Search Results

open access

Reading selection as information seeking behavior: A case study with adolescent girls.

Description: The aim of this research, Reading Selection as Information Seeking Behavior: A Case Study with Adolescent Girls, was to explore how the experience of reading fiction affects adolescent girls aged 13 through 15, and how that experience changes based upon four activities: journaling, blogging, a personal interview, and a focus group session. Each participant reflects upon works of her own choosing that she had recently read. The data is evaluated using content analysis with the goal of developing… more
Date: August 2007
Creator: Reynolds, Stephanie D.
open access

Modeling the role of blogging in librarianship

Description: This phenomenological study examines the motivations and experiences of librarians who author professionally-focused Weblogs. I constructed a model of librarianship based on Wilson and Buckland. The results show a close fit between librarian bloggers and the ideals of the field as expressed by two primary library and information science philosophers. A Web survey generated 239 responses to demographic and open-ended questions. Using the results of the survey, I analyzed demographic data and per… more
Date: August 2007
Creator: Stephens, Michael
open access

A Conceptual Map for Understanding the Terrorist Recruitment Process: Observation and Analysis of Turkish Hezbollah Terrorist Organizations.

Description: Terrorism is a historical problem; however, it becomes one of the biggest problems in 21st century. September 11 and the following Madrid, Istanbul and London attacks showed that it is the most significant problem threatening world peace and security. Governments have started to deal with terrorism by improving security measurements and making new investments to stop terrorism. Most of the governments' and scholars' focus is on immediate threats and causes of terrorism, instead of looking at lo… more
Date: August 2007
Creator: Teymur, Samih
open access

Discovering a Descriptive Taxonomy of Attributes of Exemplary School Library Websites

Description: This descriptive study examines effective online school library practice. A Delphi panel selected a sample of 10 exemplary sites and helped to create two research tools--taxonomies designed to analyze the features and characteristics of school library Websites. Using the expert-identified sites as a sample, a content analysis was conducted to systematically identify site features and characteristics. Anne Clyde's longitudinal content analysis of school library Websites was used as a baseline to… more
Date: August 2007
Creator: Valenza, Joyce Kasman
open access

Police officers' adoption of information technology: A case study of the Turkish POLNET system.

Description: One of the important branches of government and vital to the community, police agencies are organizations that have high usage rates of information technology systems since they are in the intelligence sector and thus have information incentives. Not only can information technologies develop intra- and inter-relationships of law enforcement agencies, but they also improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the police officers and agencies without adding additional costs. Thus, identifying the … more
Date: August 2007
Creator: Yalcinkaya, Ramazan
open access

E-Learning and In-Service Training: An Exploration of the Beliefs and Practices of Trainers and Trainees in the Turkish National Police

Description: This targeted research study, carried out by an officer of the Turkish National Police (TNP), investigated the perceptions and beliefs of TNP trainers and trainees towards the potential adoption and implementation of e-learning technology for in-service police training. Utilizing diffusion and innovation theory (DOI) (Rogers, 1995) and the conceptual technology integration process model (CTIM) (Nicolle, 2005), two different surveys were administered; one to the trainers and one to the trainees.… more
Date: August 2007
Creator: Zengin, Selcuk
open access

Visual perception in relation to levels of meaning for children: An exploratory study.

Description: This study explores distinct levels of meaning from images of picture books perceived by 3- to 5-year-old children and investigates how the certain visual perception factors influence children's meaning making and if these factors are correlated. The literature review supports associations among visual perception, information, picture books, meaning, and children. Visual perception serves as the first channel that filters and interprets visual information, and picture books provide visual and v… more
Date: August 2007
Creator: Yu, Xinyu
open access

Perceived value of journals for academic prestige, general reading and classroom use: A study of journals in educational and instructional technology.

Description: Conducting research, evaluating research, and publishing scholarly works all play an extremely prominent role for university faculty members. Tenure and promotion decisions are greatly influenced by the perceived value of publications as viewed by members of faculty evaluation committees. Faculty members seeking tenure may be limited to publishing in a limited group of journals perceived to be valuable by members of an academic committee. This study attempted to determine the value of various k… more
Date: May 2003
Creator: Bray, Kaye Evitt
open access

Accessing Information on the World Wide Web: Predicting Usage Based on Involvement

Description: Advice for Web designers often includes an admonition to use short, scannable, bullet-pointed text, reflecting the common belief that browsing the Web most often involves scanning rather than reading. Literature from several disciplines focuses on the myriad combinations of factors related to online reading but studies of the users' interests and motivations appear to offer a more promising avenue for understanding how users utilize information on Web pages. This study utilized the modified Per… more
Date: May 2003
Creator: Langford, James David

An Empirical Investigation of Critical Factors that Influence Data Warehouse Implementation Success in Higher Educational Institutions

Description: Data warehousing (DW) in the last decade has become the technology of choice for building data management infrastructures to provide organizations the decision-making capabilities needed to effectively carry out its activities. Despite its phenomenal growth and importance to organizations the rate of DW implementation success has been less than stellar. Many DW implementation projects fail due to technical or organizational reasons. There has been limited research on organizational factors and… more
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Date: May 2003
Creator: Mukherjee, Debasish

Measuring the accuracy of four attributes of sound for conveying changes in a large data set.

Description: Human auditory perception is suited to receiving and interpreting information from the environment but this knowledge has not been used extensively in designing computer-based information exploration tools. It is not known which aspects of sound are useful for accurately conveying information in an auditory display. An auditory display was created using PD, a graphical programming language used primarily to manipulate digital sound. The interface for the auditory display was a blank window. Whe… more
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Date: May 2003
Creator: Holmes, Jason
open access

Children's Color Association for Digital Image Retrieval.

Description: In the field of information sciences, attention has been focused on developing mature information retrieval systems that abstract information automatically from the contents of information resources, such as books, images and films. As a subset of information retrieval research, content-based image retrieval systems automatically abstract elementary information from images in terms of colors, shapes, and texture. Color is the most commonly used in similarity measurement for content-based image … more
Date: August 2003
Creator: Chang, Yun-Ke
open access

Information systems assessment: development of a comprehensive framework and contingency theory to assess the effectiveness of the information systems function.

Description: The purpose of this research is to develop a comprehensive, IS assessment framework using existing IS assessment theory as a base and incorporating suggestions from other disciplines. To validate the framework and to begin the investigation of current IS assessment practice, a survey instrument was developed. A small group of subject matter experts evaluated and improved the instrument. The instrument was further evaluated using a small sample of IS representatives. Results of this research inc… more
Date: August 2003
Creator: Myers, Barry L.
open access

The Physiology of Collaboration: An Investigation of Library-Museum-University Partnerships

Description: Collaboration appears to be a magical solution for many problems when there is scarcity of resources, lack of knowledge or skills, and/or environmental threats. However, there is little knowledge about the nature of collaboration. A holistic conceptual framework was developed for the collaborative process, and the conceptualization process used systems thinking approach. The author has selectively chosen conceptualizations and/or research by a limited subset of scholars whose ideas appeared to … more
Date: August 2003
Creator: Morales Arroyo, Miguel Angel

An Evaluation of the Effect of Learning Styles and Computer Competency on Students' Satisfaction on Web-Based Distance Learning Environments

Description: This study investigates the correlation between students' learning styles, computer competency and student satisfaction in Web-based distance learning. Three hundred and one graduate students participated in the current study during the Summer and Fall semesters of 2002 at the University of North Texas. Participants took the courses 100% online and came to the campus only once for software training. Computer competency and student satisfaction were measured using the Computer Skill and Use Asse… more
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Date: August 2003
Creator: Du, Yunfei
open access

The gathering and use of information by fifth grade students with access to Palm® handhelds.

Description: Handheld computers may hold the possibility for a one-to-one computer: student ratio. The impact of the use of Palm® (Palm, Inc.) handhelds on information acquisition and use by 5th grade students in a North Texas school during a class research project was investigated. Five research questions were examined using observation, interviews, surveys, and document analysis. Are there differences in information gathering and use with the Palm between gifted, dyslexic, and regular learners? What relev… more
Date: December 2003
Creator: Peet, Martha Stuart Williamson
open access

Testing a model of the relationships among organizational performance, IT-business alignment and IT governance.

Description: Information Technology (IT) is often viewed as a resource that is capable of enhancing organizational performance. However, it is difficult for organizations to measure the actual contribution of IT investments. Despite an abundance of literature, there is an insufficiency of generally applicable frameworks and instruments to help organizations definitively assess the relationship among organizational performance, IT-business alignment, and IT governance. Previous studies have emphasized IT-bus… more
Date: December 2003
Creator: Sanchez Ortiz, Aurora
open access

Knowledge synthesis in the biomedical literature: Nordihydroguaiaretic acid and breast cancer.

Description: This dissertation refines knowledge synthesis from publicly accessible databases, based on the model of D.R. Swanson. Knowledge synthesis endeavors bring together two or more non-interactive literatures to create combinatorial research data on a specific topic. In this endeavor the biomedical literature was searched on the anti-neoplastic agent nordihydroguaiaretic acid (NDGA) for its potential role as a functional food in the chemoprevention of breast cancer. Bibliometric cocitation was utiliz… more
Date: December 2003
Creator: Sneed, Wanda A.
open access

An Observational Investigation of On-Duty Critical Care Nurses' Information Behavior in a Nonteaching Community Hospital

Description: Critical care nurses work in an environment rich in informative interactions. Although there have been post hoc self-report survey studies of nurses' information seeking, there have been no observational studies of the patterns and content of their on-duty information behavior. This study used participant observation and in-context interviews to describe 50 hours of the observable information behavior of a representative sample of critical care nurses in a 20-bed critical care hospital unit. Th… more
Date: May 2004
Creator: McKnight, Michelynn
open access

A Mythic Perspective of Commodification on the World Wide Web

Description: Capitalism's success, according to Karl Marx, is based on continued development of new markets and products. As globalization shrinks the world marketplace, corporations are forced to seek both new customers and products to sell. Commodification is the process of transforming objects, ideas and even people into merchandise. The recent growth of the World Wide Web has caught the attention of the corporate world, and they are attempting to convert a free-share-based medium into a profit-based out… more
Date: May 2004
Creator: Robinson, Glendal Paul

Wayfinding tools in public library buildings: A multiple case study.

Description: Wayfinding is the process of using one or more tools to move from one location to another in order to accomplish a task or to achieve a goal. This qualitative study explores the process of wayfinding as it applies to locating information in a public library. A group of volunteers were asked to find a selection of items in three types of libraries-traditional, contemporary, and modern. The retrieval process was timed and the reactions of the volunteers were recorded, documented, and analyzed. Th… more
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Date: May 2004
Creator: Beecher, Ann B.
open access

Cognitive Playfulness, Innovativeness, and Belief of Essentialness: Characteristics of Educators who have the Ability to Make Enduring Changes in the Integration of Technology into the Classroom Environment.

Description: Research on the adoption of innovation is largely limited to factors affecting immediate change with few studies focusing on enduring or lasting change. The purpose of the study was to examine the personality characteristics of cognitive playfulness, innovativeness, and essentialness beliefs in educators who were able to make an enduring change in pedagogy based on the use of technology in the curriculum within their assigned classroom settings. The study utilized teachers from 33 school distri… more
Date: August 2004
Creator: Dunn, Lemoyne Luette Scott
open access

Information Needs of Art Museum Visitors: Real and Virtual

Description: Museums and libraries are considered large repositories of human knowledge and human culture. They have similar missions and goals in distributing accumulated knowledge to society. Current digitization projects allow both, museums and libraries to reach a broader audience, share their resources with a variety of users. While studies of information seeking behavior, retrieval systems and metadata in library science have a long history; such research studies in museum environments are at their e… more
Date: December 2004
Creator: Kravchyna, Victoria
open access

A Comparative Analysis of Style of User Interface Look and Feel in a Synchronous Computer Supported Cooperative Work Environment

Description: The purpose of this study is to determine whether the style of a user interface (i.e., its look and feel) has an effect on the usability of a synchronous computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) environment for delivering Internet-based collaborative content. The problem motivating this study is that people who are located in different places need to be able to communicate with one another. One way to do this is by using complex computer tools that allow users to share information, document… more
Date: May 2005
Creator: Livingston, Alan
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