Collaborative design of educational digital libraries for African higher education

This thesis will develop a model that can be used to guide collaborative design of educational digital libraries that are relevant to the learning objectives and are appropriate to African Higher Education. Factors affecting connections between educational digital library capabilities, learning processes and learners’ needs in higher education will be identified and used to develop the model. These factors will be identified through qualitative studies with the key players (i.e. academics, information professionals, digital library technical designers and students). The model will be iteratively developed and later evaluated for correctness by some of the key players. So far a preliminary literature review has been done to locate related work and identify knowledge gaps. In addition, a pilot study has been carried out and identified some temporal factors that will be pursued further in the proposed study

The unseen and unacceptable face of digital libraries

The social and organisational aspects of digital libraries (DLs) are often overlooked, but this paper reviews how they can affect users' awareness and acceptance of DLs. An analysis of research conducted within two contrasting domains (clinical and academic) is presented which highlights issues of user interactions, work practices and organisational social structures. The combined study comprises an analysis of 98 in-depth interviews and focus groups with lecturers, librarians and hospital clinicians. The importance of current and past roles of the library, and how users interacted with it, are revealed. Web-based DLs, while alleviating most library resource and interaction problems, require a change in librarians' and DL designers' roles and interaction patterns if they are to be implemented acceptably and effectively. Without this role change, users will at best be unaware of these digital resources and at worst feel threatened by them. The findings of this paper highlight the importance of DL design and implementation of the social context and supporting user communication (i.e., collaboration and consultation) in information searching and usage activities. © Springer-Verlag 2004

Demographic Impacts in IT Education: Research Agendas.

Culture impacts upon use, useability and decision-making processes that surround Information Technology (IT). Radical changes in the demographic profile of New Zealand cause us to reflect on the impact of such changes, as the underlying culture of the country must change with the demographic changes. This process gives rise to some interesting questions, including whether we still accept Hofstede’s analysis of New Zealand as an individualistic country. Pacifika, Asian and Maori are collectivist cultures. One important question is what impact do demographic changes have on educational requirements, given that Maori experience of IT differs from mainstream New Zealand, and given that Maori and other collective cultures form an increasing proportion of the population, particularly in Auckland

Human computer interaction for international development: past present and future

Recent years have seen a burgeoning interest in research into the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the context of developing regions, particularly into how such ICTs might be appropriately designed to meet the unique user and infrastructural requirements that we encounter in these cross-cultural environments. This emerging field, known to some as HCI4D, is the product of a diverse set of origins. As such, it can often be difficult to navigate prior work, and/or to piece together a broad picture of what the field looks like as a whole. In this paper, we aim to contextualize HCI4D—to give it some historical background, to review its existing literature spanning a number of research traditions, to discuss some of its key issues arising from the work done so far, and to suggest some major research objectives for the future

Beyond Technology: Power and Culture in the Establishment of National Union Catalogs

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Library of Estonia organized a Conference on Union Catalogs which took place in Tallinn, in the National Library of Estonia on October 17–19, 2002. The Conference presented and discussed analytical papers dealing with various aspects of designing and implementing union catalogs and shared cataloging systems as revealed through the experiences of Eastern European, Baltic and South African research libraries. Here you can find the texts of the conference papers and the list of contributors and participants.The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Library of Estonia organized a Conference on Union Catalogs which took place in Tallinn, in the National Library of Estonia on October 17–19, 2002. The Conference presented and discussed analytical papers dealing with various aspects of designing and implementing union catalogs and shared cataloging systems as revealed through the experiences of Eastern European, Baltic and South African research libraries. Here you can find the texts of the conference papers and the list of contributors and participants

Focusing on Cultural Design Features for an Indigenous Website

This paper reports on part of a user-centred study examining the design of a website for an Indigenous Australian community. It focuses on the capture of culturally relevant design features and describes the outcomes from a focus group undertaken with 12 members of the community stakeholders. Key cultural themes to emerge from the focus group were the need for visually relevant imagery, support for kinship and community, as well as fun, local language and traditional forms of music, dance and oral history. These themes were mapped into design features such as a virtual tour of the building and grounds, video messages from community members, a facility for feedback and interactive games. Many existing guidelines for cultural design were affirmed in the study, including the use of simple language, local imagery and the provision of an interaction style appropriate to the Indigenous group

The unseen and unacceptable face of digital libraries

The social and organizational aspects of digital libraries are often overlooked but this paper reviews how they can affect users' awareness and acceptance of digital libraries. An analysis of research conducted within two contrasting domains (Clinical and Academic) is presented which highlights issues of user interactions, work practices and the organizational social structures. The combined study comprises an analysis of 98 in-depth interviews and focus groups with lecturers, librarians and hospital clinicians. The importance of current and past roles of the library, and how users interacted with it, are revealed. Web-based digital libraries, while alleviating most library resource and interaction problems, require a change in librarians' and DL designers' roles and interaction patterns if they are to be implemented acceptably and effectively. Without this role change, users will at best be unaware of these digital resources and at worst feel threatened by them. The findings of this paper highlight the importance on DL design and implementation of the social context and supporting user communication (i.e. collaboration and consultation) in their information search and usage activities