Proactive Quality Guidance for Model Evolution in Model Libraries

Model evolution in model libraries differs from general model evolution. It limits the scope to the manageable and allows to develop clear concepts, approaches, solutions, and methodologies. Looking at model quality in evolving model libraries, we focus on quality concerns related to reusability. In this paper, we put forward our proactive quality guidance approach for model evolution in model libraries. It uses an editing-time assessment linked to a lightweight quality model, corresponding metrics, and simplified reviews. All of which help to guide model evolution by means of quality gates fostering model reusability.Comment: 10 pages, figures. Appears in Models and Evolution Workshop Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE 16th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems, Miami, Florida (USA), September 30, 201

Annotated Bibliography: The Reference Desk: Grand Idea or Gone Down the River?

This bibliography is from a panel presentation at the 2017 ACL Conference. The goal of this panel was to explore different rationales or sets of values that illustrated the continuation of the reference desk and reference service as essential to the success of the academic community. We discovered that “what to do with reference” is far from a settled question. We discovered passionate arguments, diverse models, and an array of data. In this current stage of figuring out the value of academic libraries to the campus as a whole and to students in particular, it seemed that there was limited hard data connecting Reference services to how they met students’ needs. How do we make ourselves valuable, important, essential, and useful? Maybe we need to change our model? If so, how do we examine ourselves and our environment appropriately to make this happen? What factors should we examine? Which ones must we keep? What things can we discard or change? When students come to seek assistance, they generally need the short, instant, and personal help, without having to attend a whole training session or class. Individual and personalized guidance for their immediate need is the most important factor for them. How do libraries provide that

Open public sector information: from principles to practice

Accessible information is the lifeblood of a robust democracy and a productive economy. As part of a worldwide movement, the Australian Government is fundamentally changing the way that information is valued, managed, used and shared with others. The concept that best captures this trend, both in Australia and internationally, is the term \u27public sector information\u27 (PSI). This describes data, information or content that is generated, collected, or funded by or for the government or public institutions. PSI is a valuable resource that underpins all the essential public functions that government discharges. It can be an equally valuable resource outside government. People and business can use PSI to evaluate, respond, research, plan, discover, invent, innovate and aspire. The true value of information is realised only when others can use and build upon it to create new ideas, inventions and strategies. Open PSI is the necessary policy setting to make that happen. It requires, in essence, that government information and data is managed in a way that makes it readily discoverable, accessible and reusable by business and the community. This report details the results of a survey conducted by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) on how 191 Australian Government agencies manage PSI. The survey was structured around the eight Principles on open public sector information (Open PSI principles) that were published by the OAIC in 2011. The key finding of this report is that Australian Government agencies are actively embracing an open access and proactive disclosure culture. The high response rate to this survey confirms that finding. The widespread and growing use of digital and web technologies to support a PSI transformation is another sign. There are nevertheless many policy challenges and practical obstacles that must be tackled. It is more a time of transition than fulfilment. This transition – or cultural shift – is more successful when built on four elements: agency leadership, officer innovation, community engagement and investment in information infrastructure. Those four elements were identified by agencies themselves as key issues in developing national information policy. Shortcomings in existing policies, structure and information management practices are highlighted by the survey responses: Transitioning to open access and proactive publication requires cultural change, including more active sponsorship of this philosophy by agency leaders; this is particularly important to overcome resistance or disengagement within agencies. Existing systems for record keeping, information governance, information release and user consultation are not suitably designed for the new era of open PSI, in which government information and data must be valued as a core agency asset and a national resource. Information management systems do not always apply uniformly across agencies; from an open PSI perspective there can be indefensible differences in information management practices across agency branches and locations. A great deal of valuable information is held by agencies in legacy documents that must be reformatted for digital publication; this can be a costly and technologically challenging process. Not all agencies have the technical specialisation and capacity to implement open PSI, on issues such as attachment of metadata, conformance to WCAG 2.0 and data release in an open and standards-based format. The default position of open access licensing is not clearly or robustly stated, nor properly reflected in the practice of government agencies. Agencies have been successful in identifying information that is required to be published under the Information Publication Scheme, but have not been as successful in identifying or prioritising other information that can be published through the agency website or on open data portals. Budgetary limitations hamper the capacity of agencies to be more dynamic in implementing an open PSI culture. An open PSI access strategy is vital to enable Australia to fully enjoy the economic, regulatory and cultural benefits of an open government model. Great strides to unlock PSI assets have recently been taken through the combined impact of the Government\u27s Gov 2.0 strategy, freedom of information changes, the innovation agenda, a shift in public service culture, and service delivery reform

From Text to Trends: A Unique Garden Analytics Perspective on the Future of Modern Agriculture

Data-driven insights are essential for modern agriculture. This research paper introduces a machine learning framework designed to improve how we educate and reach out to people in the field of horticulture. The framework relies on data from the Horticulture Online Help Desk (HOHD), which is like a big collection of questions from people who love gardening and are part of the Extension Master Gardener Program (EMGP). This framework has two main parts. First, it uses special computer programs (machine learning models) to sort questions into categories. This helps us quickly send each question to the right expert, so we can answer it faster. Second, it looks at when questions are asked and uses that information to guess how many questions we might get in the future and what they will be about. This helps us plan on topics that will be really important. It's like knowing what questions will be popular in the coming months. We also take into account where the questions come from by looking at the Zip Code. This helps us make research that fits the challenges faced by gardeners in different places. In this paper, we demonstrate the potential of machine learning techniques to predict trends in horticulture by analyzing textual queries from homeowners. We show that NLP, classification, and time series analysis can be used to identify patterns in homeowners' queries and predict future trends in horticulture. Our results suggest that machine learning could be used to predict trends in other agricultural sectors as well. If large-scale agriculture industries curate and maintain a comparable repository of textual data, the potential for trend prediction and strategic agricultural planning could be revolutionized. This convergence of technology and agriculture offers a promising pathway for the future of sustainable farming and data-informed agricultural practice

Bridging the gap between digital libraries and e-learning

Digital Libraries (DL) are offering access to a vast amount of digital content, relevant to practically all domains of human knowledge, which makes it suitable to enhance teaching and learning. Based on a systematic literature review, this article provides an overview and a gap analysis of educational use of DLs.The research work presented in this paper is partially supported by the FP7 Grant 316087 AComIn ”Advanced Computing for Innovation”, funded by the European Commission in the FP7 Capacity Programme in 2012-2016.peer-reviewe

Riding Circuit: Bringing the Law to Those Who Need It

This article surveys the Access to Justice movement in the United States and proposes including more types of professionals to develop longer term solutions that will alleviate barriers to the court system. This article discusses the need to expand the access to justice concept to reach beyond the courthouse to address civil legal issues before they blossom into litigation. Mobile outreach providing preventive lawyering and early treatment of societal problems can prevent delays and the bottleneck that many courts are seeing with the vast numbers of Self-Represented Litigants. A team of professionals including lawyers, social workers, nurses, counselors, translators and law librarians, working with a network of public librarians, can make a significant impact into the everyday lives of the working poor and folk of modest means in underserved areas

Liaison and Scholarly Communication Librarians Collaborating to Support Faculty and Students

Chapter 18 of the ACRL publication titled, Approaches to Liaison Librarianship: Innovations in Organization and Engagements edited by Robin Canuel and Chad Crichton

Evidence-Based Practice and Organizational Development in Libraries

This article is written for a Festschrift for F. W. Lancaster, and it summarizes the author???s library school experiences as a student of Professor Lancaster and Professor Herbert Goldhor at the University of Illinois. Both professors instilled in students a strong inclination to use real and appropriate information in evaluating situations, making decisions, delivering information services, and managing libraries. The author suggests that this Lancaster-Goldhor approach to information, and to data-driven decision making, anticipated the current movement toward evidence-based practice (EBP) in libraries. He suggests that libraries embrace the premises, philosophy, values, and practices of organizational development (OD) as an overarching discipline that facilitates EBP in the library culture, and ultimately leads to healthier and more effective organizations. This article complements a 2004 Library Trends article on OD, and numerous recent publications on OD and related topics are cited.published or submitted for publicatio

Certification of Librarians: An Unproven Demand

This paper examines whether certification of librarians is necessary to ensure high quality service. The paper explains the purpose of professional certification and provides a synopsis of the history of national librarian certification initiatives in the U.S. A literature review evaluates arguments supporting and opposing certification. Arguments in favor of certification are unconvincing and reveal certification supporters’ professional insecurities, failure to consider the certification bureaucracy that would be created, and lack of evidence to support their claims. Given these findings, the paper concludes that librarian certification is unnecessary. Library professionals are encouraged to take other proactive steps to expand their role, importance, and impact in the 21st century