Aligning collections budget with program priorities: A modified zero-based approach

The paper discusses the impact of zero-based budgeting on the budget allocation process at the University of Hong Kong Libraries (HKUL). The challenges and strategies to optimize the collections budget in reallocating resources from print to electronic publication within an environment of inflationary increases and reduced funding increases are addressed. An examination into HKUL's past and current practices compares and contrasts the use of different budget allocation methodologies. A recent modified zero-based budget review has provided opportunities for faculty participation with the result of an effective approach in aligning collections budget with changing program needs. © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.postprin

Redesigning the Information Assurance Undergraduate Curriculum at Regis University

When Regis University created the eSecurity curriculum in 2003, the lessons were pertinent to the then-current threats. Although the curriculum has slightly changed since then, the courses needed a major facelift to meet the ever changing cyber threats. The question of can Information Assurance courses at Regis University be refreshed to include virtual labs so they are based on ethical standards will be answered in this paper. Utilizing the Design Science methodology and incorporating Bloom â„¢s Taxonomy and the Jesuit educational approach, curriculum was identified and developed for the classroom and online students. By working with the Regis Distance Learning department, the thesis project was submitted for publication as part of the Regis Computer Networking courses

A Study of the Relationships Between End-User Information Systems Problems and Helpdesk Critical Success Factors in Higher Education

In the last fifteen years, information technology (IT) customer support has increased in importance within higher education. The pervasiveness of computers and technology on the campus has allowed students, staff, and faculty to perform a multitude of tasks by controlling their own environments and setting their own priorities. Qualified professional system and user support services have lagged demand. The problem investigated in this study was end-users\u27 satisfaction levels of the higher education helpdesk and how end-users\u27 satisfaction levels affected a helpdesk manager\u27s critical success factors performance and goals. In this study, the first goal was to identify the critical success factors (CSF) for the higher education academic helpdesk manager. The second goal was to assess the relationships of CSFs to problems associated with end-user satisfaction levels within a higher education environment. The population of interest included all accredited higher education institutions (as of the publishing date of the 2003 Higher Education Directory). The researcher used a random sample of 1,765 from the list of 4,282 profiles in the 2003 Higher Education Directory (http://www.hepinc.com). The survey instrument was an online questionnaire implemented as an HTML form. Eight research questions and eight hypotheses were developed. Specifically, the researcher conducted the following statistical analyses: (a) descriptive statistics for the variables of interest, (b) a Chi-square test between the respondents and non-respondents to check for non-response bias, (c) a factor analysis to identify CSF constructs and helpdesk problems, (d) multiple regression to determine the relationship between CSFs and helpdesk problems using the helpdesk problem constructs identified from the factor analysis as dependent variables and the helpdesk CSFs as independent variables (e) MANOVA to determine the relationship between CSFs and the stage of growth of the helpdesk, and (f) seven ratios to serve as CSF performance indicators

2012 Annual Report - Advanced Biomedical Information Technology Core

This material is based upon work supported in part by the following funding agencies and grant awards: • Lilly Endowment, for its support of the Indiana Genomics Initiative (INGEN) – 2000; Indiana Metabolomics and Cytomics Initiative (METACyt); Indiana Pervasive Computing Research (IPCRES) initiative and Pervasive Technology Institute (1999 and 2008 respectively) • National Science Foundation under grants 01116050 MRI: Creation of the AVIDD Data Facility: A Distributed Facility for Managing, Analyzing and Visualizing Instrument-Driven Data (Michael A. McRobbie, PI); 0521433 MRI: Acquisition of a High-Speed, High Capacity Storage System to Support Scientific Computing: The Data Capacitor (Craig A. Stewart, PI); 0521433 ABI Development: National Center for Genome Analysis Support (Craig A. Stewart, PI) • National Institutes of Health NIAAA awards U24 AA014818-01 (Craig A. Stewart, PI) and U24 AA014818-04 (William K. Barnett, PI) Informatics Core for the Collaborative Initiative on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder • Subcontracts through the following NIH grant awards: 5P40RR024928 (Kenneth Cornetta, PI), 2U01AA014809 (Tatiana Foroud, PI), 1DP2OD007363-01 (Alexander Niculescu, PI), UL1RR025761-01 (Anantha Shekhar, PI), 3UL1RR025761-04S2 (Anantha Shekhar, PI), and 3UL1RR025761-04S3 (Anantha Shekhar, PI) • Funding from the general funds of Indiana University Any opinions expressed in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding agencies above

Services and support for IU School of Medicine and Clinical Affairs Schools by the UITS/PTI Advanced Biomedical Information Technology Core and Research Technologies Division in FY 2013 - Extended Version

The report presents information on services delivered in FY 2013 by ABITC and RT to the IU School of Medicine and the other Clinical Affairs schools that include the Schools of Nursing, Dentistry, Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, and Optometry; the Fairbanks School of Public Health at IUPUI; the School of Public Health at IU Bloomington; and the School of Social Work

Web Content Management System and accessibility awareness: A comparative study of novice users and accessibility outcomes

Since its creation, the Web has progressively developed and become a vital source of information in every domain and for almost all people. It is crucial to guarantee that the information contained on the Web is available for everyone, especially for people with special needs. Removing accessibility barriers is fundamentally based on tools, skills and support of all contributors, particularly the content creators, to ensure information is navigable and usable in the context of the end users experience. Web Content Management Systems play a significant role in structuring, storing and provision content to the Web and have evolved to address the difficulties of manually coding web pages versus the convenience of manipulating their content without any programing skills. Web Content Management Systems have gradually evolved to contain features and functions that allow content authors to shape their content in ways that address web content accessibility expectations, though only if the content author knows how to use these features to maximum effect. This thesis explores such usage by participants deemed to be novices, in that they have limited technical skills in the context of web coding and have limited expose to Web Content Management Systems or the application/awareness of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). This research places an emphasis on the outcome of these novice users when provided with some basic training and awareness raising of WCAG principles and the use of a modern Web Content Management System. This is explored in the literature as an area of some importance as organisations with significant web presence cannot simply tell their content authors to ‘oh, and make sure it is accessible’ and hope that the end product will somehow achieve that goal without an investment in some form of accessibility education. For web managers and developers in all public sector organisations. “Make sure that all content commissioners and authors are fully trained in the importance of accessible content, and in the means that are made available for them to achieve this . (p. 58) The purpose of this research was to explore to what level the use of accessible Web Content Management System and novice users’ training impacted accessibility outcomes. This study emerged from the widespread role that Web Content Management Systems play in terms of storing and managing web content and the growing usage of these systems by experts or novices at an organisational or personal level. Through a selection process, this study identified a Web Content Management System that had a number of accessibility features, developed some training and ‘awareness raising’ materials and then asked novice users across two groups to apply what they had learned in order to develop an accessible website. The goal of the study was to ascertain if the two groups performed differently according to the training and awareness raising materials they received, and if even basic accessibility outcomes were achievable with just a few hours of training and from what was essentially an accessibility ‘cold start’. The study used a mixed methods approach encompassing three research methods; experimental method, survey method and observational method, to compare qualitative and quantitative data obtained from ‘accessibility awareness’ and ‘accessibility unaware’ participant groups. Thirty university students participated in this research and received accessibility awareness raising sessions, with additional accessibility-related examples for the accessibility awareness group. All participants undertook pre and post-tests that were designed to collect data allowing the researcher to compare the learning performance before and after the participants’ awareness session. At the end of the awareness session, the participants of both groups completed a survey which was designed to provide further data on the participant’s perception of web use and experience, the concept of web accessibility, web content accessibility guidelines, the system used, and their opinion of the accessibility awareness session. Data collected from the survey, pre and post-tests and the recording provided a holistic set of data from which the primary and supporting research questions were addressed. The results of the research indicated that the accessibility awareness group demonstrated measurably better accessibility outcomes than the unawareness group; these results being attributed to the awareness training session, participants’ searching behaviour, time spent on tasks, and effort made to implement accessible features and complete the required tasks. The participants in both groups had some prior knowledge in the use of the Web but limited or no skills in HyperText Markup Language (HTML) or the use of a Web Content Management System. While performing tasks, the participants in the awareness group attempted to apply the accessibility concepts learnt during the training session and spent more time in searching those concepts on the Web in order to provide accessible web page content. Conversely, most of the participants in the unawareness group were concerned by the “look” of the web page, rather than focusing on actual accessible content; they only mimicked the exemplar website they have been provided as an ‘end product’, but did not explore the how and why of accessible content. All the participants at the end of this study were aware of the significance of web accessibility and were favourable to consider it in any future website development they may be involved in. The outcome of the study shows that the use of accessible Web Content Management System with example-based accessibility awareness sessions can lead to improved accessibility outcomes for novice web content authors. This research strongly suggests that even small, focussed and example-based training/awareness raising session can drive an accessibility mindset in web content authors, even those with limited or no technical, accessibility or web authoring experience

Annual Report of the University, 2000-2001, Volumes 1-4

Message from the President Thank you for joining me in this look back over the past year at the University of New Mexico. It was a year filled with activity, accomplishment and challenge, and this is our opportunity to reflect back on that year. In 2000-2001 we engaged in a University-wide strategic planning process that called on the energies and talents of hundreds of individuals- faculty, staff, students and members of our broader community. The plan, which will be completed in Fall 2001, will serve as our roadmap for the future and will guide our efforts to capitalize on the opportunities and to meet the challenges of the next several years. This process has encouraged us to examine closely our mission and our values, who we are and what we aspire to become. It has given us reason to be proud of our past and cause to think seriously about how we must change in the future. While this was a year for looking ahead, it was also a year of significant accomplishment. For example, we launched a comprehensive set of programs designed to enrich the academic and social experiences of our undergraduate students. We began the implementation of Freshman Learning Communities where small cohorts of students study and learn together in a common set of courses under the guidance of a senior faculty scholar. We reorganized our advisement systems, we undertook the construction or renovation of student-centered facilities on campus, and we created new support systems to enhance student academic success. It was a year in which our support of faculty, staff and students was our highest priority. Through the support of the New Mexico Legislature, faculty and staff received significant salary increases. A new health benefits plan for graduate assistants was implemented. Our Staff as Students program enabled more than 40 staff members to obtain UNM degrees. And, a Center for Scholarship in Teaching and Learning was established to assist faculty in their efforts to develop more effective teaching skills. Finally, this was a year in which UNM dramatically expanded its role in the local community and throughout the state. Never before has the University been as active or as visible in meeting its public responsibility as it was in 2000-2001. From its active participation in economic development initiatives, to its involvement in K-12 educational improvement efforts, to its significant leadership role in health care delivery, UNM demonstrated its ability to help the state meet its most pressing social challenges. And, as UNM took on a more visible role in supporting the state\\u27s citizens, the support for UNM was returned in kind. This year, annual giving to the University rose to a record 35.3 million dollars, a 40% increase over just two years ago. All told, it has been a gratifying and successful year. However, we cannot allow our past accomplishments to mask the continued challenges facing this University. Neither will we allow these challenges to dominate our thinking and diminish out pride in what the University has achieved. So we will savor our successes and continue to move forward. As always, we thank you for sharing our dreams and for supporting the University of New Mexico. Sincerely, William C. Gordon, Presiden

Annual Report of the University, 1999-2000, Volumes 1-4

The Robert O. Anderson School and Graduate School of Management at The University of New Mexico Period of Report: July 1, 1999 to June 30, 2000 Submitted by Howard L. Smith, Dean The Anderson Schools of Management is divided into four distinct divisions- the Department of Accounting; the Department of Finance, International and Technology Management; the Department of Marketing, Information and Decision Sciences; and the Department of Organizational Studies. This structure provides an opportunity for The Anderson Schools to develop four distinct areas of excellence, proven by results reported here. I. Significant Developments During the Academic Year The Anderson Schools of Management • As a result of the multi-year gift from the Ford Motor Company, completed renovation of The Schools\u27 Advisement and Placement Center, as well as all student organization offices. • The Ford gift also provided for $100,000 to support faculty research, case studies and course development. • The Schools revised the MBA curriculum to meet the changing needs of professional, advanced business education. • The Schools updated computer laboratory facilities, with the addition of a 45-unit cluster for teaching and student work. • The faculty and staff of The Schools furthered outreach in economic development activities by participating directly as committee members and leaders in the cluster workgroups of the Next Generation Economy Initiative. • The faculty, staff and students of The Schools contributed to the development of the Ethics in Business Awards; particularly exciting was the fact that all nominee packages were developed by student teams from The Anderson Schools. • The Schools continue to generate more credit hours per faculty member than any other division of the UNM community. The Accounting Department • Preparation and presentation of a progress report to accrediting body, the AACSB. The Department of Finance, International and Technology Management • The Department continued to focus on expansion of the Management of Technology program as a strategic strength of The Schools. The Department of Marketing. Information and Decision Sciences • Generated 9022 credit hours, with a student enrollment of 3070. The Department of Organizational Studies • Coordinated the 9th UNM Universidad de Guanajuato (UG) Mexico Student Exchange