Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme 2014/15

Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme 2014/15

Library Value in the Developing World: full Report

This might interest you all. Follow the links below for the full report.

Library Value in the Developing World, a follow up to the 2012 study conducted with LISU “Working together: evolving value for academic libraries”, was undertaken by SAGE, in consultation with Claire Creaser of LISU the national research and information centre based at Loughborough University (UK), and Lucy Browse of International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP).

The findings are based on a series of surveys, interviews and case studies with twelve developing country institutions; Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Honduras; Indonesian Research Institute; University of Cape Coast, Ghana; National Scientific Library, Georgia; Maseno University, Kenya; Convenant University and Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria; University of the Philippines Visayas, Philippines; University of Thies, Senegal; Makerere University, Uganda; Institute of Intellectual Property of National University Kiev, Ukraine, and the University of Zimbabwe.

Amazing therapeutic effects of water

Amazing therapeutic effects of water

OCLC/ALISE Grant 2014 Call for proposals

2014 Call for proposals

Social Media and Archives report details habits and preferences of archival researchers

Social Media and Archives report details habits and preferences of archival researchers

GreyNet: GreyGuide Repository Test Launch

This information below is from GreyNet:


View the GreyGuide Repository Test Launch
http://www.greynet.org/greyguiderepository.html

The GreyGuide is an online Forum and Repository for both proposed as well as
published good practices in the field of grey literature. Join in the
Pre-Launch of the GreyGuide now underway and share the benefits of your
experience with others in the grey literature community
http://greyguide.isti.cnr.it

GreyNet International
Grey Literature Network Service
Javastraat 194-HS
1095 CP Amsterdam
Netherlands

Coming soon: The OER MOOC Open Educational Resources

The OER MOOC

http://www.wiziq.com/course/28219-the-oer-mooc

Almost everyone in India is conscious of the importance and urgency of the Challenges in Education and these are reflected in several other parts of the world as well. Some of these are the challenge of numbers, of relevance, of Quality, of access, of costs and of speed.

There is sometimes a sense of paralysis at the enormity of the challenge and the apparent impossibility of managing conflicting expectations. But we need a change in direction, as suggested in the scenario painted by Edward de Bono.


“Imagine a ship at sea that is in trouble. The lights keep going out. The engine is faltering. The rudder is unreliable. The first mate is drunk. The crew is very demoralised. The service is appalling. The passengers on the ship are very dissatisfied. Then a new captain and first mate are brought in by helicopter. Very quickly everything changes. The morale of the crew is lifted. Service improves. The engine is fixed. The rudder is fixed. The lights stay on. Everything is fine.

But the ship is still heading in the wrong direction.”


The solution to these multiple challenges probably lies in a number of disruptive innovative solutions. These include inculcating self-learning (building on meta-cognition), measuring learning, collaborative and co-operative learning, personalisation of learning and learning analytics.

However, in addition to new systems or technologies, we need a fundamental change of perspective. Education is seen as the responsibility of the State and the system is based on authority and licenses and permissions to allow education to be transacted in modern times this is unlikely to work. As Henry Maine had said ' as society progresses, it moves from status to contract'. So must the educational system build contractual relationships between the learner and providers of learning as more important than statutory authority.

A very promising technological and pedagogical model that has received a lot of attention during the last few years and adoption by Stanford, Harvard, Duke and almost 100 of the world's top ranking Universities to teach millions of learners is that of the MOOC. The MOOC is considered on the one hand as a panacea for education and on the other as a defilement of the sanctity of the higher education tradition. The truth will probably lie somewhere in between and we must explore the potential of MOOCs to create a model of simultaneously teaching on-site and off-site learners, using synchronous and a-synchronous teacher learner interactions to deliver high quality learning to large numbers , maybe evolve a model for a classroom of 10,000 learners.

This event is a step in that direction.

 - Prof. M M Pant

Learn about the OER MOOC

The Open Education Resources is a 4 week online program designed to enhance knowledge about OERs and to equip for effective use and adopt OERs in ones programs as well as to be able to create your own OERs and contribute to the pool of OER resources. The nominal duration for completing this course is 4 weeks. However, because of the nature of this program which allows flexibility and personalisation, participants may take another 2 weeks if they so wish to complete the course. This MOOC is designed to help impart the knowledge and develop the skills needed to be successful in learning from OERs or teaching the chosen subject to post secondary students and life-long learners using OERs. MOOC after OER include access to colleagues and discussion forums with other MOOC participants centered upon common interests and pursuits.

Learning Outcomes

LO1: Become informed of the various OERs, their different sources and the skills of searching and inclusion of OERs in educational programs.
LO2: Able to search for open licensed materials and create OERs.
LO3: Appreciate the significance of OERs Open Licenses in the evolution of copyright law and how new licensing regimes such as 'creative commons' become a game changer in education.
LO4: Will be able to develop a sample OER related to his/her field of expertise.

What do we expect of the learners

In order to receive the maximum benefits from this course, participants should....
• dedicate focused time towards learning
• participate in discussions
• be active learners
• share their ideas and experiences

Course Overview

‘The OER MOOC’ comprises 4 modules. All these modules have a nominal duration of one week, each module being structured as 5 sessions, which may be seen as a daily action plan for systematic and regular participation in learning and have similar components including:
• Introductory Text based materials
• Introductory Video
• Lecture Presentations
• Blog posts for learning materials
• Tweets from time to time
• A resource base of links to relevant resources

Each module takes approximately 4-5 hours, depending on ability and engagement with online materials. The indicative themes for the 4 modules is as follows:

Module 1 - The OER movement:

Session 1.1: The story of OERs (a disruptive innovation) and its aspirations
Session 1.2: Introduction to Licensing: Copyright and Creative Commons
Session 1.3: Taxonomy / Classification/ Tagging of OERs
Session 1.4: Sources of Resources for OERs
Session 1.5: OERs OERs in India and other regions (Asia, Europe, Africa and Americas)

Module 2 - Learning from OERs:

Session 2.1: A survey of learning tools and learning opportunities with OERs
Session 2.2: How to choose an appropriate OER?
Session 2.3: Requisite learner skills set for learning from an OER
Session 2.4: Recognition of learning from OERs
Session 2.5: Augmenting the learning environment with OERs and Educational Games

Module 3 - Effective Teaching with OERs:

Session 3.1: Instructional design considerations for an OER
Session 3.2: Assessment of suitability , and adopting of an OER in a learning context
Session 3.3: Monitoring the impact of OER on a course and measuring its success
Session 3.4: Licensing: copy right and creative commons
Session 3.5: Developing an OER for a specific learning context and Contributing to an OER Repository

Module 4 - OERs and Education Providers :

Session 4.1: Policy imperatives driving OERs
Session 4.2: OERs as an economic value proposition
Session 4.3: Models of adoption of OERs: Global Case Studies
Session 4.4: Developing Institutional OER adoption plans
Session 4.5: Beyond OERs: What next?

Instructors:

Prof. Sanjay Jasola and Dr. Ramesh C. Sharma

Schedule: 
The schedule provides a general timeline for pacing of the course. The course can be paced slower according to participant needs. Support will be provided for all course materials for six weeks. A schedule of synchronous sessions (if any) and any local groups created will be posted for the course. Course materials can be accessed 24/7. Weekends are intended for flexibility in pacing for participants to catch up or work ahead.

Grading & Certification: 
There is no examination or grade for this course. Certificate of participation may be given on specific requests made with the final feed-back submitted along with the post- diagnostic test.

HELPDESK

A Helpdesk is available on a 24x7 basis, having a ticketing system and reachable through toll free number or SMS. This Helpdesk will be available for a period of 2 months. Details for contacting the Helpdesk will be provided shortly before it being activated. Till then for any help, send an e-mail to tiemooc@gmail.com

About the Instructor

Ramesh Sharma
New Delhi, India

Prof. Sanjay Jasola

Prof. Sanjay Jasola is presently the Vice Chancellor, Graphic Era Hill University, Dehradun, India. He has worked in Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), New Delhi and Wawasan Open University, Penang, Malaysia besides teaching Computer Science to engineering undergraduates and post graduates as regular faculty at several Universities and at IITs as Visiting Professor. He is a staunch supporter of Open Educational Resources and has conducted several face to face workshops on developing Open Educational Resources in Malaysia, Sri Lanka and India.

Dr. Ramesh C. Sharma

Dr. Sharma is working as Regional Director of Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), India. From July 2009 till June 2011, he was the Director of the Institute of Distance and Continuing Education (IDCE), at University of Guyana, Guyana, South America. He is the Co-Editor of 'Asian Journal of Distance Education'. He has been a member of Advisory Group on Human Resources Development for the United Nations Conference on Trade an

Primary Research Group has published The Survey of Library Database Licensing Practices, 2013 Edition

Primary Research Group has published The Survey of Library Database Licensing Practices, 2013 Edition, ISBN 978-1-57440-248-3.

The study looks closely at the database licensing practices of major academic and research libraries, examining issues such as disputes with vendors, purchasing plans, spending volume, impact of open access journals, staff time related to database purchases, and many other issues of interest to acquisitions and licensing librarians and others involved in intellectual property purchasing.  Among the issues covered are: spending plans for ebooks, electronic directories, electronic journals, index databases; current and projected spending broken down by subject area; use of attorneys in disputes with database vendors, and much more.

Just a few of the study’s major findings are that:
•       Libraries in the sample spent a mean of approximately $6,500 for journal articles that are not part of any subscription, less than 2% of spending for subscribed journals.
•       More than a quarter of libraries sampled make “extensive use” of the free access to back issues now offered by many journal publishers.
•       58.82% of those surveyed say that they have never had any serious problems with database vendors adhering to contract terms regarding downtime, product availability and timeliness, billing, perpetual access, and other contractual terms.
For a free excerpt, table of contents and list of survey participants, or to place an order, visit our website at www.PrimaryResearch.com. +Stephen Akintunde +Samuel Eyitayo +Ayodele Alonge +Michael Pate +Roselyn Subair 

Participate in a global survey on Knowledge Management practices by William Hey Tow

See below William Hey Tow's invitation to participate in a survey on Knowledge Management:

My name is William Hey Tow. I am a researcher at Curtin University, investigating whether organisations know what they know. I would like to invite you to participate in this global survey on Knowledge Management practices. 
The survey targets mainly people who are responsible for overall Knowledge Management practices within their organisations (CIOs, CKOs, Knowledge Managers, as such). The survey will ask you about the methods you and your organisation use to establish what knowledge exists within its boundaries, and the factors influencing Knowledge Management effectiveness.
In return for completing this 10-minute survey (29 KM questions and 8 demographics questions), a personalised report benchmarking your organisation against the survey findings will be sent to you. Your participation is voluntary.
The link to the survey is https://curtin.asia.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_1Tgsf2rBhoLH7j7.
Please pass on the survey to other organisations whom you believe might benefit from the survey and the personalised report.
Your response is important and will be greatly appreciated. If you have any questions or comments, please email me at William.HeyTow@curtin.edu.au.
Many thanks for your consideration,
William
William Hey Tow

AcademicSchool of Information Systems
Tel | +61 0447 388 882 
Email | William.HeyTow@curtin.edu.au Social | http://au.linkedin.com/in/williamheytow
Web | http://www.curtin.edu.au


Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology.
CRICOS Provider Code 00301J (WA), 02637B (NSW)

Primary Research Group has published The Survey of Best Practices in Developing Online Information Literacy Tutorials, ISBN 978-157440-247-6

 The study looks closely at how academic libraries are developing and deploying online information literacy tutorials exploring issues such as spending, budgets, staffing, range and qualifications of staff used for tutorial development, software use, time frame for tutorial development, conceptions of what constitutes a quality tutorial, assessment of library efforts, marketing to students and faculty, cooperation with other institutions, frequency of tutorial revision, measurement of student outcomes and other issues in the development and use of online information literacy tutorials.

The study was devised with the assistance of Jennifer Holland and Yvonne Mery of the University of Arizona Libraries, and Erica DeFrain of the University of Vermont Library, and the summary of main findings was written by Holland and DeFrain.

Just a few of the main findings from this exhaustive 285 page study are that:
•       The mean number of information literacy tutorials per library in the sample was 27.92, and the median was 10.50.
•       The library homepage was listed as the most popular access point for online information literacy tutorials, followed by subject guides, course guides, and  YouTube.
•       Nearly 69% of tutorials used by the libraries in the sample were created in-house.
•       A third of the libraries sampled reported using the tutorials of other libraries.
•       The following institutions were cited by survey participants for excellence in tutorial development and a source of imitation or inspiration: Cardiff University, Clark College, Coastal Carolina University, Cooperative Library Instruction Project, Glasgow Caledonian (UK), Kent State, Manor College, Michigan State University, North Carolina State University, Open University (UK), Penn State, Rutgers, South African Universities, TILT, University of Arizona, University of California-Irvine, University of Illinois-Chicago, University of Pittsburgh, University of Sydney, University of Texas-Austin, University of Texas-Houston, Vanderbilt, Wayne State University, West Chester University, and Western Oregon University.
•       About a quarter of the libraries sampled assigned only one person to the task of developing information literacy tutorials for the library.
•       Only a third of librarians sampled felt that their institutions provided adequate support for tutorial development.
•       43.75% of respondents from community colleges indicating that it took less than 10 hours to develop an information literacy tutorial.
•       2.56% of the libraries sampled used their own in-house developed software to create tutorials.

Data is broken out by size and type of library, for US and foreign libraries, and for public and private colleges.  For further information view our website at www.PrimaryResearch.com.

NISO Publishes Themed Issue of Information Standards Quarterly on Altmetrics

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) announces the publication of a special themed issue ofInformation Standards Quarterly (ISQ) on the topic of Altmetrics. Since Eugene Garfield’s pioneering work in the 1960s, assessment of published research has been through citation reference counts and the Journal Impact Factor. A new field of alternative metrics—often called altmetrics for short—has recently emerged to provide methods of measurement that better reflect online reader behavior, network interactions with content, and social media. ISQ Guest Content Editor, Martin Fenner, Technical Lead Article-Level Metrics for the Public Library of Science (PLOS) and Project Manager for the ORCID DataCite Interoperability Network (ODIN), has assembled a set of articles that go beyond the basics of what altmetrics are to look at emerging best practices and challenges presented by this burgeoning field. “Altmetrics have grown up,” states Fenner, “and the articles in this issue of ISQ reflect this shift in the discussion.”

The feature article, Consuming Article-Level Metrics, by Scott Chamberlain (Simon Fraser University) discusses the issues encountered when using scripting interfaces to obtain data from the four largest article-level metrics providers: PLOS, ImpactStory, Altmetric, and Plum Analytics. Commonalities and differences in consistency, provenance, and context are illustrated and metrics users are cautioned about combining data across providers.

While much of the focus to date has been on the use of altmetrics by and for individual researchers, Robin Chin Roemer (University of Washington Libraries) and Rachel Borchardt (American University) in the second feature discuss Institutional Altmetrics and Academic Libraries, specifically how altmetrics has begun to address the needs of institutions and the key roles that librarians can play as partners, liaisons, and advocates in such endeavors.

Three “in practice” articles provide case studies for the way altmetrics are being used today. Jennifer Lin andMartin Fenner describe how altmetrics can be classified into different categories and how PLOS developed a new ontology to make sense of it all. Mike Taylor (Elsevier) discusses how altmetrics can expand our vision of scholarly communication and social impact, well beyond what bibliometrics and citation has done. William Gunn explores how the addition of papers to the Mendeley academic social network can provide a different view of research impact both within and beyond a particular discipline.

All of the authors describe issues and challenges in this evolving field that lend support for the new project, described in the NISO Reports article—and supported with a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation—to study, propose, and then develop community-based standards and recommended practices in the field of alternative metrics.

“For altmetrics to move out of its current pilot and proof-of-concept phase, the community must begin coalescing around a suite of commonly understood definitions, calculations, and data sharing practices,” states Todd Carpenter, NISO Executive Director. “This special issue of ISQ sets the stage for understanding and identifying key altmetrics issues that can best be addressed through standards or recommended practices.”

ISQ is available in open access in electronic format on the NISO website. Both the entire Summer 2013 Altmetrics issue and the individual articles may be freely downloaded. Print copies are available by subscription and as print on demand. For more information and to access the free electronic version, visit: www.niso.org/publications/isq.

Cynthia Hodgson

ISQ Managing Editor

National Information Standards Organization

MIREX 2013: Open for submission

The 2013 Music Information Retrieval Evaluation eXchange (MIREX) submission system is now open!

In response to feedback at ISMIR 2012, this year we have a new task distribution strategy. Many members of the MIREX community have volunteered to lead evaluation of submissions.  The complete list of task leaders is available on the MIREX wiki (http://www.music-ir.org/mirex/wiki/2013:Task_Captains). Due to the proprietary nature of much of the data, the submission system, evaluation framework, and most of the datasets will continue to be hosted by IMIRSEL.

IMPORTANT DATES:

This year, we have a single deadline for all submissions.  Submissions for all tasks are due by:

        3 September 2013

Nota Bene: In the past we have been rather flexible about deadlines.  This year, however, we simply do not have the time flexibility, sorry.

Please, please, please, let's start getting those submissions made. The  sooner we have the code, the sooner we can start running the evaluations.

PS: If you have a slower running algorithm, help us help you by getting  your code in ASAP. Please do pay attention to runtime limits.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

The EvalFest mailing list, <evalfest@lists.lis.illinois.edu>, is our  primary point of communication. For personal questions, please contact  the MIREX 2013 Team at <mirex@imirsel.org>. All task captains will be included on the MIREX mailing lists.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

http://www.music-ir.org/mirex/wiki/2013:Main_Page

More information about each MIREX 2013 task can be found at the above URL.

SUBMISSION STARTING POINT:

http://www.music-ir.org/mirex/wiki/MIREX_2013_Submission_Instructions

Please follow the instructions carefully. It is important that you read
(and understand) the submission instructions from top to bottom.

Cheers,
J. Stephen Downie on behalf of the MIREX 2013 Team