<p> Our collective memory, the history that is cultivated through reflection, documentation, and consensus of historical data, is predicated upon the citizenry having access to the historical materials that society has created. Digitization has enabled greater public access to those materials. However, are items being scanned or digitally photographed to create surrogates that are then not made available to the world? The impetus for this study is to delve into whether or not intentional or unintentional personal choices play a role in determining which items archivists transform into digital surrogates; both in the decision of what to digitize and what to make available to the public on the World Wide Web. When one archival collection is prioritized over another or when it is not possible to digitize an entire collection, what rationale is used to determine which items will be digitized and published online? Do intentional or unintentional personal choices come into play in the decision-making? To answer these questions, four case studies were conducted, involving the random sampling of online collections and concomitant interviews of archivists. The purpose of this study is to enhance archivists&rsquo; understanding of the reasons that guide the digitization decision-making process. Through such understanding, archivists can be more proactive in the decision-making process to realize the benefit of digitizing and publishing archival materials that ultimately affect collective memory. The findings of this research revealed that in the case of the four institutions assessed, archivists do use personal choice to determine which materials within an archive are digitized. </p>

<p> With the advancement of information technology, national library websites have become an essential vehicle for their users to access official information and library resources. They serve the general public from different countries, age groups, ethnicities, and educational levels. The purpose of this dissertation research is to examine the usability, user experience (UX), and information architecture (IA) of national library websites in different countries. Focal areas of investigation include: (1) the primary content elements on national library websites' homepages, (2) the extent to which various quantitative measures of heuristic evaluation and IA assessment overlap with those measures from task-based usability testing, (3) the extent of the impact of cultural and national origins on participants&rsquo; assessment of usability of national libraries&rsquo; websites. The research design of this dissertation study features (1) a content inventory of 28 national library websites, (2) a web IA assessment and a usability evaluation of five national library websites, and (3) usability tests for three national library websites involving 30 participants. The key findings of this dissertation research help to establish a list of common content elements on the homepages of national library websites worldwide and provide a concrete, practical, and feasible procedure to evaluate such websites. The results show statistically significant differences in task performance with the use of national library websites between different groups of users, such as those from different genders and educational backgrounds. Significant correlations were found between the overall participant satisfaction of a national library website and multiple variables such as the content, visual design, and information architecture, as well as between heuristic evaluation scores and participants&rsquo; ratings of some aspects of the websites. </p><p> Based on the specific results from various phases of the research, this dissertation presented detailed recommendations that could help to make national library websites more usable for all its users, including the first-time users across different genders, age groups, and educational backgrounds. Furthermore, in order to achieve a high level of satisfaction, it is recommended that national libraries focus on six factors affecting participants&rsquo; satisfaction: the quality of information, the trustworthiness of the content, the credibility of the content producers/providers, the website&rsquo;s overall structure, the design, and the aesthetics of the website. </p><p> Another significant contribution of this dissertation research is its use of various methods used to evaluate national library websites and its integration of the results of the different methods to obtain a broader and more comprehensive understanding of these findings. Future UX research on national library websites could expand the research by incorporating the methodology used in this research, testing a greater number of national library websites around the world, and involving users from all walks of life. </p><p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to construct a child-driven metadata schema by understanding children's cognitive processes and behaviors during book selection. Existing knowledge organization systems including metadata schemas and previous literature in the metadata domain have shown that there is a no specialized metadata schema that describes children's resources that also is developed by children. It is clear that children require a new or alternative child-driven metadata schema. Child-driven metadata elements reflected the children's cognitive perceptions that could allow children to intuitively and easily find books in an online cataloging system. The literature of development of literacy skills claims that the positive experiences of selecting books empower children's motivation for developing literacy skills. Therefore, creating a child-driven metadata schema not only contributes to the improvement of knowledge organization systems reflecting children's information behavior and cognitive process, but also improves children's literacy and reading skills. </p><p> Broader research questions included what metadata elements do children like to use? What elements should a child-driven metadata schema include? In order to answer these research questions, a triangulated qualitative research design consisting of questionnaires, paired think-aloud, interview, and diaries were used with 22 child participants between the ages of 6 and 9. A holistic understanding of the children's cognitive processes during book selection as a foundation of a child-driven metadata schema displays an early stage of an ontological contour for a children's knowledge organization system. A child-driven metadata schema constructed in this study is apt to include different metadata elements from those metadata elements existing in current cataloging standards. A child-driven metadata schema includes five classes such as story/subject, character, illustration, physical characteristics, and understandability, and thirty three metadata elements such as character's names and images, book cover's color, shape, textured materials, engagement element, and tone. In addition, the analysis of the relationship between emergent emotional vocabularies and cognitive factors and facets illustrated the important role of emotion and attention in children's information processing and seeking behaviors.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-07, Section: A, page: 2704. Adviser: Linda C. Smith. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 164-174) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Indiana University, 1983. / Includes bibliographical references (p. leaves 908-1003).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2009. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: A, page: . Adviser: Linda C. Smith. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 104-113) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (PH.D.) -- Syracuse University, 2004. / "Publication number AAT 3132703."

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-02, Section: A, page: 0415. Adviser: Elizabeth B. Hearne Claffey. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 255-306) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

<p> The International Federation of Library Associations developed its Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) without performing user testing to ensure that the model would meet the needs of professionals and users. Analyzing user-generated social tags in relation to FRBR entities and attributes will help determine if the layperson describes objects in a manner that conforms to the FRBR conceptual model. Number one songs from the weekly Billboard Hot 100 charts from 1958 through 2013 were randomly sampled, tags associated with the sampled songs were pulled from the last.fm Web site, and tags were analyzed to determine their relation to FRBR entities and attributes. A percentage of tags map to FRBR entities, validating those entities&rsquo; place in the model. User tags that do not map to a FRBR entities shed light on additional means for resource access and discovery, as well as potential issues to consider should the FRBR conceptual model be revised in the future.</p><p>

Databases provide the foundation of most software systems. This means that system developers will inevitably need to write code to query these databases. The de facto language for querying is SQL and this, consequently, is the language primarily taught by higher education institutions. There is some evidence that learners find it hard to master SQL. These issues and concerns were confirmed by reviewing the literature and establishing the scope and context. The literature review allowed extraction of the common issues in impacting SQL acquisition. The identified issues were confirmed and justified by empirical evidence as reported here. A model of SQL learning was derived. This framework or model involves SQL learning taxonomy, a model of SQL problem solving and incorporates cross-cutting factors. The framework is used as map to the design of a proposed instructional design. The design employed pattern concepts and the related research to structure SQL knowledge as SQL patterns. Also presented are details on how SQL patterns could be organized and presented. A strong theoretical background (checklist, component-level design) was employed to organize, present and facilitated SQL pattern collection. The evaluation of the SQL patterns yielded new insight such as novice problem solving strategies and the types of errors students made in attempting to solve SQL problems. SQL patterns, as proposed as a result of this research, yielded statistically significant important in novice performance in writing SQL queries. A longitudinal field study with a large number of learners in a flexible environment should be conducted to confirm the findings of this research.