The Role of Middle Range Publications in the Development of Engineering Knowledge

This paper explores the role of publications in the development of engineering knowledge. Previous studies of scientific and technical publications tend to assume that engineers are like scientists in their use of scientific journals as a means of communicating new technical knowledge. But science differs from technology and we should not expect scientists and engineers to use the same sources of knowledge. We contend that previous studies of publications have been flawed because they ignore other forms of publication more suited to the communication of technical and engineering knowledge. This paper argues that technologists use "middle range" publications to exchange knowledge and explore implications of their technological experiences. By providing more visual images, experience-based reports and background information on technologies and products, middle range publications better reflect the ways in which engineers think and work. They allow for visual conversations and support visual communities. The paper provides a detailed exploration of the role of middle range publications and suggests a framework for future research on patterns of publication by technologists and engineers.engineering knowledge, engineering and design organisations, construction, scientific publications, technical publications, innovation studies

Digital information support for concept design

This paper outlines the issues in effective utilisation of digital resources in conceptual design. Access to appropriate information acts as stimuli and can lead to better substantiated concepts. This paper addresses the issues of presenting such information in a digital form for effective use, exploring digital libraries and groupware as relevant literature areas, and argues that improved integration of these two technologies is necessary to better support the concept generation task. The development of the LauLima learning environment and digital library is consequently outlined. Despite its attempts to integrate the designers' working space and digital resources, continuing issues in library utilisation and migration of information to design concepts are highlighted through a class study. In light of this, new models of interaction to increase information use are explored

Digital libraries and information literacy issues within virtual learning environments : an e-learning impasse?

The DIDET digital library and VLE approach places much of the responsibility for managing the digital library work flow into the hands of students, as well as academics and librarians. Student responsibilities include the application of metadata, as well as conventional information literacy competencies such as ascertaining information resource provenance, investigating intellectual property rights and/or digital rights management implications, before depositing digital resources within the library. This has obviously laid bare numerous research issues relating to future digital library and VLE design, student information literacy, the use of ICT in education and design, and related pedagogical issues, all of which are worthy of further investigation within the UK HE community and will be elucidated in this paper. More importantly, this paper will argue that such a model signifies a definite impasse in the evolution of e-learning models and questions the degree to which current information literacy models are effective in specific e-learning contexts. The paper will conclude by further recognising that greater student information literacy skills are necessary to unlock the potential of such radical approaches to e-learning and digital library creation

Digital libraries and the future of the library profession

To argue that unique contemporary cultural shifts are leading to a new form of librarianship that can be characterised as "postmodern" in nature, and that this form of professional specialism will be increasingly influential in the decades to come

Towards Industry 4.0 | A case study of BIM Deployment in Ornamental Stones Sector

The transition witnessed from the Third to the Fourth Industrial Age leads to the emergence of paradigms such as BIM, seeking efficiency in Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) through a global approach and procurement oriented towards standardized products and I4.0, where production comes to be supported by Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). Integrated in the AEC supply chain, the ornamental stone sector shows Portugal to be the eighth country in OS trade worldwide, and the second per capita, with its competitiveness coming from customization BIM represents threats for its business sustainability. Supported by the Service Science, the main objective of this research is to conceptualize an empirical framework, which, when applied to a sample of Ornamental Stone companies, allows a conclusive answer how to keep their competitive advantage of products customization in BIM-standardized procurement environment. By monitoring the entire sequence of events, it was found that the Ornamental Stone companies can retain their main current competitive advantage of customizing their products, which leads us to conclude that Industry 4.0 technologies, appears to respond positively to threat raised from BIM procurement

Auditing scholarly journals published in Malaysia and assessing their visibility

The problem with the identification of Malaysian scholarly journals lies in the lack of a current and complete listing of journals published in Malaysia. As a result, librarians are deprived of a tool that can be used for journal selection and identification of gaps in their serials collection. This study describes the audit carried out on scholarly journals, with the objectives (a) to trace and characterized scholarly journal titles published in Malaysia, and (b) to determine their visibility in international and national indexing databases. A total of 464 titles were traced and their yearly trends, publisher and publishing characteristics, bibliometrics and indexation in national, international and subject-based indexes were described

Transformation to virtual libraries : real or virtual?

This paper discusses about digital libraries ,digital library Projects and initiatives like OCLC,DESIDOCand Library of Congress etc.And what all are the major issues and challenges in this field, what all are the services in virtual library environment, influence of internet on virtual libraries and it also discusses the cyber law related to the virtual librarie

Development of an integrated product information management system

This thesis reports on a research project undertaken over a four year period investigating and developing a software framework and application for integrating and managing building product information for construction engineering. The research involved extensive literature research, observation of the industry practices and interviews with construction industry practitioners and systems implementers to determine how best to represent and present product information to support the construction process. Applicable product models for information representation were reviewed and evaluated to determine present suitability. The IFC product model was found to be the most applicable. Investigations of technologies supporting the product model led to the development of a software tool, the IFC Assembly Viewer, which aided further investigations into the suitability of the product model (in its current state) for the exchange and sharing of product information. A software framework, or reusable software design and application, called PROduct Information Management System (PROMIS), was developed based on a non-standard product model but with flexibility to work with the IFC product model when sufficiently mature. The software comprises three subsystems namely: ProductWeb, ModelManager.NET and Product/Project Service (or P2Service). The key features of this system were shared project databases, parametric product specification, integration of product information sources, and application interaction and integration through interface components. PROMIS was applied to and tested with a modular construction business for the management of product information and for integration of product and project information through the design and construction (production) process

Secondary and Tertiary "Electronic" Souces of Information

A key to finding the primary sources of information is the secondary and tertiary sources of information. These sources in the electronic form started with the online information retrieval systems. They have since evolved from magnetic tapes to the microforms and then to the CD ROMs. Now these are also available as DVDs and on the Internet. These sources have become an inevitable part of a scholar or a researcher's or even a student's pursuit of information. This paper is an attempt to give an overall view of some of the "electronic" secondary and tertiary sources of information