Electronic libraries and electronic librarians: Who does what in a national electronic community

This talk will have two parts: First, I'm going to describe very briefly what this new kind of library technology is like through a discussion of the Worm Community System (WCS), why it is going to be very important, and why it will involve a lot of money. What I want to emphasize at the start is that while WCS may seem like an esoteric research project, in fact it is one of the flagship information projects funded by the National Science Foundation. In addition, the National Information Infrastructure Act looms in the immediate future, authorizing an enormous amount of money to be spent in the development of digital libraries in specialized areas. Digital libraries will require information systems like WCS. This project has become a national model of this new kind of information system, but its primary content is really just a special collection, in the same sense you already know. It is an important national effort, but there will be lots of other efforts like this in many different subject areas. Second, I'm going to discuss in more detail what kinds of people are required to do this kind of activity. The roles range from traditional librarians all the way to systems architects. Similarly, the roles range from those that involve no computer knowledge at all to those that involve very intensive computing. My expectation is that people who call themselves "librarians" in the foreseeable future will actually span this entire range, even though now they are significantly skewed towards the traditional end.published or submitted for publicatio

On the Representation and Use of Semantic Categories: A Survey and Prospectus

This report describes research conducted at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Support for the Laboratory's artificial intelligence research is provided in part by the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense under Office of Naval Research contract number N00014-75-C-0643.This paper is intended as a brief introduction to several issues concerning semantic categories. These are the everyday, factual groupings of world knowledge according to some similarity in characteristics. Some psychological data concerning the structure, formation, and use of categories is surveyed. Then several psychological models (set-theoretic and network) are considered. Various artificial intelligence representations (concerning the symbol mapping and recognition problems) dealing with similar issues are also reviewed. It is argued that these data and representations approach semantic categories at too abstract a level and a set of guidelines which may be helpful in constructing a microworld are given.MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agenc

Assessing the School District of Philadelphia

The education system in Philadelphia is a failed system. One of the tools to quantify the failure is the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) test results. Other measurements, such as SAT scores and graduation rates, also indicate that the education system is failing. After examining the results of these quantifying processes, the historical relationships that the School District has with various levels of government, and the mismanagement of resources in the district, it becomes clear that one of the major issues harming the quality of education in Philadelphia is the lack of funding

The Effect of Religious Affiliation on Social Preferences

Economic actions are determined by a variety of social and cultural influences. Unlike the ideal rational economic actor, an individual will frequently fail to make optimal, selfish decisions. In this study, we examine the effect of religious influences on such decisions. Specifically, I test whether Catholic Guilt is a real phenomena or simply a superstition. The study compares the actions of Catholic, Protestant, and non-religious subjects while playing Ultimatum and Dictator games. Using standard regression analysis, I find the extent to which guilt affects the economic decisions of Catholic players, revealing a component of the complex relationship between religious belief and worldly action

SWOT Analysis of Information Security Management System ISO 27001

Information security is a main concern for many organisations with no signs of decreasing urgency in the coming years. To address this a structured approach is required, with the ISO 27000 series being one of the most popular practices for managing Information Security. In this work, we used a combination of qualitative research methods to conduct a SWOT analysis on the ISMS. The findings from the SWOT were then validated using a survey instrument. Finally, the results were validated and analysed using statistical methods. Our findings show that there was a generally positive view on the 'Strengths' and 'Opportunities' compared to that of 'Weaknesses' and 'Threats'. We identified statistically significant differences in the perception of 'Strengths' and 'Opportunities' across groups but also found that there is no significant variance in the perception of 'Threats'. The SWOT produced will help practitioners and researchers tailor ways to enhance ISMS using existing techniques such as TOWS matrix

Improving Quality: Current Evidence on What Affects the Quality of Commissioned Evaluations

With the increase in resources that organisations are dedicating to evaluation the issue of evaluation quality has risen up the agenda and a growing number of commissioners are now looking at how to ensure the studies they commission are of sufficient quality. While a plethora of evaluation quality standards exist that identify the factors that shape quality, most are experiential rather than based on research evidence. Particularly in the context of commissioning and implementing evaluation in bilateral donors, there has been limited empirical research on identifying the factors that underlie evaluation quality. Drawing on the findings of two recent studies into the quality of evaluations and other recent work in this area, this CDI Practice Paper by Rob Lloyd and Florian Schatz starts to fill this gap in evidence. The paper argues that the current debate on evaluation quality has become fixated on the issue of methodology to the neglect of other equally important issues. While methodological rigour is important, a singular focus on this issue is unwise. Considerations of quality need to permeate all stages of the evaluation process and evaluation quality needs to be recognised as a product of the capacities of the evaluation commissioner and evaluation team, the relationship between them, and the wider institutional environment in which the evaluation is being conducted.UK Department for International Developmen