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This paper aims to present recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy, providing an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of publications covering various library types, study populations and research contexts.

This paper introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations, reports and other materials on library instruction and information literacy published in 2019.

The paper provides a brief description of all 370 sources and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.

The information may be used by librarians, researchers and anyone interested as a quick and comprehensive reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

Over the past 30 years, China has made dramatic changes and improvements in various educational areas, including the educational technology field. These changes have been supported by policies initiated by the country's central government. This chapter reviews the historical development of China's educational technology policies, paying particular attention to the evolutionary process, and examining policy features that have influenced Chinese educational development. The Chinese education technology framework encourages the use of educational technology to address more ambitious goals for economic and social development and thus serves as an important catalyst for advancing Chinese education.

This chapter is a presentation of Mexico’s efforts in advancing inclusive education as a vehicle to provide children with special needs a quality and equitable education. It provides a detailed description of the development, realignment of educational practices, and polices necessary to allow inclusive education to succeed. The chapter begins with the origins of special education in Mexico via four stages. Next, the chapter provides a comprehensive classification of disability and the prevalence rates in Mexico. Then, the chapter delineates legislation and public policy that are essential components in providing a quality and equitable special education system. Next, a comprehensive description of special education intervention models follows along with how these models are incorporated in current teacher preparation endeavors. The chapter concludes with a summary of the progress that Mexico has attained in moving toward inclusive education as well as challenges to inclusive education.

Information and communications technology (ICT) offers enormous opportunities for individuals, businesses and society. The application of ICT is equally important to economic and non-economic activities. Researchers have increasingly focused on the adoption and use of ICT by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as the economic development of a country is largely dependent on them. Following the success of ICT utilisation in SMEs in developed countries, many developing countries are looking to utilise the potential of the technology to develop SMEs. Past studies have shown that the contribution of ICT to the performance of SMEs is not clear and certain. Thus, it is crucial to determine the effectiveness of ICT in generating firm performance since this has implications for SMEs’ expenditure on the technology. This research examines the diffusion of ICT among SMEs with respect to the typical stages from innovation adoption to post-adoption, by analysing the actual usage of ICT and value creation. The mediating effects of integration and utilisation on SME performance are also studied. Grounded in the innovation diffusion literature, institutional theory and resource-based theory, this study has developed a comprehensive integrated research model focused on the research objectives. Following a positivist research paradigm, this study employs a mixed-method research approach. A preliminary conceptual framework is developed through an extensive literature review and is refined by results from an in-depth field study. During the field study, a total of 11 SME owners or decision-makers were interviewed. The recorded interviews were transcribed and analysed using NVivo 10 to refine the model to develop the research hypotheses. The final research model is composed of 30 first-order and five higher-order constructs which involve both reflective and formative measures. Partial least squares-based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) is employed to test the theoretical model with a cross-sectional data set of 282 SMEs in Bangladesh. Survey data were collected using a structured questionnaire issued to SMEs selected by applying a stratified random sampling technique. The structural equation modelling utilises a two-step procedure of data analysis. Prior to estimating the structural model, the measurement model is examined for construct validity of the study variables (i.e. convergent and discriminant validity).

The estimates show cognitive evaluation as an important antecedent for expectation which is shaped primarily by the entrepreneurs’ beliefs (perception) and also influenced by the owners’ innovativeness and culture. Culture further influences expectation. The study finds that facilitating condition, environmental pressure and country readiness are important antecedents of expectation and ICT use. The results also reveal that integration and the degree of ICT utilisation significantly affect SMEs’ performance. Surprisingly, the findings do not reveal any significant impact of ICT usage on performance which apparently suggests the possibility of the ICT productivity paradox. However, the analysis finally proves the non-existence of the paradox by demonstrating the mediating role of ICT integration and degree of utilisation explain the influence of information technology (IT) usage on firm performance which is consistent with the resource-based theory. The results suggest that the use of ICT can enhance SMEs’ performance if the technology is integrated and properly utilised. SME owners or managers, interested stakeholders and policy makers may follow the study’s outcomes and focus on ICT integration and degree of utilisation with a view to attaining superior organisational performance.

This study urges concerned business enterprises and government to look at the environmental and cultural factors with a view to achieving ICT usage success in terms of enhanced firm performance. In particular, improving organisational practices and procedures by eliminating the traditional power distance inside organisations and implementing necessary rules and regulations are important actions for managing environmental and cultural uncertainties. The application of a Bengali user interface may help to ensure the productivity of ICT use by SMEs in Bangladesh. Establishing a favourable national technology infrastructure and legal environment may contribute positively to improving the overall situation. This study also suggests some changes and modifications in the country’s existing policies and strategies. The government and policy makers should undertake mass promotional programs to disseminate information about the various uses of computers and their contribution in developing better organisational performance. Organising specialised training programs for SME capacity building may succeed in attaining the motivation for SMEs to use ICT. Ensuring easy access to the technology by providing loans, grants and subsidies is important. Various stakeholders, partners and related organisations should come forward to support government policies and priorities in order to ensure the productive use of ICT among SMEs which finally will help to foster Bangladesh’s economic development.

The purpose of this paper is to extend the understanding of innovation in service ecosystems by focussing on the role of values resonance in relation to the integration of brands, service systems and experience rooms.

An empirical, explorative case study of an innovative service system is carried out using a narrative approach and presented in the form of a saga.

Insights gleaned from the empirical study are used for conceptual developments. Analysis of the empirical case study is presented as four lessons linked to values, brands, service systems and experience rooms.

The paper extends a conceptual framework of innovative resource integration in service ecosystems. The paper also contributes four propositions to inform theory: values resonance is a basis for service innovation, the innovative integration of brands based on values resonance can foster innovation, the integration of resources across service system boundaries grounded in values resonance can enable innovation and the integration of experience rooms into a coherent servicescape based on values resonance can support novel forms of resource integration and value co-creation efforts in service ecosystems.

The focus of special education around the globe may be to provide specialized instruction to meet unique needs of children to help them achieve their full potential. However, each country around the globe may also have its own unique issues, barriers, legal frames, policies, and practices, as well as a history of its origin and evolution of policies and practices that govern special education in that country. This chapter describes how special education in Spain originated and evolved to its current state. It includes the following chapter sections: origins of special education in Spain; legislative acts; prevalence and incidence of various recognized disability areas; an overview of Spain’s education system including special needs education; current assessment and intervention practices; teacher education practices; family involvement considerations; and future challenges to special education.

The aim of this paper is to present an initiative to apply the principles of Linked Data to enhance the search and discovery of OpenCourseWare (OCW) contents created and shared by the universities.

This paper is a case study of how linked data technologies can be applied for the enhancement of open learning contents.

Results presented under the umbrella of OCW-Universia consortium, as the integration and access to content from different repositories OCW and the development of a query method to access these data, reveal that linked data would offer a solution to filter and select semantically those open educational contents, and automatically are linked to the linked open data cloud.

The new OCW-Universia integration with linked data adds new features to the initial framework including improved query mechanisms and interoperability.

This paper presents recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy, providing an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of publications covering various library types, study populations and research contexts.

This paper introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations, reports and other materials on library instruction and information literacy published in 2020.

The paper provides a brief description of all 440 sources and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.

The information may be used by librarians, researchers and anyone interested in a quick and comprehensive reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

This chapter highlights the characteristics of Asia through the analysis of policy-related documents by five donor countries, namely Japan, South Korea, China, India and Thailand. It will also examine the roles played by regional bodies such as the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO) and ASPBAE (the Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education) as the horizontal channels influencing aid policies in respective countries. Together with the analysis of the national and organizational policies, the regional process of building consensus on the post-2015 agenda is examined, with a particular focus on the Asia-Pacific Regional Education Conference (APREC) held in August 2014.

The analysis reveals that the region has two faces: one is imaginary and the other is functional. There is a common trend across Asian donors to refer to their historical ties with regions and countries to which they provide assistance and their traditional notions of education and development. They highlight Asian features in contrast to conventional aid principles and approaches based on the Western value system, either apparently or in a muted manner. In this sense, the imagined community of Asia with common cultural roots is perceived by the policymakers across the board.

At the same time, administratively, the importance of the region as a stage between the national and global levels is recognized increasingly in the multilateral global governance structure. With this broadened participatory structure, as discussed in the chapter ‘Post-EFA Global Discourse: The Process of Shaping the Shared View of the ‘Education Community’’, the expected function of the region to transmit the norms and requests from the global level and to collect and summarize national voices has increased.

Integration and use of technology in teaching and learning in the education sector from pre-primary education (PPE) to the higher levels of education, is a policy issue. In developed countries, including Tanzania, information and communication technology (ICT), especially in PPE, is inadequately researched for laying evidence on its applicability in instruction and learning. Therefore, this paper aims to determine pre-primary teachers’ preparedness in integrating ICT in classroom instruction and challenges teachers face in integrating it for child’s meaningful learning.

Methods and instruments: a qualitative transcendental phenomenological approach was used in determining teachers’ preparedness in integrating ICT in PPE in Tanzania. It was further used to collect data that describe the teaching and learning through the integration of ICT in every session as their lived experience for pre-primary teachers. Its selection was appropriate as it allowed researchers to systematically analyse for description the commonalities and differences existing among the involved teachers in integrating ICT in teaching and learning as their lived experiences (Moerer-Urdahl and Creswell, 2004). To appropriately analyse teachers’ understanding and experiences regarding ICT and its integration in teaching and learning in pre-primary classes, semi-structured interviews and open-ended questionnaires were used for in-depth understanding of the study problem. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data through open-ended questions where researchers took an average of 40 min per session with participants’ (teachers) using notebooks to take note of their thoughts, feelings and beliefs about ICT integration in PPE. Use of the semi-structured interview was based on the reality that it provides in-depth information pertaining to participants’ experiences and viewpoints of a particular topic (Turner, 2010). Once the interview session was complete, each teacher was given a questionnaire to fill in for triangulating their experiences. Description of participants: a total of 14 schools constituting 28 teachers were purposively sampled and engaged in this study. Analysis of participants’ demographic characteristics indicates that all of the involved teachers had certificate in teacher education that qualified them as primary school teachers. Meanwhile, 18 (66.7 per cent) of the pre-primary school teachers who were involved in this study were female with only 10 (33.3 per cent) had working experience at and above five years of teaching in early grade classes. Study participants (teachers) from Itilima and Meatu Districts were purposively involved in the study as their experiences in young children’s learning and contextual influences (educational and training policy of 2014, the ICT policy of 2007, and foreign studies) are potential in improving the quality of learning. Study area: the current study was conducted in two districts (Itilima and Meatu) all found in Simiyu region. The two districts were selected and considered appropriate by the study as they constituted the 17 most disadvantaged rural areas in Tanzania (Mosha et al., 2015). Authors describe the two districts as having poor educational outcomes mainly relatively low pass rates in the primary school leaving examination results. In Itilima, one ward out of 22 was studied in which its six schools [with a total of 12 teachers] among 87 schools in the district were involved. While in Meatu district, eight of 121 schools [with a total of 16 teachers] in one ward of 29 wards were studied. This implies that a total of 14 schools and 28 teachers were involved in this study. Data analysis: the data collected through the interviews and open-ended questionnaires were subjected to content analysis procedures (reading and re-reading notes and transcripts followed by a three-steps-coding process consisting of open, axial and selective coding procedures). The analysis process was informed by the Vagle’s (2014) six steps for phenomenological research data analysis procedure (holistic reading of the entire text, first line-by-line reading, follow up questions, second line-by-line reading, third line-by-line reading, and subsequent readings). Practically, the researchers read and re-read the texts and transcribed data from the language used during data collection that is Kiswahili, into the reporting language that is English. Following transcription, data were coded for developing categories of data through axial and elective coding processes.

The data analysis was conducted and results and its discussion are presented in three sub-sections: preparedness of teachers in using ICT in teaching and learning; teachers’ views about the integration of ICT in teaching and learning; and challenges faced by teachers in integrating ICT in teaching and learning. Teacher’s preparedness in the use of ICT in teaching: exploration of teachers’ preparedness in integrating ICT in teaching and learning was preceded by exploration of teachers’ understanding of ICT in teaching and learning. Analysis revealed that majority of teachers were aware about ICT in teaching and learning and they understood it as the implementation of curriculum at school level that involves use of ICT-based facilities such as television, mobile phones, computer and radio. Teacher elaborated that appropriate use of ICT-based facilities that would later develop children to potentially improve their understanding and practical application in daily life. Other teachers understood ICT in teaching and learning as use of printed materials [newspapers and magazines] in facilitating pupil’s learning of planned lessons. While other teachers were aware of what ICT means the second category of teachers as noted in their responses, had limited understanding, as to them, ICT in education meant use of printed materials. Difference in teachers’ understanding of the ICT in teaching and learning also indicate some teachers viewing it as use of ICT facilities in developing children’s competencies in the specific subject. In the teachers’ views, ICT is considered as subject content and they delimited their understanding into that perspective ignoring it as technological use for facilitating meaningful learning in all subjects. Their views are based on the development of children with competencies useful in facilitating further learning in the subject known as Teknolojia ya Habari na Mawasiliano. Following the question based on exploring teachers’ understanding of ICT in teaching and learning, researchers explored teachers’ preparedness in using ICT in teaching and learning. Table 1.0 illustrates teachers’ multiple responses regarding their preparation. Table I: teacher’s preparedness in using ICT in teaching and learning. S/N; preparedness; freq; and per cent. Enhancing child’s understanding on the use of ICT-based facilities-20, 71.4; using remedial sessions teaching ICT-12, 42.8; using ICT-based facilities for teaching other classes-8, 28.5. Table 1.0 illustrates that teachers are prepared to enable children use ICT to access information and more knowledge related to their school subjects and general life. They were of the view that ICT could serve well in areas where text and supplementary books are scares or torn-out by pupils because were poorly bound or due to poor quality of papers used. Therefore, availability of ICT facilities in schools would become important resource-materials for pupils, as well as teachers. For instance, a teacher said that; Availability of ICT facilities, such as computers in schools will help us in preparing notes or content for supplementing their learning. Different from the paper-based notes, computers will keep our notes properly compared to the papers that get easily displaced and hard to retrieve notes when lost (Interview, 20 April 2016). In addition to the use of ICT facilities in serving as resource material, their use in schools would aid pupils and teachers to use them beyond teaching and learning. Teachers narrated that children may find games and puzzles that all help in stimulating their thinking, hence interest in schooling and further learning. Teachers also said they are prepared to use even extra hours that are beyond school timetable to ensure children learn well to meet the uncovered periods once facilities are placed in school. Use of extra hours beyond the normal school timetable comm.

The study was limited to the accessed and involved schools as some schools were found to have no specific teachers teaching a pre-primary class on reasons the responsible teacher for the class had retired. As a result, researchers spend extended time to travel and reach schools that were located far from one school to the other. Again, some teachers were reluctant in participation on reasons that researchers are evaluating their competency for reporting to the higher authorities.

Differences in teachers’ understanding of the ICT in teaching and learning also indicate some teachers viewing it as the use of ICT facilities in developing pupils’ competencies in the specific subject. In the teachers’ views, ICT is considered as subject content and they delimited their understanding into that perspective ignoring it as technological use for facilitating meaningful learning in all subjects. Effective integration of ICT for efficiency in instruction depends on the teacher’s preparedness especially competency in using the equipments and infrastructures especially electric power.

Integration of Information and Communication Technology in teaching and learning in PPE is socially important in the view that all children regardless of their background (urban or rural, affluent or poor) benefits in learning through use of technology. The children’s access to education integrating ICT would ensure equal opportunities for quality learning outcomes. In contrast, lack of exposing young children early in using ICT facilities for interaction and learning would adversely impact their participation in knowledge sharing in later years of schooling and employability opportunities.

There is limited empirical evidence about teachers' engagement in research particularly in PPE in Tanzania. Together with limited research in the level of education, this study is the original contribution to state of teachers at the school level about their engagement in integrating information and communication technology for informing education decision makers and administrators on matters of focus to improve educational instruction and implementation of Tanzania education and training policy, as well as the implementation of the ICT policy of 2016.