Design for the contact zone. Knowledge management software and the structures of indigenous knowledges

This article examines the design of digital indigenous knowledge archives. In a discussion of the distinction between indigenous knowledge and western science, a decentred perspective is developed, in which the relationship between different local knowledges is explored. The particular characteristics of indigenous knowledges raise questions about if and how these knowledges can be managed. The role of technology in managing indigenous knowledges is explored with examples from fieldwork in India and Kenya and from web-based databases and digital archives. The concept of contact zone is introduced to explore the space in which different knowledges meet and are performed, such as indigenous knowledge and the technoscientific knowledge of the database. Design for the contact zone, this article proposes, is an intra-active and adaptive process for in creating databases that are meaningful for indigenous knowers. The meta-design approach is introduced as a methodology, which may provide indigenous knowers tools for self-representation and self-organisation through design

Developing communication tools for resource management in western Alaska: an evaluation of the Western Alaska Landscape Conservation Cooperative coastal projects database

Master's Project (M.S.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2017Science communication is an essential component in decision-making for resource management in Alaska. This field aids in bridging knowledge gaps between scientists and diverse stakeholders. In 2014, the Western Alaska LCC developed a database cataloging the current coastal change projects in order to facilitate collaboration amongst researchers, managers, and the surrounding communities. In order to better inform similar outreach projects in other LCC regions, this MNRM project entailed an evaluation of this database between April and September 2016 and comprised a ten-question phone interview with the database participants and other involved personnel. Results from this evaluation can help refine the database to better suit its users' needs in the future, and it can also inform the creation of similar tools in other LCC regions. This project evaluated the use and usability of the Western Alaska LCC Coastal Change Database. First, I review coastal change and its impacts on Western Alaska. Next, I explore how institutions can respond to these changes and what resources they can use, including decision-support tools. I then provide examples of different decision-support tools (both in academic literature and in Alaskan projects) and discuss methodologies for evaluating their use. Interview results are then reported. The evaluation of the WALCC Coastal Change Database indicated that the tool was mostly used to enhance general understanding of the research occurring in the region. Respondents were less likely to use it for time-intensive tasks such as collaboration. Respondents also indicated that a place exists for tools like this database to flourish, but they need 1) persistent outreach, 2) a dynamic design, and 3) immediate benefits for users' time. In the future, regular updates and frequent outreach could improve the database's usability and help maintain its credibility

Thesaurus-assisted search term selection and query expansion: a review of user-centred studies

This paper provides a review of the literature related to the application of domain-specific thesauri in the search and retrieval process. Focusing on studies which adopt a user-centred approach, the review presents a survey of the methodologies and results from empirical studies undertaken on the use of thesauri as sources of term selection for query formulation and expansion during the search process. It summaries the ways in which domain-specific thesauri from different disciplines have been used by various types of users and how these tools aid users in the selection of search terms. The review consists of two main sections covering, firstly studies on thesaurus-aided search term selection and secondly those dealing with query expansion using thesauri. Both sections are illustrated with case studies that have adopted a user-centred approach

Digital learning objects: a local response to the California State University system initiative

The purpose of this paper is to present a virtual library plan created by library directors of the 23 California State University (CSU) system campuses. The information literacy portion of the project offers a repository of high quality interactive digital learning objects (DLOs) in the MERLOT repository. Therefore, DLOs created locally at the Dr Martin Luther King, Jr Library at San José State University (SJSU) focus on topics that supplement the “core” DLO collection

Toward a Systematic Evidence-Base for Science in Out-of-School Time: The Role of Assessment

Analyzes the tools used in assessments of afterschool and summer science programs, explores the need for comprehensive tools for comparisons across programs, and discusses the most effective structure and format for such a tool. Includes recommendations

Query Expansion for Survey Question Retrieval in the Social Sciences

In recent years, the importance of research data and the need to archive and to share it in the scientific community have increased enormously. This introduces a whole new set of challenges for digital libraries. In the social sciences typical research data sets consist of surveys and questionnaires. In this paper we focus on the use case of social science survey question reuse and on mechanisms to support users in the query formulation for data sets. We describe and evaluate thesaurus- and co-occurrence-based approaches for query expansion to improve retrieval quality in digital libraries and research data archives. The challenge here is to translate the information need and the underlying sociological phenomena into proper queries. As we can show retrieval quality can be improved by adding related terms to the queries. In a direct comparison automatically expanded queries using extracted co-occurring terms can provide better results than queries manually reformulated by a domain expert and better results than a keyword-based BM25 baseline.Comment: to appear in Proceedings of 19th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries 2015 (TPDL 2015

Research Trends & Emerging Technologies for Genealogists

This study examines current research methods utilized by genealogists, and seeks to discover the impact of emerging tools and technologies on their information seeking needs and behaviors. When it became clear that there is a shortage of scholarly studies identifying the use of newer technologies (i.e. blogs, social media, and apps), an original survey for genealogists was created. Over four hundred genealogists were surveyed regarding their use of both traditional research methods (methods that have existed for many decades) and Internet/electronic resources, in order to demonstrate which new trends are emerging. The data from the survey might lessen the gap in current scholarly research. Technology is constantly changing, and the findings show which trends are currently being utilized the most by genealogists. The results indicate that genealogists are definitely using more technology to research their family trees. In fact, they adapt fairly quickly to new methods, relying heavily on technology and the Internet to conduct research and share information. Due to the ease of using technology, fewer and fewer genealogists rely on in-house visits to repositories to access original documents. The research concludes with a discussion on where the use of technology for genealogical research is headed, and what genealogists hope to accomplish by using new tools and technologies

Untangling the Web of E-Research: Towards a Sociology of Online Knowledge

e-Research is a rapidly growing research area, both in terms of publications and in terms of funding. In this article we argue that it is necessary to reconceptualize the ways in which we seek to measure and understand e-Research by developing a sociology of knowledge based on our understanding of how science has been transformed historically and shifted into online forms. Next, we report data which allows the examination of e-Research through a variety of traces in order to begin to understand how the knowledge in the realm of e-Research has been and is being constructed. These data indicate that e-Research has had a variable impact in different fields of research. We argue that only an overall account of the scale and scope of e-Research within and between different fields makes it possible to identify the organizational coherence and diffuseness of e-Research in terms of its socio-technical networks, and thus to identify the contributions of e-Research to various research fronts in the online production of knowledge