Operationalizing the BIG Collective Collection: A Case Study of Consolidation vs Autonomy

This is a discussion paper prepared in collaboration with the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) Library Initiatives. It presents a framework for operationalizing the BTAA collective collection. A collective collection is a collection managed collaboratively across a network of libraries. We have a very specific focus in this paper on the ”purchased” or print collection, acknowledging that other areas of library collections are sometimes managed collectively, digitized collections for example. The BTAA justifiably claims to be the premier academic collaboration in the US. Once described as “the world\u27s greatest common market in education3,” it leverages the combined research and teaching capacity of major research universities to scale innovation, impact, and economies across its 14 members. Together, the BTAA members have a profound social and economic impact throughout a large part of the US. Libraries are a central part of the BTAA research, learning, and teaching endeavor. They collectively mobilize major expertise and resources. In fact, the BTAA collection represents more than a fifth of all titles in the North American print book collection. The BTAA libraries align with BTAA goals by collaborating at scale to increase both impact and efficiency. The character of library spaces, services, and collections is evolving with changing learning and research behaviors. It is widely recognized that continued autonomous development of large standalone collections does not meet needs and is not efficient. A library cannot collect all that its members would like to see, and much of what it does collect does not get used. At the same time, library space is being configured around engagement rather than around collections, the long-term stewardship costs of print materials are being recognized, and the role of books in research and learning is changing. Libraries are re-evaluating traditional approaches to building, managing, and sharing collections, and are increasingly looking to do this cooperatively. In this paper, we define and explore key attributes of collective collections and present a series of recommendations designed to advance the BTAA libraries toward a more purposeful coordination of their collections. Doing all that we propose would involve an extensive multi-year program. The approach we recommend here is broadly applicable in other consortium settings as well, which is why we characterize the paper as a case study

From geographical innovation clusters towards virtual innovation clusters: The innovation virtual system

The opportunities of the new economic landscape have determined radical changes in the organizational structures of the firms, till the creation of new virtual clusterization forms, that is distinct systems of suppliers, distributors, service providers and clients that use the 'internetworking technologies' as a principal way for co-operating and competing. These 'virtual clusterization forms' that have been also defined as 'e-business communities' or 'b-web communities' (Tapscott, Lowy & Ticoll, 2000), are here defined as 'virtual clusters'. In a virtual cluster (VC), each enterprise adds one or more distinct aspects of product/service value to the value of the network, by exchanging digital knowledge with other members. Recent studies, focused on VCs, highlight that the VC enabling factors may be identified in ICTs ubiquity (increasingly wireless) and bandwidth robustness, that allow firms to access real-time what they need and to co-ordinate their intra and inter-firm activities, creating value both by offering innovative and personalized products, services and by cutting transaction costs. (Davin and Botkin, 1994) (Rayport and Sviokla, 1995). This paper focuses on these VCs innovation processes, in order to make some comparisons between the traditional geographical innovation clusters and the emerging virtual innovation clusters. To this end, the paper is organized in two logical patterns: Some empirical evidence for describing ad discussing the more important features of the emerging VCs. Specifically, the paper focuses on the following issues: - Some first results on VCs characteristics, regarding four distinctive features of their new world of business: i. Agents: radical increase in the number of agents that form a cluster. ii. Connections: virtually unlimited increase in the number of connections and therefore in the potential size of the cluster. iii. Space: delocalization of transactions which become space independent. iv. Time: information transmission takes place at the speed of electronic communication. - The analysis of the VC basic unit, the Internetworked Enterprise (IE), and of its learning process with customers and trough strategic alliances. A model of the VCs global virtual learning environment, here conceived as a system of innovation, defined as 'Innovation Virtual System' (IVS). IVS is here interpreted as a new way of projecting the traditional systems of innovation into a global scale.

The emerging role of knowledge in supply networks: the impact on purchasing and supply management

There are major change factors affecting to operational environment of purchasing and supply management. Global supply market is opening up for all size of firms, servitization as product strategy is changing what is delivered and technological advancement enables digitalization changing the business processes. Volume of available information increases making external knowledge acquisition a core competence. Under this immense change, it is important for purchasing and supply management to understand, how can they efficiently connect requirements of own production to supplier capabilities and develop those together in order to match customer needs. Knowledge acquisition constitutes a continuous learning process. During learning routines, actions and division of labour are reformulated, recombined and finally institutionalised to construct new operational environment – new social reality. Learned new skills and acquired new knowledge shape the environment requiring continuous learning. Given the expansive cycle nature of learning, knowledge is interesting resource – more it is used, more it increases. In the thesis, qualitative and quantitative research methods are used to study the impact of the supply network change to purchasing and supply management. The phenomena is looked from small and medium sized enterprises point of view. Purchasing management in small and medium sized firms is in contradictory position in stringent competition, when innovation capability and time-to-market are gaining more and more importance. In spite of being more flexible than large, they are constrained by limited resources to implement new practices in to the use. As organization they have lower capacity to absorb external knowledge and maintain own learning capability at required volume. At the same time and for the same reasons their performance development depends increasingly on external knowledge. The thesis attempts to answer two questions. First, what is the impact of described changes of supply network on purchasing in terms of information-processing requirements? Second, what impact do the changing supply network trends have on information-processing capabilities in purchasing? The thesis contributes to discussion of purchasing and supply management. It builds on theories of resource-based view and knowledge-based view of a firm. Applying abductive research approach the thesis provides new understanding on role of purchasing and supply management in knowledge acquisition and use of organizational learning to develop buyer-supplier relationship. First, the purchasing management has to manage contracts and coded knowledge in order to obtain reliability, quality and performance. However, purchasing must bring in new knowledge and skills to organization beyond what has been stipulated in contracts. For example in project deliveries, products are developed and defined during the delivery requiring flexibility in purchasing. Second, in the thesis purchasing is observed from service logic point of view. Service logic has been instrumental in marketing emphasizing process how value is delivered instead of product itself. In purchasing, the service logic turns the focus from contact-controlled transactions towards continuous development of skills and knowledge with suppliers. Third contribution of the thesis is in bringing the organizational learning to purchasing and supply management discussion. In the thesis, different learning orientations are matched against different operational strategies and compared with expectations on buyer-supplier relationships. Fourth contribution is in building a path from knowledge acquisition through different organizational learning orientations to purchasing performance. It is demonstrated how purchasing uses different supplier development and knowledge acquisition methods and what is effect of those to purchasing performance. As management implications, the thesis provides constructive methods to assess what new purchasing capabilities are needed and how they should be developed in accordance with overall strategy development. The thesis sheds light on changes on purchasing when firm expands to new supply markets and when market shifts towards service logic. The purchasing has to be able exploit current knowledge and explore new processes and practices with existing suppliers but also have capacity to explore new supply market more proactively.Toimitusketjuja muokkaavat laajenevat globaalit toimittajamarkkinat, palvelullistaminen tuotestrategiana sekä tietotekniikan kehittymisen mahdollistama digitalisaatio. Muutoksesta johtuen käytettävissä olevan tiedon määrä kasvaa ja tiedosta itsestään tulee keskeinen resurssi. Hankintatoimelle on tärkeää ymmärtää miten tietoa hankitaan ja hallitaan. Hankintatoimen on ratkaistava miten oman tuotannon ja toimittajan osaamiset saadaan kehittämään yhdessä ratkaisuja asiakkaiden tarpeisiin. Tiedon hankinta on oppimisprosessi, jossa tiedon innovatiivisen uudelleen määrittelyn ja sen myötä kehittyvän työnjaon kautta rutiinit ja toiminta institutionalisoituvat ja rakentavat uutta toimintaympäristöä. Organisaation oppiessa se muuttaa toimintaansa ja samalla se myös muuttaa toimintaympäristöään luoden pohjaa uudelle tiedolle. Oppimisen jatkuvan kehän vaikutuksesta tieto on mielenkiintoinen resurssi, sillä tieto lisääntyy mitä enemmän sitä käytetään. Tässä tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan kvalitatiivisin ja kvantitatiivisin menetelmin hankinnan muutosta ennen muuta pienten ja keskisuurten yritysten näkökulmasta. Kehittyneissä talouksissa näillä yrityksillä on merkittävä rooli tuottavuuden ja työllisyyden kehityksessä. Yrityksen hankintatoimella on laajenevilla uusilla globaaleilla markkinoilla tärkeä joskin ristiriitainen työmaa. Kiristyvässä kilpailussa innovaatiosta ja oikea-aikaisesta markkinoinnista on tullut entistä tärkeämpiä. Vaikka pienet ja keskisuuret yritykset ovat ketterämpiä uusien menetelmien käyttöönotossa kuin isojen yritysten vastaavat organisaatiot, niillä on vain rajalliset resurssit omaksua ulkoista tietoa ja ylläpitää jatkuvaa oppimista. Toisaalta juuri omien resurssien rajallisuus tekee ulkoisen tiedon hankinnasta merkittävää varsinkin pienten ja keskisuurten yritysten tehokkaalle toiminnalle. Tutkimuksen avulla pyritään vastaamaan informaatioprosessin viitekehyksen puitteissa kahteen kysymykseen. Ensiksi; mikä on toimitusketjun muutosten vaikutus hankintatoimeen. Toiseksi; miten hankinnan kyvykkyyksiä tulisi kehittää vastaaman näitä muuttuneita tarpeita. Väitöskirjan neljä kontribuutiota liittyvät toimitusketjujen johtamisen ja hankinnan tutkimukseen pohjautuen resurssi- ja tietolähtöiseen teoriaan yrityksen toiminnasta. Abduktiivisen tutkimusotteen avulla tuodaan uutta ymmärrystä hankintatoimen merkityksestä tiedonhankinnassa ja organisaatio-oppimisen roolista hankinnan välineenä. Ensiksi, koodatun tiedon ja sopimusten hallinta on hankinnan perustoiminto, jolla saadaan toimintaan luotettavuutta, tehokkuutta ja laatua. Hankinnan tulee myös kyetä tuomaan organisaatioon uutta tietoa ja osaamista, joita ei ole vielä sopimuksissa. Esimerkiksi projektimaisessa toiminnassa tuotteet määritellään ja kehitetään osana toimitusta, jolloin hankintaa tehdään joustavasti. Toiseksi, väitöskirjassa hankintaa tarkastellaan palvelulogiikan näkökulmasta. Palvelulogiikan arvontuotantomalli on ollut markkinoinnin ja myynnin välineenä jo kauan. Siinä korostetaan tuotteen tuottamaa palvelua ja toiminnan prosessia varsinaisen tuotteen sijaan. Hankinnassa palvelulogiikka siirtää toiminnan painopistettä sopimuksellista vaihdannasta jatkuvaan osaamisen kehittämisen prosessin hallintaan. Kolmas kontribuutio liittyy organisaatio-oppimisen tuomiseen hankinnan välineeksi. Väitöskirjassa kartoitetaan erilaisten oppimisstrategioiden valintaa sen mukaan, mitä toimittajasuhteilta odotetaan. Toimitaanko reaktiivisesti virheitä korjaten vai haetaanko uusia toimintatapoja ennakolta ja nykyisiä menetelmiä haastaen. Neljänneksi väitöskirja liittää erilaiset tiedonhankinnan suuntautumiset ja hankinnan suorituskykyyn. Erilaiset tiedon hankinnan mallit toimivat eri tavoin. Nykyistä tietoa hyväksikäyttävä ”eksploitatiivinen” hankinta toimii varsin itsenäisesti. Kun taas uutta tietoa etsivä ”eksploratiivinen” malli edellyttää selkeää organisaaton asemaa. Käytännön toimitusketjun johtamistyöhön väitöskirja tarjoaa konstruktiivisen menetelmän arvioida miten ja millaisia hankinnan kyvykkyyksiä tulisi kehittää yhdessä muun strategiatyön kanssa. Tutkimus tuo esille miten hankinnan tehtävät muuttuvat, kun yrityksen toimintakenttä laajenee tai kun yritys siirtyy kohden palvelulogiikan mukaista liiketoimintamallia. Hankinnan pitää osata paitsi hyödyntää tunnettua toimittajaosaamista, myös etsiä uusia toimintatapoja uusien ja vanhojen toimittajien kanssa

Legacy Missions in Times of Change: Defining and Shaping Collections in the 21st Century

Despite the rapidly changing information and technology landscape, collections remain at the heart of academic libraries, signifying their enduring importance in providing access to our cultural heritage. Given broader trends in research and the current information ecology of an increasingly networked, distributed, and licensed environment, building collections and developing collection polices is increasingly ambiguous. These trends impact librarians in form of ever-expanding portfolios, diffusion of effort, weakened sense of focus, and a rising sense of persistent yet unmet needs for developing new skills. This paper outlines current research on collection trends and summarizes the interactive exchanges from the 2019 Charleston Conference Lively Session (https://sched.co/UZR5). Through live polling, session participants identified key trends in libraries and collections: Key trends included business models, budget constraints, consortium deals, continued importance of subscribed content, access vs. ownership, digitization of unique local collections, digital humanities, digital scholarship, library publishing projects, growing library investments in Open Access (OA), and collection diversification efforts with a view to equity and social justice. Among emerging library services, data services and digitization ranked highest in importance. The most-cited wish-list items included transformative deals, stronger campus partnerships, more OA projects, reduced copyright barriers in sharing homegrown digitized video content, as well as skill development in Counter 5 and data analysis. Existing physical and digital preservation programs received only lower-middle strength ratings. Among long-established library characteristics, collection policies, subscribed content, interlibrary loan, and consortial borrowing and lending retained enduring value and high rankings in importance. Tensions continue between ownership, borrowing, and access

WORK WITH ENGLISH CORPORA AS A MEANS OF PROMOTING LEARNER AUTONOMY

Introduction. Learner autonomy and the ability to determine their own learning paths are becoming the crucial components of graduates’ competitiveness. As Russian students at many higher educational institutions are often brought up in a teacher-oriented learning environment, they are often less adept at autonomous learning. Such skills are especially important nowadays as there tend to be fewer hours of classroom learning. This problem is further compounded by mother tongue interference which is as a rule undesired at advanced levels and also by difficulties of understanding and memorizing foreign language material. Therefore, this paper studies how English corpora and independent work may be used to enhance autonomy. The aim of the research was to describe the potential of English corpora – alongside other sources – to teach English as a foreign language, and furthermore, to analyse and determine the effects of this innovative approach on learner autonomy and language proficiency. Methodology and research methods. The research method involved at the pre-experiment stage was an extensive literature review of relevant studies. The basis for designing the abovementioned system of teaching techniques incorporated the methodology of corpus linguistics, systematization, analysis and consolidation of the best practices in this field of linguistics. The main tool of the pedagogical experiment whose aim was exploring the potential of corpus-based tasks to promote learner autonomy was the author’s methodology of teaching English to university students. Results and scientific novelty. The author described a number of autonomy forming factors and the pedagogical principles underlying learner autonomy enhancement. A system of corpus-based tasks and activities in conjunction with tasks for intensive and extensive reading and listening for students’ independent work was developed. The designed system was implemented in a five-month experiment which took place at the Institute of Foreign Languages, Ural State Pedagogical University (Yekaterinburg). The research findings based on the pre-experiment and post-experiment data comparison suggest that foreign language teaching is more effective with corpus tasks as they promote learner autonomy. The experimental group (n = 13) became better, i.e. more independent, learners, which indicates their enhanced autonomy, and consequently, a higher level of language proficiency was demonstrated. Thus, corpus-driven language learning coupled with traditional forms of independent work contributes to students’ motivation and sufficient academic progress.Practical significance. The obtained results may provide valuable insights which could be beneficial for foreign language teachers at any educational level. The findings of the study can be used as a framework for further theoretical and empirical research into the effect of the corpus-based approach as well as other forms of independent and classroom learning on enhancing learner autonomy. Another novel contribution of the paper is using the GloWbE corpus that is still relatively unknown in Russia for designing tasks. Введение. Умение трудиться самостоятельно, готовность собственными силами проектировать и реализовывать индивидуальную траекторию обучения становятся сегодня ключевым условиями конкурентоспособности выпускников высшей школы. Однако в связи с тем, что в большинстве российских профессиональных учебных заведений образовательный процесс во время аудиторных занятий по-прежнему строится как односторонняя трансляция знаний педагогом, студенты не приобретают должных развитых навыков автономной учебной деятельности, которые весьма актуальны еще на стадии подготовки специалиста по причине возрастающей доли самостоятельной работы в программах вузов. Наиболее остро указанная проблема ощущается при изучении иностранных языков на продвинутом этапе, на котором трудности восприятия и запоминания иноязычной информации усугубляются в случае опоры студента исключительно на ресурсы родного языка. Цель публикации – продемонстрировать потенциал корпусов английского языка для его освоения в качестве иностранного и раскрыть возможности применения данных баз текстов для развития автономии обучающихся и повышения их лингвистической компетенции. Методология и методы. На начальном этапе работы был произведен широкомасштабный обзор научной литературы, касающейся темы изыскания. Методология корпусной лингвистики, систематизация, анализ и обобщение практики применения соответствующих этому прикладному направлению языкознания технологий и методов стали основой разработки авторской методики обучения иностранным языкам, которая, в свою очередь, послужила инструментарием экспериментальной части исследования. Результаты и научная новизна. Обозначены факторы формирования учебной автономии студентов и роль педагога-фасилитатора в этом процессе. Сконструирована и описана система заданий, сочетающая традиционные аудирование, интенсивное и экстенсивное чтение с корпусными лингвистическими задачами, предназначенными для самостоятельной работы студентов. Предлагаемая методика была апробирована в ходе педагогического эксперимента, проводившегося в течение пяти месяцев в Институте иностранных языков Уральского государственного педагогического университета (Екатеринбург). Итоги инновационного обучения одной из академических групп (n = 13 человек) и сравнение их с обычными показателями подготовки, осуществляющейся привычными, давно укоренившимися средствами, убедительно доказывают эффективность нового подхода к преподаванию дисциплины «Иностранный язык» и прямую зависимость уровня лингвистической компетенции от уровня учебной автономии студентов. Выполнение корпусных заданий, способствуя становлению и совершенствованию субъектности студентов, значительно повышает их мотивацию и успеваемость. Практическая значимость. Автор надеется, что материалы статьи будут полезны преподавателям иностранных языков на любой ступени системы образования. Полученные результаты могут стать базой для продолжения теоретического и эмпирического изучения условий развития автономии обучающихся, а также влияния различных форм самостоятельной и аудиторной работы на данный процесс. Дополнительный интерес представляет опыт использования в эксперименте интернет-корпуса GloWbE, пока мало известного в России.

Managing Collaborative Arrangements : Challenges associated with managing secondary structures

With respect to copyright, Paper I and Paper II was excluded from the dissertation.There is a widespread consensus that collaborative arrangements do not replace but instead add one or more layers of structural complexity to traditional organizations. In response to the challenges confronting contemporary societies, different network forms such as intermunicipal cooperation, joint ventures, clusters, partnerships, and many similar collective entities become necessary to improve organizational performance and to tackle many challenges in the public sector. For example, networks are essential for the implementation of larger programs, the reduction of unemployment, designing solutions for demographic ageing, responding to ongoing issues like climate change or new issues such as COVID-19. Innovation is widely argued as a key strategy to adequately respond to increased levels of complexity and ongoing crises. Networked arrangements, and especially governance networks that cross sectors and organizations are being turned to a primary means to bring together the necessary resources (people, ideas, and technology) to generate innovation. These governance networks operate alongside traditional government operating structures and, as such, become a secondary place of interaction and work. Indeed, networks are structures of interdependence involving often multiple interdependent organizations. Such structures display more distinctive features compared to traditional hierarchical structures because they have a self-governing ethos and limited authority. Moreover, member organizations must deliberately leverage their relationships to ‘reinvent’ themselves and build a new collective whole. Additionally, managers of collaborative arrangements must not only facilitate complex interaction settings, but also establish strategies to tackle different interests across governmental lines. Together, these factors make it more challenging for the social resources held within collaborations to be actively and deliberately managed. It also makes them more unstable and prone to failure. This thesis addresses the challenges of these dual structures that lead to complexity and the need for different design and management approaches. In doing so, it spotlights two types of collaborative arrangements with attributes that correspond with the features of governance networks. Then, the thesis concentrates on two research topics largely overlooked in inter-organizational relations literature. First, it unpacks several structural and process-based features that might influence the breakdown of networked arrangements - a growing concern, particularly for public sector networks required to produce public value. An enhanced understanding of the factors that might undermine collaboration will improve efficiency and effectiveness of such networks. Second, the thesis will provide nuanced insights into the active management of networks. Two papers here focus on managerial networking across network arrangements. Of these, one paper addresses the antecedents of managerial networking, while the second concentrates on the outcomes of managerial networking, more specifically innovation. Given that responsibilities and expectations of all public managers constantly grow, this thesis aims to shed new light on what factors contribute to network success.publishedVersio

The implementation of cooperative learning: a case study of cooperative learning in a networked learning community

This thesis presents a case study of the implementation of cooperative learning in a networked learning community of two secondary schools and eight primary schools in the north of England. How this came about in a context of national educational prescription, in which cooperative learning has played little part, has driven this research. Before examining this further, however, it is important to clarify what is meant by cooperative learning. Based on this, the rationale for the research will be presented, together with the research questions. The chapter will conclude with an overview of the structure of the thesis