Hobby activities can be viewed through the lens of informal, free-choice learning. A wide range of hobbies combine fun and learning-intensive practices, and can contribute to scientific literacy. Hobby learning involves clear goal orientation, persistence and effort, and often results in more richly and strongly connected knowledge; traits highly valued in both in and out-of-school science learning. In this study, I used koi hobbyists as subjects to discover and explore hobbyists' information-seeking strategies under different learning scenarios. I approached koi hobbyists' learning about koi and their koi hobby in both quantitative and qualitative ways. I designed a Stage of Engagement Model to illustrate koi hobbyists' engagement with their hobby, and adapted Falk and Dierking's Contextual Model of Learning to explain how personal, socio-cultural and physical contextual factors affect koi hobbyists' learning. An instrument was developed to assess koi hobbyists' experience with keeping koi, knowledge about the hobby, motivation/goals, interaction with other hobbyists, and the information-seeking strategies they used under different learning scenarios. I administered this questionnaire to koi hobbyist communities in the U.S. Pacific Northwest and online. Based on the quantitative analysis, the results supported my hypotheses that koi hobbyists chose different information-seeking strategies based on personal contextual factors such as previous experience, motivation and learning goals; socio-cultural contextual factors such as interactions with other koi hobbyists; and physical contextual factors such as the nature of the problems they encounter. Koi hobbyists also chose different information-seeking strategies based upon their stage of engagement with their hobby. The long-term potential of this study is to offer insights into how learners construct their knowledge by applying different learning strategies under different personal, socio-cultural and physical circumstances, and to provide a framework for the future study of other kinds of hobbies and hobbyists that will help to promote public scientific literacy. / Graduation date: 2012

Information technology has transformed the manner in which personal identifying information is collected, stored and shared in government agencies and private businesses. The social security number has become the de facto identifier for individuals due to its notable qualities: a nine-digit number assigned to one person by the United States government. As individuals are increasingly asked to disclose personal information, the question arises: How does the lack of awareness of social security number laws contribute to the loss of privacy, loss of control of personal information and the threat of identity theft? This study examines awareness levels of social security number laws and policies that affect individuals’ daily lives from the perspective of the information science profession. This study also examines concerns relative to widespread usage of the social security number. A quantitative research method using an online survey was employed using convenience and snowball sampling of adult university students and other community members. Survey results were analyzed by age, gender, educational achievement and student status. Awareness levels were shown to differ significantly by age. There were no differences in overall concern found to exist by any demographic. Survey results showed libraries were consulted for privacy information less often than search engines. Study findings support increasing awareness levels of privacy laws by encouraging use of library resources.

本研究旨在探討澎湖縣國小教師教學資訊需求與資訊尋求行為，透過問卷對全澎湖縣40所國小之教師進行普查，以瞭解澎湖縣國小教師之教學資訊需求及資訊尋求行為概況，接著對10位同意接受訪談，且年資在5年以上之國小教師進行深度訪談，透過問卷調查及訪談分析，本研究發現如下： 在教學資訊需求方面，澎湖縣國小教師教學資訊之需求以能『補充教材內容，擴展學生見聞，引發學生學習興趣，提升學習專注力』之教學資訊為主；社會、國語及自然三科較需要額外補充教學資訊；這些額外的教學資訊多運用在課堂之發展活動；數位影音類型教學資訊受大多數教師喜愛，特別是YouTube上的影片。 在資訊尋求行為方面，澎湖縣國小教師教學資訊尋求管道以網路搜尋為主(Google最多)，選擇管道考量方便且能快速取得資訊，選用資訊時則會考量資訊的正確性、方便性、與教學內容相關性、易懂性。找尋教學資訊之干擾因素較多教師表示為：行政工作太多、交通不便、澎湖書店太少、研習很少符合需要、教學設備不夠完善。尋求資訊時的困難主要為『資料量過多，難以篩選』，而解決方式以『請教同儕教師』為主。 研究結果提出對教育主管單位之建議為：(一)減少行政工作與無益於提升學生基本能力之活動，或增加學校員額編制減少上課時數，讓教師有更多心思專注於教學上；(二)提高設備維護經費，使教學設備更完善；(三)加強與穩定網路品質；(四)精緻化研習活動，使研習活動符合需求；(五)整合教育資源，訓練教師運用；至於對圖書館之建議為：(一)希望延長開放時間；(二)希望增加館藏及數位化資源；(三)專業圖書館人員進駐小學協助管理學校圖書館；(四)加強圖書館推廣服務。 / This study was to analyze the teaching information needs and information seeking behaviors of elementary school teachers in Penghu County. The questionnaires mailed to 40 elementary school teachers. . This study also had in-depth interviews conducted with school teachers who have more than five years teaching experience to realize their opinions of information needs and behaviors. The results are summarized two parts. On teaching information needs, the information needs of elementary school teachers in Penghu County were to “supply teaching materials, broaden students’ horizons, arouse students' curiosity interests in learning, and improve learning concentrated attentionion”. Especially in Social Studies, Mandarin and Natural Sscience need more additional supplements of teaching information. This additional teaching information usually used in the development of classroom activities. Most teachers were used to rely on digital audio and video types of teaching information, especially videos on YouTube. On information seeking behaviors, the teachers were mostly using search engines on internet as their teaching information seeking channels (Google is the most popular one). The main considerations of seeking route selecting were convenient and easy to get information. On information selecting, the teachers would consider the information validity, convenience, teaching contents relevance, and understandability. The interference factors to seek teaching information were too much administrative works, traffic inconvenience, lack of bookstores in Penghu, teachers’ learning courses rarely met their real needs, and teaching equipment not good enough. The main difficulties when seeking information were "too much amount of data, and difficult to select". Most teachers’ solution was "to ask their colleagues for advice ". Five suggestions for educational administration: 1. Reduce administrative works and profitless activities or recruit more school staffs to reduce teachers’ workload, so that teachers could have more energy to focus on teaching. 2. Increase the maintenance budget to keep teaching equipment always in a good condition. 3. Strengthen and stabilize Internet network quality. 4. Refine teachers’ learning courses to meet the real needs of teachers. 5. Integrate educational resources and train teachers how to use. Four suggestions for the library: 1. Extend the opening hours. 2. Increase the amount of library collections and digital resources. 3. Recruit professional library personnel into primary schools to assist. 4. Strengthen the promotion of library services.

Information technology has transformed the manner in which personal identifying information is collected, stored and shared in government agencies and private businesses. The social security number has become the de facto identifier for individuals due to its notable qualities: a nine-digit number assigned to one person by the United States government. As individuals are increasingly asked to disclose personal information, the question arises: How does the lack of awareness of social security number laws contribute to the loss of privacy, loss of control of personal information and the threat of identity theft? This study examines awareness levels of social security number laws and policies that affect individuals’ daily lives from the perspective of the information science profession. This study also examines concerns relative to widespread usage of the social security number. A quantitative research method using an online survey was employed using convenience and snowball sampling of adult university students and other community members. Survey results were analyzed by age, gender, educational achievement and student status. Awareness levels were shown to differ significantly by age. There were no differences in overall concern found to exist by any demographic. Survey results showed libraries were consulted for privacy information less often than search engines. Study findings support increasing awareness levels of privacy laws by encouraging use of library resources.

A survey was conducted of 969 science researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This long survey concluded with three questions requesting usersâ perceptions of the strengths and weaknesses of the campus libraries, and what single improvement the libraries could make to support scientific research and education. While the scope of these questions was more limited than large-scale surveys such as LibQUAL+TM, the results largely confirmed information from a local implementation of that survey. In addition, an interactive visualization tool was developed to help with analysis of the resulting comments. A summary of the major findings, recommendations for library improvements, and overall conclusions is given.

SFX is an XML based product designed to inter-link electronic resources with other resources in context-sensitive manner. SFX was first developed at the University of Ghent by Herbert Von de Sompel and has been released as a commercial product by Ex Libris. Use statistics garnered from SFX's statistics module since the implementation July of 2001 are discussed in the context of an academic research library environment. The results from usability testing conducted at Washington State University are reported. These usage statistics demonstrated a pattern of increasing use and exceptional use from FirstSearch databases.

No description available.

In this dissertation we describe the event processing autonomic computing reference architecture (EPACRA), an innovative reference architecture that solves many important problems related to adaptive root cause analysis and diagnosis (RCAD). Along with the research progress for defining EPACRA, we also identified a set of autonomic computing architecture patterns and proposed a new information seeking model called net-casting model. EPACRA is important because today, root cause analysis and diagnosis (RCAD) in enterprise systems is still largely performed manually by experienced system administrators. The goal of this research is to characterize, simplify, improve, and automate RCAD processes to ease selected tasks for system administrators and end-users. Research on RCAD processes involves three domains: (1) autonomic computing architecture patterns, (2) information seeking models, and (3) complex event processing (CEP) technologies. These domains as well as existing technologies and standards contribute to the synthesized knowledge of this dissertation. To minimize human involvement in RCAD, we investigated architecture patterns to be utilized in RCAD processes. We identified a set of autonomic computing architecture patterns and analyzed the interactions among the feedback loops in these individual architecture patterns and how the autonomic elements interact with each other. By illustrating the architecture patterns, we recognized ambiguity in the aggregator-escalator-peer pattern. This problem has been solved by adding a new architecture pattern, namely the chain-of-monitors pattern, to the lattice of autonomic computing architecture patterns. To facilitate the autonomic information seeking process, we developed the net-casting information seeking model. After identifying the commonalities among three traditional information seeking models, we defined the net-casting model as a five stage process and then tailored it to describe our automated RCAD process. One of the main contributions of this dissertation is an innovative autonomic computing reference architecture called event processing autonomic computing reference architecture (EPACRA). This reference architecture is based on (1) complex event processing (CEP) concepts, (2) autonomic computing architecture patterns, (3) real use-case workflows, and (4) our net-casting information seeking model. This reference architecture can be leveraged to relieve the system administrator’s burden of routinely performing RCAD tasks in a heterogeneous environment. EPACRA can be viewed as a variant of the IBM ACRA model—extended with CEP to deal with large event clouds in real-time environments. In the middle layer of the reference model, EPACRA introduces an innovative design referred to as use-case-unit—a use case is the scenario of an RCAD process initiated by a symptom—event processing network (EPN) for RCAD. Each use-case-unit EPN reflects our automation approach, including identification of events from the use cases and classifying those events into event types. Apart from defining individual event processing agents (EPAs) to process the different types of events, dynamically constructing use-case unit EPNs is also an innovative approach which may lead to fully autonomic RCAD systems in the future. Finally, this dissertation presents a case study for EPACRA. As a case study we use a prototype of a Web application intrusion detection tool to demonstrate the autonomic mechanisms of our RCAD process. Specifically, this tool recognizes two types of malicious attacks on web application systems and then takes actions to prevent intrusion attempts. This case study validates both our chain-of-monitors autonomic architecture pattern and our net-casting model. It also validates our use-case-unit EPN approach as an innovative approach to realizing RCAD workflows. Hopefully, this research platform will be beneficial for other RCAD projects and researchers with similar interests and goals.

Abstract: Introduction: To explore the information seeking behavior of Internationally Educated Nurses (IENs) and to investigate their exposure to libraries and library training in both their home countries and after being hired in Saskatchewan. Methods: This two-phase multi-method project was carried out in Saskatchewan, Canada. A questionnaire was developed based on survey instruments used in previously conducted studies on the topic. Librarians in two academic institutions assisted with validation of the survey. In Phase 1, data were collected via an online questionnaire from IENs in three health regions: Saskatoon, Regina, and Sunrise. In Phase 2, the study was expanded to IENs in all the health regions in the province. The same questionnaire from Phase 1 was used during telephone interviews with participants. Results: A total of 17 IENs responded (Phase 1, n = 9, Phase 2, n = 8). Results show that IENs, although interested in looking for information for their practice, are hindered by a lack of knowledge of how and where to seek relevant clinical information as well as a lack of library training. As a result, their main source of information is the Internet (Google). Discusion: Despite barriers such as time to information seeking, results revealed that given the opportunity IENs would like to receive library training to enhance their information seeking skills.

Made available in DSpace on 2018-06-18T13:12:04Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2015 / Com o advento das novas tecnologias são crescentes as formas de publicação e acesso à informação científica na área da saúde. Estudos apontam que existem algumas barreiras encontradas pelos usuários para buscar, acessar e avaliar a informação científica de maneira eficaz. A área da saúde apresenta uma grande gama informacional disponível na Internet e os pesquisadores devem obter subsídios para selecionar o que realmente é importante, absorver e gerar conhecimento para que, através da pesquisa, possam organizar e direcionar seus estudos voltados a uma produção intelectual consistente, em conformidade com a evolução científica. Neste sentido, o objetivo deste estudo foi analisar o comportamento de busca em bases de dados dos pós-graduandos do Programa de Pós-Graduação de Ensino em Ciências da Saúde. Nesta investigação, optou-se por uma pesquisa qualitativa, que inclui uma abordagem descritiva do sujeito de pesquisa e a busca de caráter exploratório na literatura científica nacional e internacional existente acerca da temática proposta. Os instrumentos utilizados para a coleta de dados foram questionário eletrônico e discussão em grupo para um melhor aprofundamento da realidade, visando mais entendimento sobre o processo de busca por parte dos pós-graduandos. Os dados foram analisados à luz do referencial teórico, onde foram destacados três núcleos temáticos: o processo de busca de informação pelos pós graduandos; dificuldades encontradas pelos pós-graduandos na busca de informação em bases de dados; facilidades encontradas pelos pósgraduandos na busca de informação em bases de dados. Identificados os três núcleos temáticos, emergiram as principais barreiras encontradas nas etapas da pesquisa, ficando estas evidenciadas neste estudo. Identificou-se a necessidade de ações que potencializem a competência informacional nas várias etapas do processo de pesquisa, o que poderá impactar diretamente na qualidade das publicações científicas. / With the advent of new technologies are increasing forms of publication and access to scientific information in health. Studies show that there are some barriers encountered by users to search, access and evaluate scientific information effectively. The health sector has a wide informational range available on the Internet and researchers must obtain subsidies to select what is really important, absorb and generate knowledge, so that, through research, can organize and direct their studies aimed at a consistent intellectual production, in accordance with the scientific progress. In this sense, the objective of this study was to analyze the search behavior of post graduate students of Programa de Pós-Graduação de Ensino em Ciências da Saúde. In this investigation, we chose a qualitative research that includes a descriptive approach to the research subject and the search for exploratory in existing national and international scientific literature on the proposed theme. The instruments used for data collection were electronic questionnaire and group discussion for better understanding of reality, seeking more agreement on the search process by the post graduate students. The data were analyzed based on the theoretical framework, which were highlighted three central themes: the process of searching for information by post graduate students; difficulties encountered by post graduate students in the search for information in databases; facilities found by post graduate students in the search for information in databases. It was identified the need for actions that enhance information literacy at various stages of the research process, which could directly impact the quality of scientific publications.