Search results

The paper aims to provide an overview of the background and context of the decision by a Canadian research library to invest in developing and implementing its own in‐house library leadership development program (LLDP).

This paper is a case study and is presented in three parts: leadership circumstances within the Canadian research libraries, with particular reference to The Future of Human Resources in Canadian Libraries (the 8Rs Study), the University Library at the University of Saskatchewan and its Strategic Plan, with particular reference to its relationship and engagement strategy and other strategic HR initiatives; and the conceptualisation, content and competencies of the LLDP. This paper discusses why and how a leadership development program has been implemented.

The paper shows that LLDP is a work‐in‐progress and is a practical step in a journey to change organizational culture, and build individual and organizational leadership capacity.

While some of the context is Canadian specific, the local strategy implementation has relevance and applicability in other academic and research library contexts.

This paper provides a discussion of current leadership challenges for Canadian research libraries, including a leadership development strategy exemplified by the experiences and work underway at the library at the University of Saskatchewan.

The purpose of this paper is to place all of the contributions to this special issue into a theoretical framework and to highlight the role that the so‐called “information age mindset” has in the facilitation of employability skills.

The paper discusses the major themes of this special issue.

Undergraduate students do see the importance of technological innovation in the classroom but they see the development of experiential or work‐based skills to be more important.

Future curriculum design should consider the expectations and attitudes of the modern day undergraduate student to ensure that potential employability is maximised.

The findings are placed into the wider context of the emerging field of evolutionary educational psychology.

Academic writing is often considered to be a weakness in contemporary students, while good reporting and writing skills are highly valued by graduate employers. A number of universities have introduced writing centres aimed at addressing this problem; however, the evaluation of such centres is usually qualitative. The paper seeks to consider the efficacy of a writing centre by looking at the impact of attendance on two “real world” quantitative outcomes – achievement and progression.

Data mining was used to obtain records of 806 first‐year students, of whom 45 had attended the writing centre and 761 had not.

A highly significant association between writing centre attendance and achievement was found. Progression to year two was also significantly associated with writing centre attendance.

Further, quantitative evaluation of writing centres is advocated using random allocation to a comparison condition to control for potential confounds such as motivation.

The Virginia Tech Library System is an integrated library system supporting cataloging, authority control, serials control, circulation, reserve room, acquisitions, document delivery, online public‐access catalog, keyword searching with Boolean operators, and statistics reporting. It runs on the Hewlett‐Packard HP/3000 line of computers. Initially installed in 1975, there are currently 104 users. Sidebars discuss: The Vanilla Network; LINNEA—the library information network for Finnish academic libraries; and the statewide information and referral service at Cabell County Public Library (West Virginia).

To describe the utility of three of the main cognitive neuroscientific techniques currently in use within the neuroscience community, and how they can be applied to the emerging field of neuromarket research.

A brief development of functional magnetic resonance imaging, magnetoencephalography and transcranial magnetic stimulation are described, as the core principles are behind their respective use. Examples of actual data from each of the brain imaging techniques are provided to assist the neuromarketer with subsequent data for interpretation. Finally, to ensure the neuromarketer has an understanding of the experience of neuroimaging, qualitative data from a questionnaire exploring attitudes about neuroimaging techniques are included which summarize participants' experiences of having a brain scan.

Cognitive neuroscientific techniques have great utility in market research and can provide more “honest” indicators of consumer preference where traditional methods such as focus groups can be unreliable. These techniques come with complementary strengths which allow the market researcher to converge onto a specific research question. In general, participants considered brain imaging techniques to be relatively safe. However, care is urged to ensure that participants are positioned correctly in the scanner as incorrect positioning is a stressful factor during an imaging procedure that can impact data quality.

This paper is an important and comprehensive resource to the market researcher who wishes to use cognitive neuroscientific techniques.

The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a survey study of the achievement of twenty‐first century skills in higher education.

The study employs a quantitative survey design.

The findings indicate that the basic scientific and technological skills of reading critically and writing persuasively as well as accessing and using information efficiently have been achieved to a great extent in the context of the study; whereas, mathematical and scientific skills and global awareness and cross‐cultural issues still need more attention. Variations in the level of mastery as well as gender differences in the achievement of certain skills clusters were also identified and discussed in light of the robustness of the theory of the “universal digital native”.

The results cannot be generalized into other contexts and the data were basically self‐reported and not corroborated by evidence from triangulated sources.

Effective dealing with the basic and technological skills should be continued; however, more attention should be given to the development of the skills in mathematics and the sciences. Likewise, the visual‐literacy skills and the levels of global awareness and cross‐cultural understanding and appreciation should be improved.

This exploratory study fills a knowledge gap and may set the stage for further research into the extent to which the twenty‐first century skills are being realized by institutions of higher learning given the scarcity or non‐existence of this research.

This paper aims to explore the internal processes that can enable firms to identify and effectively respond to brand crises, with various groups coordinating and cooperating with each other, and also propose a guiding framework relevant for both managers and researchers.

A grounded theory methodology was adopted. Data collection included open-ended interviews with 13 executives representing the integrated marketing communications (IMC) function, the integrated corporate communications function and external agencies supporting firms while navigating crises.

Results revealed a three-stage process of internal coordination efforts during crises: sensing or scanning the environment and gathering insights regarding crises, informing or disseminating these insights throughout the organization to create transparency and responding or reacting to the event via a coordinated effort.

The framework does not directly incorporate input from consumers or customer contact employees, both of which may be relevant.

Findings offer direction for managers to establish processes that prepare for and potentially reduce crises’ negative consequences. In addition, this study reveals the importance of decision-makers being vigilant regarding social media’s influence on such a process.

The conceptual framework moves beyond previous brand crisis research, provides insight into the processes firms use to successfully manage crises and reveals the relevant factors related to internal coordination.

Formal opportunities for psychology undergraduates to carry out research training are starting to emerge. In spite of the fact that such training programmes would have a high authentic learning component little is known of undergraduate expectations and attitudes towards such programmes. This paper aims to focus on the issues.

In total, 108 undergraduate participants were surveyed in two experiments that recorded both the prospective and retrospective attitudes towards research training participation. Questionnaires and focus groups were employed and the data were triangulated together to converge on an understanding of student expectations towards authentic learning programmes.

While psychology undergraduates expect to be trained in contemporary research techniques it is the sense of community development that is the prime motivator for participation.

The paper places these findings within the context of increasing the employability profile of the undergraduate cohort.

This paper describes the use of the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting in the NSF’s National Science Digital Library (NSDL). The protocol is used both as a method to ingest metadata into a central Metadata Repository and also as the means by which the repository exports metadata to service providers. The NSDL Search Service is used to illustrate this architecture. An early version of the Metadata Repository was an alpha test site for version 1 of the protocol and the production repository was a beta test site for version 2. This paper describes the implementation experience and early practical tests. Despite some teething troubles and the long‐term difficulties of semantic compatibility, the overall conclusion is optimism that the Open Archive Initiative will be a successful part of the NSDL.