close colleagues, and the Internet. Key findings reveal that inheriting and sharing information play an important part in information acquisition for teachers and that information technology supporting education creates unintentional demands on information management. The findings on the nature of teacher information, teacher information finding, keeping, and organizational practices have important implications for teachers themselves, school principals, digital library developers, school librarians, curriculum developers, educational technology developers, and educational policy makers.
How does class intersect with claims of digital democracy? Most digital inequality research focuses on digital consumption or participation, but this study uses a production lens to examine who is creating digital content for the public sphere. My results point to a class-based gap among producers of online content. A critical mechanism of this inequality is control of digital tools and an elite Internet-in-practice and information habitus to use the Internet. Using survey data of American adults, I apply a logit analysis of 10 production activities—from Web sites and blogs to discussion forums and social media sites. Even among people who are already online, a digital production gap challenges theories that the Internet creates an egalitarian public sphere. Instead, digital production inequality suggests that elite voices still dominate in the new digital commons.
Purpose
– This article aims to examine a particular sub‐set of human information behavior that has been largely overlooked in the library and information science (LIS) literature; how people are socialized to create and use information.
Design/methodology/approach
– Naturalism and ethnomethodology were used as theoretical frameworks to examine what a group of fifth grade students were taught about documents, how this information was imparted to them, and how social factors were manifested in the construction and form of those documents. Two concepts are shown to be critical in the explication of students as document creators and users: the notion that there is a “stock of knowledge” that underlies human interaction (some of which relates to recorded information), and that this socialization process forms part of a school's “hidden curriculum.”
Findings
– Students were socialized to be good (in the sense of being competent) creators and users of documents. Part of the role of “being a student” involved learning the underlying norms and values that existed in relation to document creation and use, as well as understanding other norms and values of the classroom that were captured or reflected by documents themselves. Understanding “document work” was shown to be a fundamental part of student affiliation; enabling students to move from precompetent to competent members of a school community.
Originality/value
– This research demonstrated that people possess a particular stock of knowledge from which they draw when creating and using information. Competence in this aspect of human information behavior, while partly based on one's own experience, is shown to be largely derived or learned from interaction with others.
Information overload is by no means a new concept, but has come to prominence during the last decade. This paper reviews the nature and causes of overload, and considers possible solutions, both organisational and technical, and its relevance to the information professional.
This paper outlines the rationale behind the development of a course aimed at university lecturers wishing to use the Internet for teaching and learning. It evaluates some of the potential benefits of using the Internet and assesses lecturers’ concerns about exploiting this teaching resource. It covers the design and development of the course. Finally, it considers some important points lecturers should bear in mind before embarking on using the Internet for teaching and learning.
This paper summarizes and synthesizes two independent studies of the ways users organize and find files on their computers. The first study (Barreau 1995) investigated information organization practices among users of DOS, Windows and OS/2. The second study (Nardi, Anderson and Erickson 1995), examined the finding and filing practices of Macintosh users. There were more similarities in the two studies than differences. Users in both studies (1) preferred location-based finding because of its crucial reminding function; (2) avoided elaborate filing schemes; (3) archived relatively little information; and (4) worked with three types of information: ephemeral, working and archived. A main difference between the study populations was that the Macintosh users used subdirectories to organize information and the DOS users did not.
This paper looks at the prevalence of creative activity and sharing in an age when the barriers to disseminating material have been considerably lowered compared with earlier times. The authors use unique data to explore the extent to which young adults create video, music, writing and artistic photography, as well as the prevalence of sharing such material online. Findings suggest that despite new opportunities to engage in such distribution of content, relatively few people are taking advantage of these recent developments. Moreover, neither creation nor sharing is randomly distributed among a diverse group of young adults. Consistent with existing literature, creative activity is related to a person's socioeconomic status as measured by parental schooling. The novel act of sharing online, however, is considerably different by gender with men much more likely to engage in it. However, once internet user skill is controlled for, men and women are equally likely to post their materials on the Web.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature and negative effects of the “information overload” phenomenon, exacerbated in recent years by organizational design issues and rapid advances in information and communication technology, through a multidisciplinary lens.
Design/methodology/approach
Data from a five‐country East‐West published study of information overload in the Reuters organization are used to examine the influences on information overload and to compare the effects on respondents in each country.
Findings
Results of the re‐manipulation of the survey data demonstrate significant negative relationships between information overload and the fulfilment of job responsibilities in all five countries surveyed. Information overload was perceived to be most stressful in the USA and UK.
Practical implications
Marketing managers face the dilemma of receiving too much information, but too little that is “right” for their planning responsibilities. The challenge is thus to convert “information” into “intelligence” that can effectively support strategic marketing planning. Suggestions are offered for reducing the duplication of information and adopting appropriate information‐management strategies.
Originality/value
Information overload has serious practical consequences for management and planning in marketing no less than in any other discipline. A clear and comprehensive view of the phenomenon and its effects on everyday job responsibilities is therefore useful in tackling the problem. The cross‐national analysis permits adjustments to local management style and behaviour in the major economies of the East and West.
Why are older adults reluctant to adopt new technology, such as the Internet, given its potential to improve the quality of their lives? We review evidence indicating that attitudes and abilities are among the most powerful predictors of technology use. We conclude that normative age-related changes in ability must be taken into account when designing products and training programs for aging adults, and we discuss new tools to support designers. The most promising emerging technologies likely lie in training cognitive abilities and augmenting or substituting for impaired abilities. We discuss reasons to expect that the lag in technology adoption between younger and older adults may lessen but will not disappear in future generations.
This observational study investigates the methods people use in their workplace to organize web information for re-use. In addition to the bookmarking and history list tools provided by web browsers, people observed in our study used a variety of other methods and associated tools. For example, several participants emailed web addresses (URLs) along with comments to themselves and to others. Other methods observed included printing out web pages, saving web pages to the hard drive, pasting the address for a web page into a document and pasting the address into a personal web site. Differences emerged between people according to their workplace role and their relationship to the information they were gathering. Managers, for example, depended heavily on email to gather and disseminate information and did relatively little direct exploration of the Web. A functional analysis helps to explain differences in “keeping” behavior between people and to explain the overall diversity of methods observed. People differ in the functions they require according to their workplace role and the tasks they must perform; methods vary widely in the functions they provide. The functional analysis can also help to assess the likely success of various tools, current and proposed.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine whether there is a need to consider gender or sex differences as variables in information behaviour research and, if so, how?
Design/methodology/approach
A metasynthesis approach is used. A preliminary framework to categorise information behaviour research on women is developed by integrating main themes from feminist research and information behaviour research. Within each category, studies are compared and contrasted, to identify similar and divergent themes. Themes are then compared across categories, to synthesise the main concepts.
Findings
The categorisation works for most studies, apart from a group of studies on health information use, communicating risk and decision making. The meta‐synthesis indicates the importance of concepts such as situation (as mesh), intermediaries (as node with connections), and connecting behaviour. Gender‐related or, rather gender‐ascribed, constructs, such as concern for others, not gender alone are likely to be important variables in information behaviour.
Research limitations/implications
The meta‐synthesis is a top‐level synthesis, as the number of studies prohibited a more detailed approach. Further meta‐synthesis of a few high quality research studies would help to confirm the findings.
Practical implications
The synthesis illuminates a different perspective on information behaviour: the network of information users rather than the individual information seeker.
Originality/value
The synthesis integrates some feminist research themes with information behaviour research, and the findings have implications for general information behaviour research.
A study of twelve knowledge workers showed that their defining characteristic is that they are changed by the information they process, Their value lies in their diversity - companies exploit the fact that these people make different sense of the same phenomena and therefore respond in diverse ways. Knowledge workers do not carry much written information with them when they travel and rarely consult their filed information when working in their offices, Their desks are cluttered and seemingly function as a spatial holding pattern for current inputs and ideas. My explanation is that once informed (ie, given form) by some written material, these workers have no particular need to retain a copy of the informing source. However, if a piece of written material has not yet informed them, then they cannot sensibly tile it anyway because its subsequent use or role in their world is still undetermined, I conclude that the valuable marks are on the knowledge worker rather than on the paper or on the electronic file and suggest how computer support for knowledge work might be better targeted on the act of informing rather than on passively filing large quantities of information in a "disembodied" form.
Naranan's important theorem, published in Nature in 1970, states that if the number of journals grows exponentially and if the number of articles in each journal grows exponentially (at the same rate for each journal), then the system satisfies Lotka's law and a formula for the Lotka's exponent is given in function of the growth rates of the journals and the articles. This brief communication re-proves this result by showing that the system satisfies Zipf's law, which is equivalent with Lotka's law. The proof is short and algebraic and does not use infinitesimal arguments. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
The Dynamics of European Integration, W. WALLACE (Ed), Frances Pinter London (1990), xi + 308 pp. £37.50 (hbk). ISBN 0 86187 843 4. Britain in the European Community, M. FRANKLIN with M. WILKE, Council on Foreign Relations Press, New York (1991). viii + 133 pp. US$14.95 (pbk). ISBN 0 87609 095 1. Local Economic Development: Public--Private Partnership Initiation in Britain and Germany, R. J. BENNETT and G. KREBS, Belhaven Press, London (1991). xii + 200 pp. £39.50 (hbk). ISBN 1 85293 182 5. Industrial Change and Regional Economic Transformation: The Experience of Western Europe, L. RODWIN and H. SAZANAMI (Eds), Harper Collins Academic, London (1991). xiii + 402 pp. £40.00 (hbk). £15.95 (pbk). ISBN 0 04 445882 7 (hbk). ISBN 0 04 445883 5 (pbk). Industrial Restructuring with Job Security: The Case of European Steel, S. N. HOUSEMAN, Harvard University Press, London (1991). ix + 164 pp. £19.95 (hbk). ISBN 0 674 45175 9. Regional Science: Retrospect and Prospect, D. E. BOYCE, P. NIJKAMP and D. SHEFER (Eds), Springer--Verlag, Heidelberg (1991). viii + 499 pp. DM 148 (hbk). ISBN 3 540 53493 8. Collapsing Space and Time: Geographic Aspects of Communication and Information, S. D. BRUNN and T. R. LEINBACH (Eds), Harper Collins Academic, London (1991). xxvi + 404 pp. £46.00 (hbk). £14.95 (pbk). ISBN 0 04 910119 6 (hbk). ISBN 0 04 910120 X (pbk). The Globalization of High Technology Production: Society, Space and Semiconductors in the Restructuring of the Modern World, J. HENDERSON, Routledge, London (1991). xxiii + 198 pp. £10.99 (pbk). ISBN 0 415 06076 1. The Changing Geography of the United Kingdom, 2nd edition, R. J. JOHNSTON and V. GARDINER (Eds), Routledge, London (1991). xvii + 515 pp. £45.00 (hbk). £14.99 (pbk). ISBN 0 415 03241 5 (hbk). ISBN 0 415 03242 3 (pbk). Dilemmas of Planning Practice: Ethics, Legitimacy and the Validation of Knowledge, H. THOMAS and P. HEALEY, Avebury Technical, Aldershot, Hants. (1991). xiv + 244 pp. No price given. ISBN 1 85628 173 6. A Taste of the Country: A Collection of Calvin Beale's Writings, P. A. MORRISON (Ed), Pennsylvania State University Press, London (1990). vi + 249 pp. £27.10 (hbk). ISBN 0 271 00631 5.
The capacity to exercise control over the nature and quality of one's life is the essence of humanness. Human agency is characterized by a number of core features that operate through phenomenal and functional consciousness. These include the temporal extension of agency through intentionality and forethought, self-regulation by self-reactive influence, and self-reflectiveness about one's capabilities, quality of functioning, and the meaning and purpose of one's life pursuits. Personal agency operates within a broad network of sociostructural influences. In these agentic transactions, people are producers as well as products of social systems. Social cognitive theory distinguishes among three modes of agency: direct personal agency, proxy agency that relies on others to act on one's behest to secure desired outcomes, and collective agency exercised through socially coordinative and interdependent effort. Growing transnational embeddedness and interdependence are placing a premium on collective efficacy to exercise control over personal destinies and national life.
To examine the extent to which health information seeking behaviors vary across genders or are differentially associated with access to computers, the Internet, and online health information.
Stratified survey, data analysis.
Using binary logistic regression we examine information seeking differences between demographic groups. Questions addressed include: 1) Are any identified groups significantly underserved regarding access to computers, access to the Internet, and preferences for seeking online health information, and 2) have differences between gender groups in access to computers, Internet services and online health information narrowed, remained constant, or widened over recent years, following recent national initiatives to narrow the technology gap for underserved populations?
Information seeking variation across gender groups and between technologies was at times significant. There was little difference in the access to computer between females and males. In 2002, 75.4% and 73.1% of female and male participants reported that they occasionally use computers, respectively. In 2000, the respective figures were 72.4% and 72.7%. The rates of use of Internet services among computer users, however, were quite different between female and male (P(at 2002)= 0.0002 and P(at 2000)= 0.0082) and the disparity in 2000 (OR = 0.7366 [0.5870, 0.9243]) increased in 2002 (OR = 0.5675 [0.4222, 0.7627]). The odds ratios (OR) indicate that females were 0.7366 and 0.5675 times less likely to use computers than male counterparts in 2000 and 2002, respectively.
Recent technology initiatives in the US aimed at reducing disparities in access to online resources appear to have had little effect in facilitating equal access to web-based health information.
Personal knowledge management: Framework for integration and partnerships
- S Avery
- R Brooks
- J Brown
- P Dorsey
- M Conner
Avery, S., Brooks, R., Brown, J., Dorsey, P., & O'Conner, M. (2001). Personal knowledge
management: Framework for integration and partnerships. Proceedings of the 2001
ASCUE Summer Conference, 28-39. (ERIC document reproduction service No. ED 456
814).
Teaching information literacy threshhold for instance music
- P Bravender
- H Mcclure
- G Schaub
Bravender, P., McClure, H., & Schaub, G. (2015). Information creation as process. In P.
Bravender, H. McClure, & G. Schaub (Eds.). Teaching information literacy threshhold for
instance music, old concepts: Lesson plans for librarians (pp. 87-103). Chicago, IL: ACRL.