Open access institutional repositories (OA IRs) are electronic systems that capture, preserve, and provide access to the scholarly digital work of an institution. As a new channel of scholarly communications IRs offer faculty a new way to disseminate their work to a wider audience, which in turn can increase the visibility to their work and impact factors, and at the same time increase institutions prestige and value. However, despite the increased popularity of IRs in numbers, research shows that IRs remain thinly populated in large part due to faculty reluctance to participate. There have been studies on the topic of open access repositories with the focus on external factors (social or technological context) that affect faculty attitudes towards participation in IRs, and there is a lack of understanding of the internal factors and the psychology of the reluctance. The goal of this mix method study was to identify the overall factors that affect faculty attitudes towards participation in IRs and examine the extent to which these factors influenced faculty willingness to participate in IRs. First, from literature review and the Model of Factors Affecting Faculty Self-Archiving this study identified eleven factors that influenced faculty members' intention to participate in OA repositories. Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) postulated that faculty intention to participate in IR was determined by three categories of factors: five attitudinal, four external (social) and two individual factors. Within the framework of the TPB this study (1) confirmed the measurement scale for each factor using principal component analysis, (2) it examined the influence that each factor had on the faculty likelihood to participate in IR using logistic regression, and (3) it weighted the relative importance of each factor on faculty intent to participate, utilizing relative weight analysis. Quantitative analysis revealed that four out of 11 factors proved to be statistically significant in faculty members' intention to participate in IRs; difficulty with the submission process, discoverability access and readership, altruism, and faculty perception of IRs as low-quality publishing venues. While qualitative analysis revealed that more than half of the faculty remain unfamiliar with OA and its goals, and while they supported the principles of OA, they also had a myriad of concerns regarding participation in IRs.

Self-archiving as a way to provide open access to research publications is gaining ground in the area of scholarly publishing. An increasing number of research funders and universities are mandating open access for output associated with their research, which calls for evaluation of the effects of the phenomenon. This two years master’s thesis aims to investigate researchers’ experiences of self-archiving. A qualitative web survey was conducted and answered by 41 researchers from several different countries, and a vast majority of the respondents concur with the principle of open access. Although self-archiving shows not to be a guarantee of increased impact for the single researcher, the study shows that might be the case. The results attest that self-archiving can generate for example increased number of collaboration, comments in social media and stronger professional profile, as well as a sense of personal progress. The results illuminate an ongoing change in scholarly communications as self-archiving shows to enable a more flexible and informal communication of research material.

This thesis deals with discourse relations as a parameter of style. Two sets of text samples were analysed, both of which are characterized by the same stylistics features within the cathegory of scholarly style but differ in the date of origin (1500-1620 for one set, 1950- for the other). Analysis is focused on the issue to which extent are semantic relations in the discourse structure marked up by explicit lexical means, i. e. by the discourse connectives. The sets of text samples were annotated according to the scheme used for the discourse annotation in The Prague Dependency Treebank. The hypothesis was confirmed that discourse relations are marked up by the discourse connectives more frequently in the set of texts from the 16th and the beginning of the 17th century than in the other set. It turns out in further investigation that the difference mentioned above was caused by different conventions in placing discourse connectives rather than by establishing different semantic relations between textual units. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

The thesis 'The role of the Czech public media in the pension reform discourse' aims to provide a critical reflection on the role of the Czech Television and the Czech Radio in the debate over the changes in the pension scheme of the Czech Republic. The principal method used for that is the discourse analysis, which comprises quality and quantity analysis of the media output, interviews and personal observation. The research project focuses on the context the debate over the pension reform occurs and how it is presented in the public media. The theoretical part summarizes the theoretical concepts used in the research project, i.e. concepts from the field of public policy, social policy, mass communication and discourse analysis. The empirical part examines the institutional development of the pension reform, its variations in political, scholarly (Czech and international) and public discourse. The major part of the research project is based on the discourse analysis of the pension reform discourse in the Czech public media. The role of the public media in the pension reform discourse is deduced on the basis of the theoretical and empirical parts.

The thesis focuses on various information services over digital archives and institutional repositories in the area of science and research. It aims to ascertain these online services and introduce, analyse and assess selected examples in detail. Their quantitative as well as qualitative features are emphasized - The work is logically divided into four chapters. The first one defines the basic terminology and outlines the contemporary status of scholarly communication on the Internet. The second chapter introduces a comprehensive list of services as well as their suggested typology. The third chapter constitutes the core of the thesis and presents the descriptions and analysys of the selected services. The fourth final part includes the comparison of their relevant parameters, final assessment and the perspectives of their future development. Keywords digital archive, institutional repository, scholarly communication, information services, OAI- PMH, metadata harvesting, open access

Thesis (M.A. ( Information Studies)) -- University of Limpopo, 2021 / This study aimed to examine the extent of awareness and the adoption of Open Access (OA) publishing for the purpose of scholarly communication by academic staff at the University of Limpopo (UL). The study was guided by Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovation theory (1) to measure the level of awareness of academics on the availability and use of OA resources; (2) to determine the adoption and usage levels of OA publishing as a platform for information sharing by academics in scholarly communication; (3) to establish academics’ attitudes towards the use of the OA publishing platforms; and (4) to identify perspectives of academic staff with regards to challenges and benefits presented by OA publishing. A dominantly quantitative research approach was adopted using a google forms questionnaire with closed ended questions to collect data from 250 academics at the University of Limpopo. Academics were selected using the systematic simple random sampling method. To ensure the survey instrument’s reliability and validity, the researcher conducted a pilot study through a web-based survey. A descriptive statistics method of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyse data. The study established that the majority (82%) of academics were aware of OA publishing platforms. The internet and subject librarians were the main communication channels through which they became aware of OA publishing. The study also found that there was minimal the adoption and usage of OA publishing among academics. Their attitudes towards OA and their perceptions of the benefits and challenges of OA. The general attitudes of academics about OA were positive, signifying the acceptance of this scholarly communication mode. However, some of the challenges encountered in adopting and using OA publishing include slow internet connectivity and access, publication charges by some publishers, lack of skills to publish online, power interruptions, lack of policies on OA, fake and predatory v publishers and OA articles not being peer-reviewed. These were reported as problems that directly or indirectly hinder academics from publishing in OA platforms. The study recommends the institutionalisation of OA publishing at UL to improve research output dissemination. An area for further research will be to establish more insights regarding the feasibility of OA development and possible ways of dealing with article processing fees. Keywords: Open Access publishing, scholarly communication, Academic staff, Institutional Repositories, Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovation theory, University of Limpopo.

This thesis presents a detailed explanation and argumentation of why modern decentralized technologies could be utilized in order to improve scholarly communication on many fronts. The current model of scholarly communication, which is dominated by scientific journals, is analysed together with the current economic models in use. The thesis also briefly investigates peer reviews. It also endeavors to explain how scholarly goods might be perceived from an economic standpoint. Blockchain technology offers functionalities that could potentially solve many problems associated with scholarly communication through decentralization. Both permissioned and permissionless blockchains, their implementations, interesting technical/economic/governance aspects and why they are such a unique match for scholarly needs are thoroughly analyzed and explained. Finally minimal viability criteria suitable for assessment of decentralized scholarly projects are proposed. Existing decentralized applications which try to migrate scholarly communication from a current centralized system to a decentralized one are described and examined through the prism of this framework.

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In Sweden during the COVID-19 pandemic the Public Health Agency of Sweden assumed the major responsibility for communication and information dissemination about the contagion, and made efforts on preventive work and the risk mitigation. To successfully mitigate the risks it is important for the Public Health Agency to be transparent in their risk communication, in order to gain and strenghten the public’s trust towards their institution, which is a prerequisite for them to be able to work efficiently in changing public behaviour in the population. This study examines what strategies the Public Health Agency of Sweden has used to create transparency within their risk communication, with the theoretical perspective of scholarly communication and information making. The study was conducted by analysing texts in the form of news articles published on the agency’s own website. The study identified eleven different strategies the agency has used in their risk communication, from referring to expert knowledge, to using a language that is accessible to the whole public.

Ambient Intelligence (AmI) refers to a vision of the information society where everyday human environments will be permeated by intelligent technology: people will be surrounded and accompanied by intelligent interfaces supported by computing and wireless networking technology that is ubiquitous, embedded in virtually all kinds of everyday objects. These computationally augmented, smart environments - composed of a myriad of invisible, distributed, networked, connected, interactive, and always-on computing devices - are aware of human context; sensitive to people's needs; adaptive to, and anticipatory of, their behavior; personalized to their requirements; and responsive to their emotion and presence, thereby intelligently supporting their daily and social lives by providing limitless services in a seamless and unobtrusive way. The vision of AmI assumes a paradigmatic shift in both computing and society – far-reaching societal implications. The challenge lies in developing AmI forms that acclimatise to societal change and the diversity of European socio-cultural life. Indeed, one of the most fundamental views in the prevailing AmI vision is a radical and technology-driven change to social environments and people’s lives. Research emphasizes the fundamental role the ISTAG, a group of scholars and ICT industry experts, plays in the reproduction of AmI as a positive force for societal change. Therefore, the objective of this study is to carry out a critical reading of the scholarly and ICT industry’s construction of AmI in relation to societal transformation. To achieve this objective, a discourse analytical approach was employed to examine the selected empirical material: three reports published by the ISTAG in 2001, 2003 and 2006. The approach consists of seven stages: (1) surface elements and organizational structure, (2) discursive constructions, (3) social actors, (4) language and rhetoric, (5) framing as power and operation, (6) positioning and legitimation, and (7) ideological viewpoints.The AmI discourse (vision) construction tends to be deterministic, i.e. it assumes that the ‘amization’ of society will lead to radical social transformations, and has an unsophisticated account of how social change occurs. It is also inclined to be rhetorical - it promises revolutionary social changes without really having a holistic strategy for achieving the goal. Moreover, topicalization is accomplished in correspondence with the preferred mental models and social representations. Furthermore, the discourse is exclusionary: many issues (pertaining to trust, social sustainability, human-centred design, healthcare, and community life) are left out with the intention to advance the idea of the eventual societal acceptance of AmI. It additionally plays a role in wider processes of legitimation of social agents and structures on the basis of normative and political reasons, and it offers different subject positions: between ISTAG and Europe and European citizens, and between citizens and ICT designers and producers. Likewise, it plays a major role in constructing the image of social actors – ISTAG, ICT industry, research community and EU – as well as in defining their relations and identities in ways that reallocate roles and reflect new attributes. A great highlight and space is awarded to represent these actors, and their views dominate the reports. They are the prime definer of the represented reality. As to ideological reproduction, the discourse perpetuates power relations, serves the interest of certain stakeholders in European society, and reconstructs ideological claims. This discursive endeavor provides a valuable reference for social researchers or scientists in related research communities. Until now, there has been, to the best of one’s knowledge, no comprehensive discursive research of AmI in relation to societal transformation, more specifically the potential of AmI in modernizing the European social model and in shaping Europe’s future.