“It’s just like passing notes in class…”: a content analysis of the use of Twitter at #asl2015

Twitter has changed the dynamic of the academic conference. Before Twitter, delegate participation was primarily dependent on attendance and feedback was limited to post-event survey. With Twitter, delegates have become active participants. They pass comment, share reactions and critique presentations, all the while generating a running commentary. This study examines this phenomenon using the Academic & Special Libraries (A&SL) conference 2015 (hashtag #asl2015) as a case study. A post-conference survey was undertaken asking delegates how and why they used Twitter at #asl2015. A content and conceptual analysis of tweets was conducted using Topsy and Storify. This analysis examined how delegates interacted with presentations, which sessions generated most activity on the timeline and the type of content shared. Actual tweet activity and volume per presentation was compared to survey responses. Finally, recommendations on Twitter engagement for conference organisers and presenters are provided

Strategic issues for LIS practitioner-researcher journals

Our intention in this Editorial is to explore some of the key issues being faced by library and information science (LIS) research based journals. We are, respectively, Editor of Health Information and Libraries Journal(HILJ) (Grant) and Editor of New Review of Academic Librarianship (NRAL)(Walton). The Editorial is very much our shared perspective and does not claim to be representative of all LIS practitioner-researcher journals. Our intention is not to give a theoretical perspective but to give a practical insight into the day-to-day realities of editing a practitioner-researcher LIS journal and how you, as a writer, can use this knowledge to inform your contact with us

Researchers’ use of social network sites : a scoping review

The study is a scoping review of 80 research articles in LIS and related fields (2004-2014) on the use of social network sites by researchers. The results show that social network sites are used as part of scholarly life, yet with disciplinary differences. It is also shown that the area lacks methodological, theoretical and empirical coherence and theoretical stringency. The most salient strands of research (General uptake, Outreach, Special tools/cases, Assessing impact, Practices/new modes of communication) are mapped and ways to improve research in the field are identified. This provides a first step towards a more comprehensive understanding of the roles of social network sites in scholarship

Scholarly Communication and the Academic Library: Perceptions and Recent Developments

This chapter focuses on the role that academic libraries play in the process of scholarly communication and presents a mixed-methods study to investigate (a) how faculty members perceive the involvement of academic librarians in scholarly communication and (b) how academic librarians perceive their own abilities to be involved in this process. The research population included faculty members from the faculties of humanities and social sciences in three Israeli academic institutions and academic librarians working in the libraries affiliated with these faculties. Interviews regarding the role of academic librarians in scholarly communication indicated wide gaps between faculty members and academic librarians and between individual members of each group, while questionnaires showed that a similar percentage of librarians and faculty members believe that academic librarians are potentially capable of being involved in this process. However, when asked whether the academic librarians should be involved in scholarly communication, only 36% of the librarians answered positively, as compared with 55% of the faculty members. These gaps highlight the need for change in academic libraries, as librarians should possess adequate technological skills, broad general knowledge, and an understanding of how to reorganize the library work so as to accommodate collaborations with faculty members

Innovate Magazine / Annual Review 2009-2010

https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/innovate/1002/thumbnail.jp

Putting research into practice: An exploration of Sheffield iSchool approaches to connecting research with practice

The relationship between research and practice in the work of members of the University of Sheffield's Information School (iSchool) was examined through a mixed-methods study carried out in two stages. Two focus groups with doctoral students and faculty members explored motivations for undertaking research, views about the impact of research, and the role of social media in its dissemination. Personal enjoyment and pursuit of knowledge for its own sake emerged as strong motivators but were also linked with expressing professional identity and contributing something useful to practice in the field. Differing stakeholder definitions of research impact were perceived as problematic, and multiple channels of communication were advocated, including judicious use of professional and social networks. A content analysis of journal articles written by iSchool faculty collected qualitative and quantitative data on the subject matter, methodology, references, and other dimensions of published output, including statements relating the research to practice. Published outputs highlighted diversity in the methods used, demonstrated collaboration with practitioners in conducting and communicating research, and identified five distinct ways of connecting research with practice. The study concludes with ten recommendations for strengthening the research-practice relationship in library and information studies. © 2013 The Board of Trustees, University of Illinois

When are readership counts as useful as citation counts? Scopus versus Mendeley for LIS journals

This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Association for Information Science and Technology in Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology on 08/01/2015, available online: https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.23369 The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.In theory, articles can attract readers on the social reference sharing site Mendeley before they can attract citations, so Mendeley altmetrics could provide early indications of article impact. This article investigates the influence of time on the number of Mendeley readers of an article through a theoretical discussion and an investigation into the relationship between counts of readers of, and citations to, 4 general library and information science (LIS) journals. For this discipline, it takes about 7 years for articles to attract as many Scopus citations as Mendeley readers, and after this the Spearman correlation between readers and citers is stable at about 0.6 for all years. This suggests that Mendeley readership counts may be useful impact indicators for both newer and older articles. The lack of dates for individual Mendeley article readers and an unknown bias toward more recent articles mean that readership data should be normalized individually by year, however, before making any comparisons between articles published in different years

Appmetrics - Improving impact on the go

Mobile ‘smart’ devices have increased enormously in popularity over the last few years, with 61% of UK adults now owning a smartphone (OFcom, 2014). With the emergence of the tablet computer adding significantly to the utilities available via mobile devices, the adoption of mobile technologies into work-related activities is ever-expanding. However, relatively few academic staff who use these devices make full use of the range of options available, and many lack awareness of the apps they could be using to promote their outputs and improve impact on the go. For information professionals there is a need to stay abreast of current and emerging developments within the world of mobile apps in order to support academic staff in using their mobile devices effectively to improve and monitor their research impact. With so many apps and tools to choose from, in this chapter we will look at an essential "toolkit" of apps that information professionals should bear in mind when supporting and advising academic staff on research impact, along with advice on how to make the best and most efficient use of them. Additionally, this chapter will examine how impact activities undertaken on a mobile device can be fitted into a flexible working day