Digital preservation of information sources at academic libraries in Jordan: an employee’s perspective

Purpose Digital preservation requires new skills and collaboration among library staff to maintain long-term access to information resources. Digital content and digital technologies pose a serious challenge to information institutions to continue to select, preserve and access information resources. However, there is an urgent need to increase awareness of the new trends in the partnership between research communities and academic libraries; there is also a need for new digital preservation-related skills among librarians. Therefore, this research aims to investigate the benefits, importance, requirements and challenges of digital preservation in academic libraries in Jordan.Design/methodology/approach A questionnaire was disseminated to 150 library staff working at the 10 public universities in Jordan, with 133 questionnaires suitable to analyze with a response rate of (88.6%).Findings The results indicate a moderate perception of the benefits and importance of digital preservation, as well as the requirements and challenges in academic libraries in Jordan to carry out the digital preservation process. This indicated the importance of increasing the academic libraries' – specifically academic libraries in Jordan – awareness of the vast and important benefits of digital preservation to maintain long-term access to information. It was noted that factors such as sex, experience, educational level and specialization did not affect the results.Practical implications The findings will provide insights for other academic libraries on how to plan and develop preservation policies to maintain access to information.Social implications Access to information is a human right that contributes to the advocacy of sustainable development, and hence, digital preservation can facilitate long-term availability and accessibility to information.Originality/value This paper provides insights and practical solutions for academic libraries in response to technological development and the change requirements. It will help academic libraries handle and cope with the challenges of providing distance library services over digital channels.

Experiences of stressful situations and mindfulness training for persons with visual impairment

The aim of this study was to explore what persons with visual impairment (VI) experienced as stressful in their daily lives and their experiences with using mindfulness training (MT) to cope with stressful situations. In order to explore this we conducted semi-structured interviews with six persons with VI after finishing an 8-week MT course. Systematic text condensation was used to analyze the interviews. This qualitative study found that the participants described three main areas of stress: (1) lack of access to information, (2) social expectations, and (3) navigating the body through one’s surroundings. The participants’ experiences with using MT to cope with stressful situations resulted in emotion-based and problem-based strategies: (1) breathing anchor, (2) awareness of and reflection upon thoughts and feelings, (3) most things are doable, (4) tackling the situation in a new way, and (5) haste makes waste. Our respondents described using MT for coping with stressful situations in all the three main areas of stress. Based upon this study we propose that there is good reason to offer MT as stress management for persons with VI, but further study is required to confirm the health-promoting benefits of MT for this group.

Outside Training of Spanish University Students of Education for the Didactic Application of Cinema: Formal, Non-Formal, and Informal Perspectives

Nowadays, audiovisual media play a central role in access to information and in personal relationships. Among the audiovisual media is cinema, which due to its heterogeneous nature, can fulfill diverse educational functions. The objective of this study was to learn about the training that future teachers in Spain receive outside of their teaching degree for the didactic use of cinema. In addition, we sought to understand the influence of training on perceptions regarding the educational potential of cinema and the predisposition to its use. Using a quantitative approach, information was collected from 4659 students from 58 Spanish universities. The questionnaire used covered perceptions about the potencialities of cinema as a didactic resource in pre-school and primary classrooms (PECID). The results showed that 95.1% of the students had not received training. In addition, we found a significant influence of training on their perceptions of the educational possibilities of cinema. Furthermore, we found an influence on their predisposition to use training in their future teaching practice. Overall, it is necessary to implement training actions to fill the gaps detected in favor of a quality education with active learning and linked to society.

Transparency in the Municipal Public Management: An Evaluation of Rio Grande do Sul State’s Municipalities

The objective of the present study is to determine the transparency level of Rio Grande do Sul state’s municipalities, identifying the variables that explain it. This is a documental and quantitative research, observing the most recent information disclosed in the state’s transparency websites, identifying if the data disclosure is correct, through the Municipal Public Management’s Transparency Index, as well as the regression analysis and descriptive statistics. In this way, it is possible to observe that most state’s municipalities present an average level of transparency. Besides, it was observed that, from the eleven socioeconomical variables that were analyzed, only five are capable of influencing the transparency index. Therefore, many measures must still be adopted by the state’s municipal managements, so that they enforce the Access to Information Law and fulfill all of the aspects that come from the transparency.

Leading Trends in Innovative Development – Identification using Marketing Research

Access to information has become extremely easy these days. Hence the common belief that we have established an information society in which knowledge is treated as the greatest wealth and which at the same time constitutes the basis for innovative development of enterprises, countries, regions. The paper presents identification of the leading areas of innovative technological development using marketing research. This allows the main objective to be fulfilled, which is to help choose the directions of research. . The source of data was the international exhibition of inventions held annually in Geneva, treated here as a case study. The research covered exhibitions held in 2017 and 2019, for which over 500 presented new solutions were classified each time. The results were confronted with a national event gathering inventors – the Polish National Student-Inventor Competition. Every year, approximately 100 solutions are submitted to the competition and then evaluated.

Transformation of Historically Black Universities in South Africa to Provide Access to Information

South African universities were divided along racial lines of historically Black, White, and Afrikaans universities. Pieces of legislation such as the Bantu Education Act No. 47 of 1953 and the Extension of University Education Act No. 45 of 1959 were enacted by the apartheid regime to provide inferior education to Black communities. However, after the transition from apartheid to democracy, the National Commission on Higher Education was established in 1996 to develop a framework to transform higher education. The transformation of higher education led to the integration of information management systems. The governance structures, resources allocations, training and development of staff were pillars to transform higher education. The exclusion of information management implies poor administration and little access to information. Post-apartheid South Africa recognized the significance to access information for university internationalization.

The Information Access Law as a Full Constitutional Citizenship Instrument

This chapter addresses the right of access to information, reinforced as a fundamental rule for citizens in the Brazilian constitutional norm of 1988, now regulated, more closely, from the enactment of the law on access to information in 2011. It represents an important legislative instrument of reinforcement of the principle of publicity, as well as the main infraconstitutional standard guaranteeing access to information. The requirement of a clear and transparent accountability environment by the public manager is a republican assumption of massive participation by society. This is because the right of access to information of a public nature provides a better control of public expenditures, while allowing, on the other hand, promotion of social control of a diffuse nature. It should be pointed out that, with greater knowledge of their own rights, the citizen goes through a faster inclusion process, either in the subjectivation of a minimal role of rights that he does not know, or in the clarification of his duties as a participant in the process of state maintenance.

Measuring the Use of Mobile Applications in Higher Education

The proliferation of use of mobile applications has increased access to information and the way we communicate and collaborate. Higher education institutions must follow this trend and cannot ignore this. They should make efforts to integrate them in their routines, namely in their students. This chapter aims to extend the understanding about the actual use of mobile applications and how users report using them, namely in the classrooms. The main objective of this literature review is to conduct a critical literature review on this use. For this purpose, an analysis of several articles in reference publishers and journals was carried out. As a result of the analysis and cross-checking of literature data, it could be concluded that the use of mobile applications that users make and the one they claim to make may differ. It is intended to understand this problematic and analyse methods that may result in more precise data in this context. These data may be used, for example, to define strategies, namely helping higher institutions defining the use of m-learning.

IAEA Safeguards: Correctness and Completeness of States’ Safeguards Declarations

In the light of the occasional challenges in recent years to the legal authority of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to verify the correctness and completeness of States’ declarations under comprehensive safeguards agreements, the chapter assesses the law and practice on this issue since the early 1990s. In particular, the chapter focuses right and obligation of the IAEA to verify the correctness and completeness of States’ declarations—one of the most fundamental principles in the implementation of comprehensive safeguards agreements. The chapter provides a detailed textual and historical analysis indicating that, in fulfilling that obligation, the IAEA is not limited to access to information about nuclear material which has been declared by the Agency, or to locations where such material has been declared by the Agency. A contrary interpretation would cause the IAEA to revert to a pre-1991 approach to verification that focused primarily on declared nuclear material, which resulted in the IAEA’s failure to detect Iraq’s undeclared nuclear programme.