Browsing a digital library: A new approach for the New Zealand digital library

Browsing is part of the information seeking process, used when information needs are ill-defined or unspecific. Browsing and searching are often interleaved during information seeking to accommodate changing awareness of information needs. Digital Libraries often support full-text search, but are not so helpful in supporting browsing. Described here is a novel browsing system created for the Greenstone software used by the New Zealand Digital Library that supports users in a more natural approach to the information seeking process. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003

Provocative writing : the disgusting and taboo fictional landscape in Chuck Palahniuk

The thesis discusses the ways in which Chuck Palahniuk, one of America’s most contentious authors, explores ideas of the taboo and unspeakable, and answers the question: is Palahniuk using taboo subjects solely to disgust and shock readers, or for an additional purpose, such as challenging readers’ assumptions about ideas of difference? The taboo here accounts for the proscribed and non-normative, as it pertains to gender, beauty, sexuality and desire. These themes are evident in the novels I examine: Fight Club (1996), Invisible Monsters Remix (1999), Haunted (2005) and Beautiful You (2014). Palahniuk disgusts and shocks his readers through crude and dark humour and extremely graphic depictions of sex and violence. I examine whether Palahniuk’s fiction functions as social critique and satire, particularly in terms of his exploration of issues such as rape, transgender identity and masculinity, or if his work has been rightly dismissed as mere adolescent shock writing. I argue that Palahniuk utilizes tactics of shock and excess to prompt his readers to reflect on their own attitudes about norms pertaining to sex, gender and identity. Although Palahniuk reads as crude and immature, I demonstrate that his novels offer substantive explorations into ideas of difference and otherness, the constructedness of gender, and women’s representation in media

Exploring the user experience through collage

We explore the use of collage in requirements elicitation, as a tool to support potential end-users in expressing their impressions, understanding, and emotions regarding a system

Finding new music: a diary study of everyday encounters with novel songs

This paper explores how we, as individuals, purposefully or serendipitously encounter 'new music' (that is, music that we haven’t heard before) and relates these behaviours to music information retrieval activities such as music searching and music discovery via use of recommender systems. 41 participants participated in a three-day diary study, in which they recorded all incidents that brought them into contact with new music. The diaries were analyzed using a Grounded Theory approach. The results of this analysis are discussed with respect to location, time, and whether the music encounter was actively sought or occurred passively. Based on these results, we outline design implications for music information retrieval software, and suggest an extension of 'laid back' searching

Enhancing student writing with do-it-yourself corpora on a PhD pre-sessional programme

As an effective writing course should focus on disciplines and their unique characteristics, practitioners of English for academic purposes (EAP) are often faced with the challenge of addressing the different needs of learners from various fields of study. This article reports on how a data-driven learning (DDL) approach can be applied to enhance student written production in a multidisciplinary classroom in a 10-week PhD pre-sessional programme at a British University. The participants were six international students who used a do-it-yourself (DIY) corpus in weekly DDL sessions to familiarize themselves with discipline-specific academic writing conventions and applying them in their writing. The effectiveness of this approach was investigated through a ‘talk around texts’ technique employed in semi-structured interviews with individual students and their supervisors on programme completion. The findings show that a DDL approach utilizing a DIY corpus has the potential of enhancing PhD student writing in a multidisciplinary classroom on a pre-sessional programme. This article suggests that DDL could be successfully implemented not only in PhD pre-sessional programmes, but also in wider EAP contexts

Addressing discipline specificity in a multidisciplinary EAP classroom through data-driven learning

Mastering academic writing is one of the challenges frequently experienced by university students across all levels and disciplines. As writing remains one of the most common ways of demonstrating knowledge in university settings, developing an appropriate academic style is a vital skill for success. In the context of British universities, academic writing skills are generally catered for by English for Academic Purposes (EAP) provision in the form of pre-sessional and in-sessional courses. Ideally, these courses should focus on the characteristics and conventions of the students’ specific fields of study to meet their academic needs. This, however, poses a challenge for EAP practitioners, who are usually not specialists in the students’ subject domain, amplified by the fact that EAP classes are often taken by a diverse group of learners from a wide range of disciplines. This paper reports on how the issue of discipline specificity in a multidisciplinary EAP classroom in a PhD pre-sessional programme at a British University was addressed by employing a data-driven learning (DDL) approach for the acquisition and development of disciplinary writing conventions including specialised technical vocabulary. After an evaluation of this approach, we conclude that DDL can be usefully implemented in wider EAP contexts to inform students’ knowledge of writing in their disciplines

How to take a book off the shelf: Learning about ebooks from using a physical library

Little is known about how people select ebooks or books. This paper reports initial results of a study in which we observe patrons of two libraries when selecting books. From the results of the study we aim to gain insights into book selection strategies, which may be used to support ebook selection and purchasing

Book selection behavior in the physical library: implications for ebook collections

Little is known about how readers select books, whether they be print books or ebooks. In this paper we present a study of how people select physical books from academic library shelves. We use the insights gained into book selection behavior to make suggestions for the design of ebook-based digital libraries in order to better facilitate book selection behavior

A tool for metadata analysis

We describe a Web-based metadata quality tool that provides statistical descriptions and visualisations of Dublin Core metadata harvested via the OAI protocol. The lightweight nature of development allows it to be used to gather contextualized requirements and some initial user feedback is discussed

Understanding International Students’ Misinformation Behavior

Social media has made it easier for international students to draw on home-country sources of information, in addition to establishing new connections to host-country sources of information. However, social media has been shown to facilitate the spread of fake news, which could lead to increased exposure for those who are using sources from multiple countries. This exposure may result in increased vulnerability to the negative effects of misinformation. Understanding the misinformation experiences of international students will allow us to better assist a growing population of migrants and help us reformulate digital literacy strategies to be more effective in combating fake news. This research in progress article first synthesizes the literature on the spread of fake news and information behavior of international students. It then identifies the gap in our knowledge about the misinformation behavior of international students. Finally, it presents propositions for areas of research to bridge this gap