Subject Specific Information Literacy Curriculum and Assessment

Academic libraries have been changing the traditional instructional framework of library instruction teaching modules to information literacy teaching modules. National standards for information literacy increased the possibility to unify such efforts throughout the country and clarify for librarians, administrators, and faculty the desired student learning outcomes. This paper presents findings of a quantitative research study developed to provide documentation for a regional accrediting body, college administration, and faculty on the efficacy of a subject specific information literacy curriculum and assessment instrument. The study took place within a seminary and began with an initial needs assessment. A previously developed instrument, B-TILED, which had been through a rigorous process of reliability and validity testing was applied to conduct the needs assessment. The findings of the needs assessment indicated a requirement for intervention which led to the development and implementation of a formal course of instruction in information literacy. The course was developed and taught by the researcher in the fall of 2010. All incoming 1st year students were required to take, complete, and pass a one-unit class in information literacy. In order to assess the effectiveness of the course, and to provide supportive documented data to the accrediting body, pretests and posttests were administered. The instrument used, B-TILED, was the same as that used in the needs assessment study

Accessing research literature: A mixed-method study of academics in Higher Education Institutions in Nepal

Background: Research in Higher Education (HE), particularly in health and medical sciences plays a crucial role, not only in enhancing knowledge and skills of students and academics, but also in helping to develop managers and policy makers who rely on evidence-based planning and programming. This paper reports university teacher’s knowledge and practices in accessing electronic research-based evidence in health and medical sciences in Nepal. Material and Methods: This was mixed-methods study comprising a self-administered questionnaire completed by HE teachers and informant key interviews with authorities of HE institutions. A total of 15 out of the total 40 institutions offering HE above Bachelors level on health-related subjects were included for the study. Results: The response rate was 68%; 244 out of 360 HE teachers completed self-administered questionnaire. The respondents comprised nurses (36%), followed by doctors (23%), public health practitioners (18%), dentists (17%) and pharmacists (12%). Most of the HE teachers reported that they have computer skills and possess their own computer. Two-thirds (66%) of the HE teachers had work email and almost all (93%) have a personal email ID. All institutions had a computer lab and/or library. Almost all teachers had internet access at work but the internet was reportedly slow. Each institution had a librarian to support to the students and staff but only a third of teachers sought their help. Many do not know what kind of support librarians can provide. Less than half of the staff had accessed electronic research materials. This proportion varied between HE institutions ranging from 13 to 83%. HINARI and PubMed were the mostly used research databases. Less than half of respondents (48%) had published research papers in peer-reviewed journals, and only 19% published a paper based on a systematic review. Female HE teachers were less likely to publish (32%) than males (68%). More readers and professors had published (75%) than instructors/assistant lecturers (30%) and lecturers (45%). Conclusions: Accessing electronic research literature provides an opportunity to gathering up-to-date research-based information that should be core to all health curricula. We call upon curriculum developers and university authorities in Nepal to revise health curricula and help build electronic searching skills among staff and students

What is corpus linguistics? What the data says

Stubbs (2006), in his state of the art overview, draws attention to the frequent reticence or vagueness of corpus analysts in discussing their operational methods within a scientific context, (a context addressed in detail in Partington forthcoming). This lack of clarity in discussing the methodological framework employed is, perhaps, most surprising given the way in which corpus linguistics situates itself within a scientific frame, and lays such claims to a scientific nature. This brief paper, then, addresses the question posed in its title, namely, “What is corpus linguistics?” – is it a discipline, a methodology, a paradigm or none or all of these? – but does not attempt to offer any definitive answers. Rather, the aim is to present the reader with a number of observations on how corpus linguistics has been construed in its own literature and then to leave the question open, in the hope of stimulating further discussion. The study takes the specific term corpus linguistics and looks at how it is defined and described both explicitly and implicitly in a variety of relevant sources

Economic Analysis and Statistical Disclosure Limitation

This paper explores the consequences for economic research of methods used by data publishers to protect the privacy of their respondents. We review the concept of statistical disclosure limitation for an audience of economists who may be unfamiliar with these methods. We characterize what it means for statistical disclosure limitation to be ignorable. When it is not ignorable, we consider the effects of statistical disclosure limitation for a variety of research designs common in applied economic research. Because statistical agencies do not always report the methods they use to protect confidentiality, we also characterize settings in which statistical disclosure limitation methods are discoverable; that is, they can be learned from the released data. We conclude with advice for researchers, journal editors, and statistical agencies

UCL DAF (Data Audit Framework) Pilot: final report

The UCL DAF (Data Audit Framework) pilot implementation project was funded by JISC for a period of seven months (August 2008-March 2009) to trial the implementation of the DAF methodology at UCL

Barry Smith an sich

Festschrift in Honor of Barry Smith on the occasion of his 65th Birthday. Published as issue 4:4 of the journal Cosmos + Taxis: Studies in Emergent Order and Organization. Includes contributions by Wolfgang Grassl, Nicola Guarino, John T. Kearns, Rudolf Lüthe, Luc Schneider, Peter Simons, Wojciech Żełaniec, and Jan Woleński

Misc. Pub. 91-1

I submit herewith the annual report of the Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station, School of Agriculture and Land Resources Management, University of Alaska Fairbanks, for the period ending December 31,1990. This is done in accordance with an act of the Congress, approved March 2,1887, entitled "An act to establish Agricultural Experiment Stations, in connection with the Agricultural Colleges established in the several states under the provisions of an act approved July 2,1862, and under the acts supplementary thereto," and also of the act of the Alaska Territorial Legislature, approved March 12,1935, accepting the provisions of the act of Congress. James V. Drew, DirectorStatement of Purpose -- Plant and Animal Sciences -- Forest Sciences -- Resources Management -- Financial Statement -- Publications - Staf