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OERs in Context – Case Study of Innovation…

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OERs in Context – Case Study of Innovation and Sustainability of Educational Practices at the University of Mauritius :

“Over the recent years, there has been a growing interest in Open Educational Resources (OER). A similar trend was observed about a decade ago in the concept of Learning Objects, which inevitably faded without really making an impact in real-world educational contexts. A number of repositories were created that contain thousands of learning objects. However, on the consumption side, very little is known in terms of their implementations and impacts on teaching and learning. The same phenomenon is observed with Open Education Educational resources which are by definition learning objects but they are freely available resources available for educators and practitioners to use, reuse, remix and re-contextualise in local contexts. While the use of OER is widespread among educators (similarly to learning objects), however they often happen in discretion, isolation and not really in well-established frameworks (pedagogical, economical and institutional). This paper presents a case study of how OERs have been included in a sustainable and innovative teaching and learning model in three online courses at Diploma, Bachelor and Masters Level. It shows how the inclusion of OERs helped maintain a good quality level, sustain a viable economic model with reduction of tuition fees for learners, increase access and achieve the intended learning outcomes without any negative impact on the learners’ experience.”

URL : http://www.eurodl.org/?p=current&article=419

Weblog publishing behaviour of librarianship and information science…

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Weblog publishing behaviour of librarianship and information science students: a case study :

“Introduction. The ‘blogosphere’ is a space with digital information in which social networks form that offer countless application possibilities. In this technology-mediated context, it is feasible to study the performance and approaches of production, diffusion, relationship and use of information from different perspectives.
Method. Quantitative data were obtained through the regular examination of the blogs maintained by students and qualitative data were obtained from reports by the students and self-assessment questionnaires.

Analysis. Simple counts of quantitative data were obtained, without further statistical analysis. The qualitative data were reviewed for insights into the motivations of students. Results. Given a free choice, most students adopted the Blogger platform for their blogs. Most blogs consisted of content reported from elsewhere and were not continued by the students following the end of the exercise.

Conclusions. Students adopted an instrumental approach to the exercise, doing enough to complete the course requirements but not being sufficiently engaged to continue their blogs. Preliminary work based on basic competences is necessary in both collaboration processes and Web 2.0 technology to obtain satisfactory results in the use of Weblogs as teaching and learning tools.”

URL : http://eprints.rclis.org/handle/10760/15433

Innovative Web 2.0 technologies for integrating the learning…

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Innovative Web 2.0 technologies for integrating the learning process :

“The innovative technologies of Web 2.0 have created a lot of opportunities for learning in the present web environment. Although these are largely experimental, some of them are very popular and useful. Some popular tools of Web2.0 are wikis, blogs, video sharing, podcasting, RSS, social bookmarking, and many more. Web2.0 is more than a set of ‘tools’, new technologies and services. The general internet users as well as the teachers and learners have been well adapting to these emerging technologies to integrate the learning process. The paper introduces major Web 2.0 tools and discusses their applications in learning.”

URL : http://eprints.rclis.org/handle/10760/15432

Towards Transparent and Scalable OpenURL Quality Metrics …

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Towards Transparent and Scalable OpenURL Quality Metrics :

“The development of link resolvers and the OpenURL framework over a decade ago paved the way for open-ended, context-sensitive linkage from databases, indexes, and abstracting services to the appropriate resources and services to meet library users’ needs. Library patrons can now retrieve more comprehensively linked scholarly information than ever before. However, even with today’s link resolver technology and the OpenURLs on which the link resolvers depend, following a reference link all the way to full-text can still frustrate library users all too often. In this article, the authors present research on why OpenURLs fail so frequently. They also describe a model for measuring the quality of OpenURL metadata, using a log processor and reporting software. The results of this study demonstrate the potential applicability of such a system as a scalable, stand-alone service for all libraries, OpenURL and full-text content providers, and link resolver vendors to evaluate and improve the completeness and consistency of their links.”

URL : http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march11/chandler/03chandler.html

Discovering the Information Needs of Humanists When Planning…

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Discovering the Information Needs of Humanists When Planning an Institutional Repository :

“Through in-person interviews with humanities faculty members, this study examines what information needs are expressed by humanities scholars that an institutional repository (IR) can address. It also asks what concerns humanists have about IRs, and whether there is a repository model other than an institutional one that better suits how they work. Humanists make relatively low use of existing IRs, but this research indicates that an institutional repository can offer services to humanities faculty that are desired by them, especially the digitization, online storage, curation, and sharing of their research materials and publications. If presented in terms that make sense to humanities faculty, and designed consciously with their needs and concerns in mind, an IR can be of real benefit to their teaching, scholarship, collaborations, and publishing.”

URL : http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march11/seaman/03seaman.html

The costs and potential benefits of alternative scholarly…

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The costs and potential benefits of alternative scholarly publishing models :

“Introduction. This paper reports on a study undertaken for the UK Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), which explored the economic implications of alternative scholarly publishing models. Rather than simply summarising the study’s findings, this paper focuses on the approach and presents a step-by-step account of the research process, highlighting the combination of process mapping, activity costing and macro modelling.

Method. The analysis relies primarily on existing sources, collating activity cost information from the wide-ranging literature on scholarly communication. Where necessary, these sources were supplemented by targeted informal consultation with experts.

Analysis. We examine the costs and potential benefits of the major alternative models for scholarly publishing, including subscription publishing, open access publishing and self-archiving. Adopting a formal approach to modelling the scholarly communication process and identifying activity costs, this paper presents activity and system-wide costs for each of the alternative publishing models. It then explores the potential impacts of enhanced access on returns to R&D.

Results. We find that different scholarly publishing models could make a material difference to the costs faced by various parties and to the returns on investment in R&D that might be realised.

Conclusion. It seems likely that more open access could have substantial benefits in the longer term. While the benefits may be lower during a transitional period they would be likely to be positive for both open access publishing and self-archiving alternatives.”

URL : http://informationr.net/ir/16-1/paper469.html

Survey of University of Toronto Faculty Awareness Attitudes…

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Survey of University of Toronto Faculty Awareness, Attitudes, and Practices Regarding Scholarly Communication: A Preliminary Report :

“This report presents the results from a 2010 online survey of the University of Toronto faculty on their awareness, attitudes and practices regarding scholarly communication. The objectives were to collect evidence regarding the current practices of faculty with regard to scholarly communication – primarily scholarly publishing and dissemination; to obtain evidence of their awareness and attitudes toward the changes in practices and forms that are occurring in publishing and dissemination with the turn to the digital, and to stimulate conversation on these topics among faculty within departments, faculties and academic units across the university, as well as with other members of the scholarly communication ecosystem. The survey has five sections that ask about i) current practices ii) scholarly publishing, including copyright and peer review iii) newer practices relating to open access, subject or institutional repositories, policies and mandates iv) costs associated with scholarly communication and iv) local services. Detailed findings, including faculty comments, and a summary of findings organized around a number of broad themes that emerged out of the detailed findings are included. The summary includes comparisons with the results from a 2006 survey of faculty at the University of California.

URL : https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/handle/1807/26446