scholarly journals Modeling the digital content landscape in universities

2008 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 342-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Conway

PurposeDigital content is a common denominator that underlies all discussions on scholarly communication, digital preservation, and asset management. This past decade has seen a distinctive evolution in thinking among stakeholders on how to assemble, care for, deliver, and ultimately preserve digital resources in a college and university environment. At first, institutional repositories promised both a technical infrastructure and a policy framework for the active management of scholarly publications. Now other approaches that take a broader view of digital content hold sway, the result being confusion rather than clarity about where digital content originates, who the stakeholders are, and how to establish and adjust asset management priorities. This article seeks to present a model for plotting the range of digital content that might be amenable to management as digital assets in higher education.Design/methodology/approachThe article reviews differing perspectives on digital content, outlines a generalized model, and suggests how the model could be used for examining the distribution of campus digital assets and fostering dialog on management priorities across stakeholder communities.FindingsA multivariate model of digital content provides a rich framework for analyzing asset management priorities in a university setting. The model should be applied and tested in a variety of university settings.Practical implicationsThe model is a tool for establishing asset management priorities across campus units that produce digital content.Originality/valueThe paper offers an original model for evaluating the asset values of digital content produced or acquired in a university context.

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 180-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Mulville ◽  
Nicola Callaghan ◽  
David Isaac

Purpose This paper sets out to understand the impact of the ambient environment on perceived comfort, health, wellbeing and by extension productivity in the workplace. Design/methodology/approach The research combined an occupant survey considering satisfaction with the ambient environment, health and wellbeing and workplace behaviour with the monitoring of ambient environmental conditions. Findings The paper demonstrates that the ambient environment can have a significant impact on occupant comfort, health and wellbeing, which in turn has implications for built asset performance. Within the ambient environmental factors considered, a hierarchy may exist with noise being of particular importance. Occupant behaviour within the workplace was also found to be influential. Research limitations/implications The research was limited to a single commercial office building, and a wider range of case studies would therefore be of benefit. The research was also limited to the summer months. Practical implications The findings show that an active approach to asset management is required, by continuously monitoring internal environment and engaging with occupants. This must carefully consider how ambient environmental factors and workplace behaviour impact upon occupants’ comfort, health and wellbeing to ensure the performance of the built asset is maximised. Originality/value This paper demonstrates that both occupiers’ workplace behaviour and ambient environmental conditions can have an impact on occupant comfort, health, wellbeing and productivity. The paper strengthens the case for the active management of the workplace environment through environmental monitoring and behaviour change campaigns supported by corresponding changes to workplace culture.


2019 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 69-75
Author(s):  
Patience Emefa Dzandza

Purpose With the emergence of ranking of universities by organizations, one major factor considered in the rankings is the intellectual output of the universities. For universities to remain part of the global academic competitive society, intellectual output of universities can no longer be stored on shelves in libraries. Academic libraries have engaged in digitization of the intellectual works of their institutions which is a core mandate of any academic library. The purpose of this study is to ascertain the state of digitization initiatives among university libraries in Ghana. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative approach was adopted. Nine top universities in Ghana were selected to participate in this study. Interviews were conducted with heads of libraries. Findings The findings of the study revealed that seven out of the nine libraries studied have embarked on some sort of digitization initiative, and all libraries studied are using the same digital asset management system (Dspace). Major challenges reported by the participants that are common to all the libraries studied are lack of adequate and modern equipment, lack of trained personnel and lack of cooperation from faculty members. Originality/value This study brought fore the initiatives undertaken by academic libraries in Ghana to establish and maintain institutional repositories (IRs) amidst a number of challenges. It is a major contribution to the literature from West Africa as not much literature on IR is found from this part of the world.


Mousaion ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 25-54
Author(s):  
Wanyenda Leonard Chilimo

 There is scant research-based evidence on the development and adoption of open access (OA) and institutional repositories (IRs) in Africa, and in Kenya in particular. This article reports on a study that attempted to fill that gap and provide feedback on the various OA projects and advocacy work currently underway in universities and research institutions in Kenya and in other developing countries. The article presents the findings of a descriptive study that set out to evaluate the current state of IRs in Kenya. Webometric approaches and interviews with IR managers were used to collect the data for the study. The findings showed that Kenya has made some progress in adopting OA with a total of 12 IRs currently listed in the Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR) and five mandatory self-archiving policies listed in the Registry of Open Access Repositories Mandatory Archiving Policies (ROARMAP). Most of the IRs are owned by universities where theses and dissertations constitute the majority of the content type followed by journal articles. The results on the usage and impact of materials deposited in Kenyan IRs indicated that the most viewed publications in the repositories also received citations in Google Scholar, thereby signifying their impact and importance. The results also showed that there was a considerable interest in Swahili language publications among users of the repositories in Kenya.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Asif Hamid Charag ◽  
Asif Iqbal Fazili ◽  
Irfan Bashir

Purpose The purpose of this study is to understand the residents’ perception towards environmental, social, cultural and economic impacts of tourism development in Kashmir. Design/methodology/approach The research instrument containing 27 items pertaining to six variables is adopted from the literature. A mix-method survey approach is used to solicit residents’ perceptions regarding environmental, social, cultural and economic impacts of the current level of tourism development. A total of 326 useful responses were subjected to descriptive statistics, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and post hoc analysis using SPSS (Version 22.0). Findings In general, the negative and positive impacts of tourism development are well perceived by the residents. The results indicate that the residents display positive perception regarding economic impacts, however, social and environmental impacts are negatively perceived. Furthermore, barring level of education, the study found no significant difference in the residents’ perception towards tourism impacts (environmental, social, cultural, economic, quality of life and cost of living). Research limitations/implications The paper identifies perceived impacts and issues of tourism development thereby, proposing possible mitigating measures. Also, the study identifies the need to develop a comprehensive policy framework addressing the issues related to the resident’s negative feelings towards tourism impacts. Further, the study envisages the need for engaging residents in developing a progressive and participatory planning process for future tourism activities in the area. Social implications The study offers critical social implications for city tourism development. It suggests a community-based approach should be adopted to sensitize residents about the positive benefits of tourism. Originality/value The study is a novel attempt concerning residents’ residents perceptual differences towards tourism impacts. Furthermore, this study investigated socio-cultural impacts of tourism under two separate categories for better understanding. in doing so, this study provides finer understanding of perception of residents towards tourism impacts in Indian context. The findings of the study will prove critical for different stakeholders in developing future tourism framework and policies in the region.


2015 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 730-748 ◽  
Author(s):  
A Abrizah ◽  
Mohd Hilmi ◽  
Norliya Ahmad Kassim

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to be concerned with the motivations and resistance among an institutional repository (IR) stakeholder – the Library and Information Science (LIS) academicians – with respect to Green Road open access publishing in an inter-institutional repository. Design/methodology/approach – The answers were identified from 47 LIS faculty from three library schools in Malaysia who reported awareness of what an IR is and having had experience in contributing resources to digital repositories. Data were collected using survey and interviews. Findings – The results highlighted the LIS faculty on their motivation to share their intellectual profile, research and teaching resources in an inter-institutional repositories and why the reluctance in contributing. The study reveals that the major motivation to share resources for those practicing self-archiving is related to performance expectancy, social influence, visible and authoritative advantage, career benefit and quality work. The major resistance to share scholarly research output through self-archiving in institutional repositories for those practicing self-archiving is concern on plagiarism, time and effort, technical infrastructure, lack of self-efficacy and insularity. Practical implications – Knowing what conditions predict motivation and resistance to contribute to IRs would allow IR administrators to ensure greater and more effective participation in resource-sharing among LIS academic community. If this resistance is addressed aptly, IRs can be of real benefit to their teaching, scholarship, collaborations, and publishing and to the community that they serve. Originality/value – The first study that has explored the ways LIS academics respond to a situation where knowledge sharing in academe has now been made mandatory through an IR and what makes them resist to do so.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 481-492 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amir Ghiasi ◽  
Grigorios Fountas ◽  
Panagiotis Anastasopoulos ◽  
Fred Mannering

Purpose Unlike many other quantitative characteristics used to determine higher education rankings, opinion-based peer assessment scores and the factors that may influence them are not well understood. Using peer scores of US colleges of engineering as reported annually in US News and World Report (USNews) rankings, the purpose of this paper is to provide some insights into peer assessments by statistically identifying factors that influence them. Design/methodology/approach With highly detailed data, a random parameters linear regression is estimated to statistically identify the factors determining a college of engineering’s average USNews peer assessment score. Findings The findings show that a wide variety of college- and university-specific attributes influence average peer impressions of a university’s college of engineering including the size of the faculty, the quality of admitted students and the quality of the faculty measured by their citation data and other factors. Originality/value The paper demonstrates that average peer assessment scores can be readily and accurately predicted with observable data on the college of engineering and the university as a whole. In addition, the individual parameter estimates from the statistical modeling in this paper provide insights as to how specific college and university attributes can help guide policies to improve an individual college’s average peer assessment scores and its overall ranking.


2015 ◽  
Vol 26 (5) ◽  
pp. 632-659 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdullah A Alabdulkarim ◽  
Peter Ball ◽  
Ashutosh Tiwari

Purpose – Asset management has recently gained significance due to emerging business models such as Product Service Systems where the sale of asset use, rather than the sale of the asset itself, is applied. This leaves the responsibility of the maintenance tasks to fall on the shoulders of the manufacturer/supplier to provide high asset availability. The use of asset monitoring assists in providing high availability but the level of monitoring and maintenance needs to be assessed for cost effectiveness. There is a lack of available tools and understanding of their value in assessing monitoring levels. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – This research aims to develop a dynamic modelling approach using Discrete Event Simulation (DES) to assess such maintenance systems in order to provide a better understanding of the behaviour of complex maintenance operations. Interviews were conducted and literature was analysed to gather modelling requirements. Generic models were created, followed by simulation models, to examine how maintenance operation systems behave regarding different levels of asset monitoring. Findings – This research indicates that DES discerns varying levels of complexity of maintenance operations but that more sophisticated asset monitoring levels will not necessarily result in a higher asset performance. The paper shows that it is possible to assess the impact of monitoring levels as well as make other changes to system operation that may be more or less effective. Practical implications – The proposed tool supports the maintenance operations decision makers to select the appropriate asset monitoring level that suits their operational needs. Originality/value – A novel DES approach was developed to assess asset monitoring levels for maintenance operations. In applying this quantitative approach, it was demonstrated that higher asset monitoring levels do not necessarily result in higher asset availability. The work provides a means of evaluating the constraints in the system that an asset is part of rather than focusing on the asset in isolation.


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-65
Author(s):  
Damodaran Rajasenan ◽  
M. S. Jayakumar ◽  
Bijith George Abraham

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to link the multifarious problems of the elderly in a socio-economic and psychological framework. Design/methodology/approach – The universe of the sample is elderly left behind in emigrant households in Kerala. In total, 600 samples were mustered using multistage stratified random sampling method. The paper, with the aid of factor analysis, χ2 and correspondence analysis, blemish the principal factors responsible for the migration-induced exclusion of the elderly. Findings – The empirical result derived from the study shows that migration-induced exclusion is all pervasive in Kerala. The elderly left behind yearn for the presence of their children rather than the emigration and concomitant remittances. Research limitations/implications – The findings of the study are helpful to the policy makers to understand the issues faced by the elderly and include all stakeholders concerned to find a solution to tackle these problems faced by the elderly due to emigration of their children. Practical implications – The study is practically relevant in developing appropriate policy framework in Kerala as it illumines the role of the government to overcome the exclusionary trend and other manifold problems of the elderly. Social implications – The study sheds light to a new social problem developing in the state in the form of elderly exclusion owing to emigration of the young working groups in regional dimensions, demographic levels, community angles and the emerging culture of old age home in the Kerala economy and society. Originality/value – The study is a unique one and tries to situate the principal factors responsible for the emigration-induced exclusion of the elderly in Kerala with empirical evidence.


2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 203-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Windebank ◽  
Ioana Alexandra Horodnic

Purpose France is a model of best practice in the European Union as regards policy to combat undeclared work. The purpose of this paper is to take the country as a case study to evaluate the competing explanations of why people engage in undeclared work which underpin such policy, namely, the dominant rational-economic-actor approach and the more recent social-actor approach. Design/methodology/approach To evaluate these approaches, the results of 1,027 interviews undertaken in 2013 with a representative sample of the French population are analysed. Findings The finding is that higher perceived penalties and risks of detection have no significant impact on the likelihood of conducting undeclared work in France. In contrast, the level of tax morale has a significant impact on engagement in the activity: the higher the tax morale, the lower is the likelihood of participation in the undeclared economy. Higher penalties and risks of detection only decrease the likelihood of participation in undeclared work amongst the small minority of the French population with very low tax morale. Practical implications Current policy in France to counter undeclared work is informed principally by the rational-economic-actor approach based on a highly developed infrastructure for detection and significant penalties alongside incentives to declare small-scale own-account work. The present analysis suggests that this approach needs to be supplemented with measures to improve citizens’ commitment to compliance by enhancing tax morale. Originality/value This case study of a country with a well-developed policy framework to combat undeclared work provides evidence to support the social-actor approach for informing policy change.


Author(s):  
Abdul-Nasser H.R. Hikmany ◽  
Umar A. Oseni

Purpose This paper aims to examine the prospects of a dispute resolution framework for the Islamic banking industry in Tanzania under the existing legal framework. Design/methodology/approach This paper is based on comparative study by drawing significant lessons from other jurisdictions, and argues that to avoid some of the initial drawbacks in the dispute resolution framework for Islamic banking transactions in more advanced jurisdictions like Malaysia and United Kingdom, it is important for Tanzania to get it right from the onset to effectively manage Islamic banking disputes. Findings The study finds that apart from the court system which provides the main avenue for Islamic finance litigation, other processes such as arbitration and mediation which are deemed to be more sustainable could also be developed for effective dispute management. Research limitations/implications The study focuses on Tanzania banking system with comparison to other jurisdictions. Practical implications An increase of Sharī’ah-compliant products in Tanzania has led to the establishment of a number of Islamic banks. This study demonstrates the need for Tanzania to make use and/or make adjustment of its laws for effective dispute settlement of banking-related disputes. Originality/value This study appears to be the first paper to draw significant experiences from other jurisdictions to resolve Islamic banking disputes in Tanzania. It is expected to provide a good policy framework for the stakeholders in the Islamic banking industry in Tanzania.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document