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5856 results in Facet Publishing

Page 97 of 293

  • 9 - Supporting e-commerce and e-government (Purpose 5)

  • from PART II - PURPOSES OF METADATA
  • David Haynes
  • Book:
    Metadata for Information Management and Retrieval
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    10 January 2018, pp 139-150

  • Summary

    Overview

    This chapter considers the ways in which metadata is used for e-commerce and egovernment. It describes use of metadata for marketing and online behavioural advertising. E-commerce is illustrated with an example from the book trade, ONIX, and with a description of music industry metadata and digital images. It finally looks at egovernment, focusing on the documentary aspects of transactions and the role that metadata plays in facilitating these transactions.

    Electronic transactions

    E-commerce and e-government are two sides of the same coin. They are about human interaction with organisations via the internet that result in transactions of one kind or another. In the case of e-commerce that interaction is with commercial organisations. In e-government the interaction is with public bodies. E-government has a slightly wider definition, in that public education and information can also be considered a part of e-government even if it is not a part of a specific transaction.

    The main difference between the two is that transactions with individuals may involve metadata behind the scenes, but do not require overt handling of metadata by the consumer. For instance if an individual is recording a life event via the internet (such as registering a death), the ‘Tell Us Once’ service in the UK effectively allows surviving relatives to complete one death registration form and the data on that form is used to inform the local authority, the tax authorities, benefits agencies, vehicle licensing, passport office and national savings accounts.

    Many e-commerce and e-government systems depend on tagging (metadata) to make their sites discoverable by target groups and the use of metadata in this way is explored in Chapter 6 on retrieving information. Ecommerce and e-government systems also deal with personal data and data about website interactions using technologies such as cookies to track usage of a site. This raises privacy issues which are discussed in Chapter 14. This chapter includes a discussion about metadata for cookies in the context of online behavioural advertising, a major focus for e-commerce activity.

  • 11 - Managing metadata

  • from PART III - MANAGING METADATA
  • David Haynes
  • Book:
    Metadata for Information Management and Retrieval
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    10 January 2018, pp 163-184

  • Summary

    Overview

    This chapter considers the issues surrounding the management of metadata and describes some of the techniques that are used for metadata management. The project lifecycle concept is used as the framework for discussion of metadata management. The management of metadata starts with analysing metadata requirements and moves on to the development and selection of metadata schemas. There is then a discussion about encoding metadata and the use of controlled vocabulary before turning to content rules. Interoperability of metadata schemas focuses on crosswalks and metadata registries. Quality management covers the use of administrative metadata and reviews issues such as security of information. The final part of the chapter looks at user education and the presentation and use of search aids to make metadata more accessible. The chapter concludes with a view on convergence of management practice for metadata across the domains.

    Metadata is an information resource

    Managing metadata, like other aspects of information management, has to be appropriate to the requirements of its users and fit for purpose. If the metadata is too detailed, it is costly to maintain. If it is not detailed enough, the functionality is severely limited. Metadata must be applied in a consistent way and should be retrievable by those who need access to it. The management of metadata can be seen as a series of stages, although in most instances a user will only be concerned with one or two stages in the cycle.

    Metadata is an information resource and as such can be described in terms of a lifecycle with specific activities and processes at each stage:

  • • Analysing metadata requirements – This will be determined by the main purpose (or purposes) of the metadata.

  • • Selecting and developing metadata schemas – Factors such as the nature of the data being described, the community using it, and pre-existing conventions and standards need to be taken into account.

  • • Encoding and maintenance of controlled vocabularies – Many metadata standards do not specify what encoding is used. Controlled vocabularies can be developed and maintained using thesaurus techniques.

  • • Applying metadata – Cataloguing rules can be used to ensure consistency in the way in which metadata is applied.

  • • Importing metadata – The choice of source of metadata to import will depend on factors such as the quality of data available and its compatibility. Crosswalks and metadata registries provide a means of mapping between different schemas.

  • 2 - Defining, describing and expressing metadata

  • from PART I - METADATA CONCEPTS
  • David Haynes
  • Book:
    Metadata for Information Management and Retrieval
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    10 January 2018, pp 19-34

  • Summary

    Overview

    This chapter describes some of the concepts associated with metadata. It considers ways in which metadata can be expressed and focuses on document mark-up languages. It then considers schemas as one method of defining metadata standards and data elements. Databases of metadata are described as an alternative to embedded metadata. The last section of the chapter shows some examples of how metadata is used in different contexts such as document creation, records management, library catalogues, digital repositories and image collections.

    Defining metadata

    Metadata is used in catalogues of digital and physical information resources. The requirements for books in a library catalogue might be very different from the metadata embedded in a web page, but the general concepts of metadata apply to both. Its use for digital and printed resources provides some helpful examples. Document mark-up languages such as SGML and XML are widely used to express metadata standards.

    Document mark-up

    The development of mark-up languages is an excellent example of the way in which metadata can be applied to and expressed in documents. Electronic documents are one of the most common forms of digital object to which metadata is applied, and range from web pages through to electronic records, and may incorporate text, images and interactive material.

    Mark-up languages were initially developed to describe the layout and presentation of documents. They enabled organisations to manage large numbers of documents that needed to be presented in different formats. Mark-up languages also provide a means of defining metadata standards.

    Mark-up languages, which arose from text processing, are defined as: ‘computer systems that can automate parts of the document creation and publishing process’ (Goldfarb and Prescod, 2001). Mark-up languages containing a combination of text and formatting instructions include:

  • • HTML

  • • XML

  • • TEI

  • • LaTeX.

    • Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML)

    Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) is used as the basis for describing many web pages and for marking up metadata. Generalised document mark-up originated in the late 1960s from the work of three IBM researchers, Goldfarb, Mosher and Lorie, whose initial letters make up the ‘GML’ in SGML (Goldfarb, 1990).

  • Preface

  • David Haynes
  • Book:
    Metadata for Information Management and Retrieval
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    10 January 2018, pp xi-xii

  • Summary

    THIS IS NOT A ‘HOW TO DO IT’ BOOK. There are several excellent guides about the practical steps for creating and managing metadata. This book is intended as a tutorial on metadata and arose from my own need to find out more about how metadata worked and its uses. The original book came out at a time when there were very few guides of this type available. Metadata Fundamentals for All Librarians provided a good starting point which introduced the basic concepts and identified some of the main standards that were then available (Caplan, 2003). It was an early publication from a period of tremendous development and in an area that was changing day to day. Introduction to Metadata, published by the Getty Institute, represented another milestone and provided more comprehensive background to metadata (Baca, 1998). It is now in its third edition (Baca, 2016).

    In my work as an information management consultant many colleagues and clients kept asking the questions: ‘What is metadata?’, ‘How does it work?’, and ‘What's it for?’. The last of these questions particularly resonated with the analysis and review of information services. This led to the development of a view of metadata defined by its purposes or uses. Since the first edition of Metadata for Information Management and Retrieval there have been many excellent additions to the literature, notably Zeng and Qin's book, simply entitled Metadata, which is now in its second edition (Zeng and Qin, 2008; 2015; Haynes, 2004). I also enjoyed Philip Hider's book, Information Resource Description, which is substantially about metadata from a subject retrieval perspective (Hider, 2012). There are many other excellent tomes, some of which are mentioned in the main body of this book. I hope that this second edition adds a unique perspective to this burgeoning field.

    This book covers the basic concepts of metadata and some of the models that are used for describing and handling it. The main purpose of this book is to reveal how metadata operates, from the perspective of the user and the manager. It is primarily concerned with data about document-based information content – in the broadest sense. Many of the examples will be for bibliographic materials such as books, e-journals and journal articles.

  • 5 - Resource identification and description (Purpose 1)

  • from PART II - PURPOSES OF METADATA
  • David Haynes
  • Book:
    Metadata for Information Management and Retrieval
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    10 January 2018, pp 77-94

  • Summary

    Overview

    The chapter begins with a discussion of resource identifiers. It then considers how resource description is used to distinguish between different information resources. Some widely used identifiers such as ISBNs, DOIs, ISSNs, ISTCs and ISANs are described. ‘Description’ underpins other purposes such as retrieval and rights management. The chapter then looks at other metadata used for describing information resources by considering in turn: title; creator; bibliographic citation; date; format; and description.

    How do you identify a resource?

    Hider talks about metadata in terms of describing information resources, the primary purpose of which is to facilitate information access and use. He goes on to discuss data elements:

    Each element describes an aspect or attribute of the information resource […] Clearly some attributes are more relevant in the provision of information access than are others.

    (Hider, 2012, 15)

    He makes the point that metadata used to describe a resource is a representation of that resource. Taking this argument further, an identifier can be seen as an extreme form of representation of a resource – reducing it to a single sequence of digits or characters in a code. In effect an identifier could act as a surrogate for the resource, although they are more usually handled as labels for the resource.

    Identifiers

    A fundamental requirement of any description system is to have a way of uniquely identifying an item, so that it is clear what is being described. This is a particular concern in online records management, where there are different levels of aggregation. Is the resource being described as a single document, a series of documents on a particular topic, or a collection of items? For a small collection, an identifier could simply be the title of a book or piece of music. However, with even quite modest collections ambiguity becomes a significant issue, as when two different books share the same title, or where the same work may have different versions of the title (as with translated works). Identifiers such as ISBNs can be used to distinguish between them, although because ISBNs are assigned to manifestations rather than works, they are not a reliable way of disambiguating two titles. Additional metadata such as Author would be needed to distinguish between two works.

  • 12 - Taxonomies and encoding schemes

  • from PART III - MANAGING METADATA
  • David Haynes
  • Book:
    Metadata for Information Management and Retrieval
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    10 January 2018, pp 185-202

  • Summary

    Overview

    This chapter is all about the content of metadata elements. Permissive standards such as Dublin Core describe what each field or data element is for, but do not specify how the content of that data element is generated. For instance, the ‘dc:creator’ data element might contain the name of an organisation as it is known to the website manager, it might be taken from an authority file, or it may be created according to a set of cataloguing rules such as AACR2. This chapter is about the techniques or mechanisms that are used to manage and control the content of individual data elements. This is important for consistency, quality of retrieval and efficiency of operation. Controlled vocabularies, authorities and cataloguing rules all come under the heading of encoding schemes. A more detailed treatment of cataloguing can be found in Welsh and Batley (2012). The development and use of controlled vocabularies are covered in classic works such as Aitchison, Gilchrist and Bawden (2000) and more recently in Broughton (2006). Lambe (2007) and Broughton (2015) deal with aspects of classification and taxonomies – also important sources of terms for metadata elements.

    Role of taxonomies in metadata

    Hedden (2016) recognises the convergence of metadata and taxonomies and the richness of software applications to handle taxonomies and ontologies. It is key to managing the content of metadata elements. Lambe (2007) sees metadata as one way of instantiating a taxonomy, the other being a thesaurus. Increasingly taxonomies and controlled vocabularies are being incorporated into document and information management products and services such as Sharepoint 2013. White (2016) makes a strong case for the use of taxonomies and controlled vocabularies in an enterprise search environment. Bloggers such as Earley (2017) and the Metadata Research Center (Drexel University, 2017) have also contributed to discussion about metadata and taxonomies.

    Encoding and maintenance of controlled vocabularies

    One of the strengths of metadata schemas such as Dublin Core is that it provides a means of comparing the content of data elements for different resources. Each element has a defined meaning, so that there is a semantic relationship. This means, for instance, that the Creator data element will contain information about the person, group or organisation responsible for creating the resource. This provides a mechanism for implementing the semantic web, where like can be compared with like.

  • PART II - PURPOSES OF METADATA

  • David Haynes
  • Book:
    Metadata for Information Management and Retrieval
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    10 January 2018, pp 75-76

  • Summary

    One of the organising principles of the first edition of this book was that metadata could be categorised by purpose. The original five purposes reflected the preoccupations of information professionals in the early 2000s. Many of these purposes have stood up to scrutiny and Part II builds on that model, but with six purposes. This part of the book starts with resource identification and description (Chapter 5) as before. Chapter 6 looks at information retrieval and the impact that metadata has on it. It necessarily discusses retrieval theory moving beyond the measures of precision and recall that were discussed in the first edition. This part then moves on to ‘Managing information resources’ (Chapter 7) and looks at the role of metadata in managing the information lifecycle. Chapter 8 considers intellectual property rights, including provenance. Previously there was a chapter on e-commerce and this has been developed into a description of the role of metadata supporting e-commerce and e-government (Chapter 9). It is illustrated with examples from the book trade (ONIX), e-learning environments and research data (including ‘big data’). The final chapter in Part II is about information governance (Chapter 10), dealing with ethical and regulatory issues. Risk is used as a lens through which to view regulation and governance.

  • 13 - Health information systems: clinical data capture and document architecture

    • By Faten Hamad, Library and Information Science Department, University of Jordan
  • Edited by Christine Urquhart, Hamad Faten, Dina Tbaishat, Alison Yeoman
  • Book:
    Information Systems
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2017, pp 233-254

  • Summary

    COMMENTARY: ALISON YEOMAN

    In this chapter, Faten Hamad looks at the challenges facing developers of health information systems. The chapter first provides an overview of how the concepts of information architecture can be applied in the context of healthcare systems. In Chapter 2, the author has explained that the key to successful information architecture is to create a structured, shared environment that is accessible and meets the needs of users. She pointed out that users often have different needs, preferences and behaviour, as noted also by Rosenfeld, Morville and Arango (2015). Consequently, designing a system that works effectively for all users is not easy.

    This is particularly true in the case of healthcare, a system that can be viewed as both ‘complicated’, because of the number of components in the system (e.g. the number of users of a particular computer interface), and ‘complex’, because of the web of relationships and interactions between healthcare professionals, professionals and patients (Kannampallil et al., 2011). In the introduction Hamad identifies five challenges for developers working in this environment:

  • • a lack of resources and evidence base

  • • legacy information systems developed for particular functions, which do not integrate well with other systems

  • • a lack of information sharing

  • • the need for rigorous safety management systems and regulatory mechanisms

  • • the sheer volume of information that healthcare organisations have to manage.

    • She then considers clinical data management and the importance of data sharing including the challenges of combining information from different sources or in different formats and ensuring that staff enter data correctly.

    Hamad cites Almunawar and Anshari (2012), who describe health information systems as sitting at the intersection between the business of healthcare provision and the information systems to support clinical work. She explains that ‘clinical research and investigation’, where the emphasis is on case reports and ‘big data’ (the collection of large amounts of data), has benefitted from recent advances in technology and electronic data capture, which is explored in Section 13.4. For general health information systems, on the other hand, the emphasis is on effective information exchange and communication. This leads to a discussion of electronic health records, the challenge of integrating them with electronic data captures, and developing HL7 (Health Level Seven) standards to support the efficient and secure exchange of health information.

  • 9 - A theoretical framework for designing and evaluating semi-structured document triage interfaces

  • Edited by Christine Urquhart, Hamad Faten, Dina Tbaishat, Alison Yeoman
  • Book:
    Information Systems
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2017, pp 145-170

  • Summary

    COMMENTARY: CHRISTINE URQUHART

    The authors of this chapter (Fernando Loizides and Aekaterini Mavri) consider several topics that will be of interest to readers. A notable feature of it is that they back up their recommendations with references to research evidence. Instead of the usual ‘how to’ guidelines that can be found in manuals of information architecture, this chapter explains why designers should pay attention to certain elements of information architecture, for example, and refers to the research evidence. As the authors themselves emphasise, ‘user studies’ is a huge area of research, and it is impossible to refer to all the underpinning evidence. Another problem is that ‘user studies’ means different things to different disciplines with an interest in the information user.

    The dialogue project (Dervin and Reinhard, 2006; Dervin, Reinhard and Shen, 2006) examined convergences and divergences in how three fields (library and information science, human–computer interaction and communication and media studies) looked at users and each other. The authors concluded that proper shared dialogue was desirable, but rare. The structures for commun - ication across research and practice, and between the disciplines, did not make for mutual understanding, easy discussion, or – frankly – the understanding of users or audiences that the researchers (and practitioners) truly want. Power, prestige and a dependence on ‘authority’ get in the way. With that in mind, and without taking away from the excellent presentation of research evidence in this chapter, you should remember that you may need to approach the evidence in this chapter (and other chapters in this book) with the sense-making questions set out in the introduction. What are my reactions to this evidence? What do I agree with? What do I disagree with? What else do I need to know or experience to make further progress with this topic?

    There are several themes in this chapter. First, there is the idea of the semistructured document. The authors’ emphasis is on journal articles, patents and similar research study formats, and how these may be presented to readers to help them evaluate their contents quickly and successfully. There is considerable research on the difference in comprehension of reading text (usually linear text) on screen versus paper (e.g. Mangen, Walgermo and Bronnick, 2013).

  • 5 - Analysing activities, roles and processes

    • By Christine Urquhart, Department of Information Studies, Aberystwyth University, UK (1993–2009), Dina Tbaishat, Assistant Professor at the University of Jordan, Library and Information Science Department
  • Edited by Christine Urquhart, Hamad Faten, Dina Tbaishat, Alison Yeoman
  • Book:
    Information Systems
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2017, pp 71-84

  • Summary

    Introduction

    This chapter introduces some of the terminology used in chapters 6, 7 and 8 on process modelling. Chapter 7 explains how to apply a particular business process modelling technique called Riva, but other approaches can be taken and the current chapter starts with an overview of what is meant by ‘use cases’ and how use case descriptions help when trying to analyse activities. This is followed by a brief explanation of object-oriented analysis and unified modelling language (UML). This is extremely brief, but we need to put some aspects of systems analysis and modelling into place against some library work that may be familiar to most readers. We cannot do much more here than indicate that there is work going on, for example, on the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) to map FRBR to other schemes that use an object-oriented approach. Despite efforts to implement a more systematic and unified approach, using UML, business systems analysis methods continue to diverge in ways that sometimes make conversations between library staff and the IT developers more difficult. It is very easy to get bogged down in the detail of mapping from one modelling method to another, and forget the big picture of how the processes actually fit together. The chapter concludes with an overview of the Riva methodology for deriving the process architecture for an organisation (or library service within an organisation).

    Chapter 4 emphasised that the practice of information architecture may be fluid, and that roles and responsibilities may be diffuse. It is therefore important to be able to check the big picture of what is going on, and to identify the important processes and how they relate to the business of the organisation.

    Section 5.2 discusses what the term use case means and how use cases are used in information systems modelling. Section 5.3 explains basic process concepts, Section 5.4 explains how to derive a process architecture, and there are conclusions in Section 5.5.

    Modelling the functions of an information system – use cases

    Digitisation has changed many of the activities undertaken by libraries by introducing new functions, changing roles and relationships among different staff roles. Jisc work on digitisation and documents often refers to use cases, for example the use cases of the Copac Collection Management (CCM) Tools Project (https://ccm.copac.jisc.ac.uk/use-cases/).

  • 4 - The enterprise website and its information structures

    • By Sally Burford, Faculty of Arts and Design at the University of Canberra, Australia
  • Edited by Christine Urquhart, Hamad Faten, Dina Tbaishat, Alison Yeoman
  • Book:
    Information Systems
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2017, pp 49-70

  • Summary

    COMMENTARY: CHRISTINE URQUHART

    Sally Burford's grounded theory of practising web information architecture is a contrast to the project phases advocated by many information architecture consultants. There are echoes here of earlier information systems research that demonstrated that design and implementation was a messy process, not something neat where packages of activities followed each other in a logical and orderly sequence. Rosenfeld, Morville and Arango (2015, 356) describe an information architecture strategy as organising and structuring an information environment to provide direction and scope, before moving into the design and implementation phase. However, they acknowledge that, in practice, the business strategy is likely to co-evolve with the information architecture (358).

    One question that interested me when reading Sally Burford's research was whether there were aspects of the four foundational constructs (owning information architecture, negotiating information architecture, enacting information architecture, knowing information architecture) that were missing from some of the classic advice on information architecture. Table 4.1 illustrates the components Burford identified, set against comments other information architecture consultants or researchers made. As far as possible, I have used library and information service case studies, and references to other chapters in the book.

    I have not done a comprehensive search to find examples, but it is likely that the areas identified by Burford, and which may be overlooked (or perhaps dealt with implicitly), concern governance, making the most of opportunities (and acting fast), and trying to ensure that organisational learning about information architecture takes place across the organisation.

    If, as Burford indicates, practising information architecture often comes with fuzzy responsibilities, the need to connect with many different aspects of the organisation (marketing, customer services), and is an emerging practice, then how can those involved make the communication easier? Chapter 7 discusses how the process architecture may be obtained, and stresses the importance for libraries of relating to the main functions of the organisation. Elmendorf, Hinton and Hoff (2015) look at other modelling techniques that help the information architecture team and the organisation understand what the problem space includes, before moving on to resolving how to meet the needs. Seeing the problems visually as a conceptual model helps everyone involved to appreciate what the priorities really are.

  • 6 - Libraries and the organisation of library processes – a history of operational research, and the use of process modelling

    • By Dina Tbaishat, Assistant Professor at the University of Jordan, Library and Information Science Department
  • Edited by Christine Urquhart, Hamad Faten, Dina Tbaishat, Alison Yeoman
  • Book:
    Information Systems
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2017, pp 85-106

  • Summary

    COMMENTARY: CHRISTINE URQUHART

    Chapter 6 examines the history of operations research within libraries, and some of the more recent changes to academic libraries, the new roles required for staff, and the challenges to provide services that meet needs, within budgetary constraints. The chapter concludes with an overview of some examples of the use of business process modelling techniques. Strategic planning is mentioned frequently in the library literature but mostly in aspirational terms – urging staff (presumably) onwards for the greater good of the library and its users. It is more common to read about the challenges of new roles – but what happens to the old roles? Pritchard (2013) points out that libraries need a strategic approach to training that goes beyond individual development needs, but looks at organisational needs at several levels. She suggests that libraries identify which skills and competencies are required by all staff, which are required somewhere, and which could be obtained from external resources. Some skills will be required to advance strategic library goals, others for operational purposes. Ideally such attention to skills and role redevelopment should link to the institutional goals.

    Chapter 5 discussed how a process architecture could be developed that might help libraries assess their fit within an organisation, but it is unclear from the literature how many libraries do more than pay lip service to the principles of serving the mission of the organisation. Franklin (2012), for example, suggests that academic libraries should shift from divisions of activities based on traditional library functions to structures that reflect organisational goals (undergraduate education, research, outreach etc.). This might be bewildering to many staff if there was total upheaval, and a likely mid-road compromise might be some relabelling, but the same functions would continue as before. As Chapter 5 emphasises, business process analysis requires commitment and time to succeed. The suspicion that most library staff do not feel they have the time or the energy for anything other than tinkering at the edges might be confirmed by the survey of library mission statements compared with institutional mission statements, where a discourse analysis found very weak links between the sets of statements (Wadas, 2017). On the other hand, in practice, when library staff are confronted with users with needs, they may well get on with the job as best they can at the operational level.

  • 12 - Methods for studying information provision, networking and communication in patient support groups

    • By Cristina Vasilica, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Digital and Social Media in Healthcare, Paula Ormandy, Chair in Long Term Conditions Research at the University of Salford
  • Edited by Christine Urquhart, Hamad Faten, Dina Tbaishat, Alison Yeoman
  • Book:
    Information Systems
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2017, pp 205-232

  • Summary

    COMMENTARY: CHRISTINE URQUHART

    In the evaluation of the patient support portal, Cristina Vasilica and Paula Ormandy used activity theory, which was originally proposed by Russian psychologist Alexey Leontiev, and is rooted in early 20th century Russian psychology. There are two main ideas: the social nature of the human mind, and the inseparability of human mind and activity, the former idea elaborated by Vygotsky, and the latter by Rubinshtein (Clemmensen, Kaptelinin and Nardi, 2016). Vygotsky's theories of learning emphasise the social far more than those of Piaget, and Vygotsky's ideas about scaffolding, social interactions and learner support are used in the design of distance learning platforms and virtual learning environments (e.g. Boettcher, 2004; Huang, Rauch and Liaw, 2010). The version of activity theory commonly presented is based on the work of Engeström and team (Engeström, Miettinen and Punamäki, 1999), which added the notion of community to the subject–object interaction. An activity is seen as a system of human ‘doing’ in which a subject works on an object in order to obtain a desired outcome. To do this, the subject employs tools, which may be external to the subject, or internal. The common representation of activity theory shows one inner triangle with apices for subject, object and community, and an outer triangle that has apices for the mediating tools. Between subject and object, the mediating artefacts are tools (as mentioned), between community and object there is a division of labour (to allow distribution of activity), and between subject and community there are rules.

    For example, in a study that used activity theory to examine web application requirements, the tools included the internet, books and methodologies; the rules included trading standards and policies; and the division of labour included roles such as the warehouse despatcher and the web developer (Uden, Valderas and Pastor, 2008). The subject was the customer; the object was the product to be purchased; and the community included managers, customers and software companies. Pretty straightforward, seemingly, but the value of using activity theory to frame the later analysis of activities into actions and operations, and hence the task model, is that the interactions between people, their tools and resources are described (unlike most examples of hierarchical task analysis).

  • 11 - Increasing social connection through a community-of-practice-inspired design

    • By Catherine M. Burns, Professor in Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo, Canada, Adam Euerby, Senior Product Designer at FairVentures Lab
  • Edited by Christine Urquhart, Hamad Faten, Dina Tbaishat, Alison Yeoman
  • Book:
    Information Systems
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2017, pp 185-204

  • Summary

    COMMENTARY: CHRISTINE URQUHART

    Catherine Burns and Adam Euerby used cognitive work analysis to help design a website intended to foster community of practice principles in order to improve networking. First, we need to appreciate the history of cognitive work analysis, and where the ideas about the work domain analysis come from. It's important to recognise that both cognitive work analysis and communities of practice have evidence behind their concepts, and that they are not merely theoretical frameworks that seem to work.

    Cognitive work analysis comes from studies conducted by Rasmussen and colleagues at the Riso National Laboratory in Denmark in the early 2000s (Naikar, 2017). They were tasked with improving the safety of nuclear power plants in Denmark. Observations confirmed that the hardware was indeed reliable, but that, despite this, accidents could still happen. Human error appeared responsible, when workers were confronted with unfamiliar circumstances. However, the research indicated that had the workers known fully the state of the system, they could have formulated an appropriate response. Later research examined six professional technicians, problem-solving with different types of instruments, which each had a particular fault. Detailed analysis of the verbal protocols (think-aloud protocols) produced a coding scheme that revealed patterns in the reasoning used by the technicians. The technicians reasoned at different levels of abstraction (from the physical properties to the general functional purpose) and at different levels of decomposition (whole system through to a component). This formed what they termed the two-dimensional abstraction-decomposition space. Generally, the technicians started in the most abstract (purpose)/whole system corner and worked through to the opposite corner (physical form/component) – although the line of working could zig zag a little. These findings led to the first stage of cognitive work analysis modelling – the work domain analysis. This was developed by Vicente (2002) (among others) for design of interfaces that displayed three modes of cognitive reasoning: skill-based, rules-based and knowledge-based behaviour. The aim of systems designed through CWA is often to support workers in dealing with unexpected situations. Workers should be able to explore a number of ways of dealing with the situation while remaining within the boundaries of acceptable performance (Naikar, 2017).

  • 10 - Resource discovery case studies

  • Edited by Christine Urquhart, Hamad Faten, Dina Tbaishat, Alison Yeoman
  • Book:
    Information Systems
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2017, pp 171-184

  • Summary

    COMMENTARY: CHRISTINE URQUHART

    This chapter discusses three Jisc-funded resource discovery projects at academic libraries throughout the UK: a photograph project at Queen's University Belfast, the use of the balanced value impact model for stakeholder and audience analysis at Middlesex University's Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture, and building a better content management system at the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) and Special Collections at the University of Reading. This tries to meet the needs of casual visitors, and bring more visitors to the site.

    The Queen's University project was designed jointly by library staff and the academics from the School of Modern History and Anthropology. One of the reasons for this collaborative approach was the benefit of dissemination among academic networks by academics, so project outputs could be used and reviewed by faculty elsewhere. Importantly, the project outputs were cited in other publications, which in turn led to discovery of resources by other academics and doctoral students. In a comparison of the referencing behaviour of doctoral students and faculty members, Lariviere, Sugimoto and Bergeron (2013) found that doctoral students generally tend to cite more documents per article than do faculty, and that the literature that they cite is generally more recent. This is not surprising, but what was surprising was that faculty in social sciences and the humanities were far more likely to cite theses than the doctoral students. The authors suggest that through their academic networks, including the examination process for doctoral students, faculty are likely to be aware of relevant research by doctoral students elsewhere – and such research may take a long time to get published in books or journals, if it is published at all.

    Academic partners in the project added annotations for the photographs. Roles and responsibilities for the various elements of the work could probably be fairly well defined. When reviewing the history of library–faculty collaboration, Cunningham (2010) suggests that digital humanities projects present good opportunities for collaboration as the projects may be multidisciplinary – or at least produce material that is of interest to several fields of research. Collaboration between faculty and library staff is essential as digital humanities scholars may not appreciate the importance of guidelines for preservation – nor the need for metadata for preservation.

  • 1 - Introduction

    • By Christine Urquhart, Department of Information Studies, Aberystwyth University, UK (1993–2009)
  • Edited by Christine Urquhart, Hamad Faten, Dina Tbaishat, Alison Yeoman
  • Book:
    Information Systems
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2017, pp 1-8

  • Summary

    Introduction

    This book attempts to bridge some of the gaps between discrete areas of research that information professionals could use to design helpful and effective information systems and services. We know the problem of silo thinking, and it can be hard to make the connections, to see patterns and the big picture across different research cultures, or even within one broad discipline. An editorial in MIS Quarterly(Goes, 2013) points out that information systems research has many streams, many different ways of thinking and doing research. This variety is healthy and probably unavoidable if the broad discipline is to grow and flourish. We are not alone in library and information science and information systems research in facing challenges in deciding how to do research or evaluate practice. It helps to have different perspectives on a problem. Different viewpoints can help to formulate a research question that can be answered, help decide on appropriate methods to use and help to discuss the findings in relation to the existing evidence.

    As a group of editors, we have diverse areas of research and teaching interests, covering information retrieval, health information research, knowledge translation and evidence-based practice, information behaviour research, systems analysis and business process analysis. Our teaching and research experience has helped us realise that there are problems with communication across different silos. For example, information architecture within the library and information science field has often been the study of content management. Information seeking may be accommodated for navigation tools, but the activities, processes and workflows that might accompany an information systems architecture may be less obvious. Information behaviour research often seems separate from research on the design of information systems. The context that is so important in information behaviour research may come into personal support and services to support the information systems (hence much of the work on information literacy) but information behaviour research may not contribute directly to information systems design as much as it could. Information behaviour research often focuses on information seeking, and less attention is given to the use of information, and the processes involved in this.

  • 3 - Taxonomy testing for information architecture

    • By Christine Urquhart, Department of Information Studies, Aberystwyth University, UK (1993–2009)
  • Edited by Christine Urquhart, Hamad Faten, Dina Tbaishat, Alison Yeoman
  • Book:
    Information Systems
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2017, pp 33-48

  • Summary

    COMMENTARY: FATEN HAMAD

    In this chapter Christine Urquhart considers several methods used for taxonomy testing. She starts by discussing taxonomy development, asserting that the term taxonomy is closely related to classification schemes although, strictly speaking, in information science taxonomies mean the subject domain and how labels in that domain are sorted hierarchically (Blackburn, Smallwood and Earley, 2014). Classification schemes on the other hand are the base for knowledge organisation to place an object in the most appropriate place or class; they are based on taxonomies (also discussed in Chapter 2, ‘Approaches to information architecture’). In other words, taxonomies generally concern the labels for naming contents in a classification scheme in a standardised manner. The author asserts that social, cultural and political differences have a strong effect on the choice of classification and taxonomies; what might be an appropriate taxonomy in one culture might not be appropriate in another one.

    Other considerations include the extent of users’ experience, whether they are indexers or end users. For instance, Section 2.5 demonstrated that a person's information-seeking behaviour and their experience and characteristics affect their navigation and use of information space (Schaik and Ling, 2012). Another problem addressed in this chapter is whether the terms are hierarchical or used by association. The most common organisational structure is hierarchical or taxonomical classification. Information architects examine the way different concepts are related to each other within the domain of interest, and group similar content items logically into categories or subject groups. The author emphasises that the hierarchy and associations involved should be tested as well as the taxonomy.

    This chapter discusses card sorting methods as useful ways to test taxonomy to ensure usability and accessibility; these often focus on hierarchy testing. The main ones are variations of open and closed card sorting. Case studies (of two academic websites and one database) demonstrate some problems that are associated with website navigation and design; the focus of discussion is the taxonomy testing strategy that authors of each case study employed in their evaluation.

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