Search results

Institutional and commercial web profiles that provide biobibliographic information about researchers are used for promotional purposes but also as information sources. In the latter case, the profiles' (re)presentations of researchers may be used to assess whether a researcher can be trusted. The article introduces a conceptual framework of how trust in researchers may be formed based on how the researchers' experiences and achievements are mobilized on the profiles to tell a multifaceted story of the “self.”

The framework is an analytical product which draws on theories of trust as well as on previous research focused on academic web profiles and on researchers' perceptions of trust and credibility. Two dimensions of trust are identified as central to the theoretical construction of trust, namely competence and trustworthiness.

The framework outlines features of profile content and narrative that may influence the assessment of the profile and of the researcher's competence and trustworthiness. The assessment is understood as shaped by the frames of interpretation available to a particular audience.

The framework addresses the lack of a trust perspective in previous research about academic web profiles. It provides an analysis of how potential trust in the researcher may be formed on the profiles. An innovative contribution is the acknowledgement of both qualitative and quantitative indicators of trustworthiness and competence, including the richness of the story told about the “self.”

The activities of academic researchers are increasingly regulated by neo-liberal ideals, including expectations that researchers are visible online and actively promote their output. The purpose of this paper is to explore how researchers take on this responsibility. It uses the concepts of genre, authorship and self-writing in order to understand how the story of an academic life is constructed on academic web profiles.

A qualitative content analysis was conducted of material on 64 profiles belonging to 20 researchers on institutional and personal websites, as well as on ResearchGate, Academica.edu and Google Scholar.

The study shows that while institutional websites primarily contain researcher-produced material, content on commercial platforms is often co-constructed through distributed authorship by the researcher, the platform and other platform users. Nine different ways in which the profile of an “academic self” may be said to highlight the particular strengths of a researcher are identified. These include both metrics-based strengths and qualitative forms of information about the academic life, such as experience, the importance of their research and good teaching.

This study of academic web profiles contributes to a better understanding of how researchers self-govern the story of their academic self, or resist such governance, in online environments.

The study furthers the knowledge of how researchers make use of and respond to digital tools for online visibility opportunities and how the story of the “academic self” is “made” for such public presentation.

The article concerns information literacies in an environment characterised by the two partly competing and contradictory cultures of print and digital. The aim of the paper is to provide a better understanding of the ways in which students assess the credibility of sources they use in school, with a particular interest in how they treat participatory genres.

An ethnographic study of a school class's project work was conducted through observations, interviews, and log books in blog form. The analysis was influenced by a socio‐cultural perspective.

The study provides increased empirically based understanding of students' information literacy practices. Four non‐exclusive approaches to credibility stemming from control, balance, commitment, and multiplicity were identified.

The study adds to the understanding of how credibility is assessed in school environments with a particular focus on how digital and participatory genres are treated.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how students construct narratives of themselves as information seekers in a school context where their descriptions of their information activities are assessed and graded.

Blog posts on credibility judgements written by 28 students at a Swedish upper secondary school were analysed through a bottom-up coding process based in the sociocultural concept of narratives of selves.

Two tensions in the students’ accounts are identified. The first tension is that between the description of the individual, independent student and the description of the good group member. The second tension is between describing oneself as an independent information seeker and at the same time as someone who seeks information in ways that are sanctioned within the school setting.

The study focuses on a specific social practice and on situated activities, but also illustrates some aspects of information activities that pertain to educational contexts in general. It explores how social norms related to credibility judgements are expressed and negotiated in discursive interaction.

The study highlights that when information activities become objects of assessment, careful consideration of what aspects are meant to be assessed is necessary.

The study is based on the idea of information activities as socially and discursively shaped, and it illustrates some of the consequences when information activities become objects of teaching, learning, and grading.

This study aims to develop an in-depth understanding of the underlying dynamics of an emergent shared information practice within a Facebook group, and the resources the group develops to sustain this practice.

In-depth semi-structured interviews were carried out with twenty members from the group. The findings are based on comparative analysis combined with narrative analysis and were interpreted using theories of situated learning and Community of Practice.

The study shows that although members of this multicultural mothers group endorsed different, sometimes opposing parenting practices, the group had to find common ground when sharing information. Managing these challenges was key to maintaining the group as an open information resource for all members. The group produced a shared repertoire of resources to maintain its activities, including norms, rules, shared understandings, and various monitoring activities. The shared online practice developed by the community is conceptualised in this article as an information practice requiring shared, community-specific understandings of what, when, and how information can or should be sought or shared in ways that are valued in this specific community. The findings show that this shared information practice is not static but continually evolves as members negotiate what is, or not, important for the group.

The research provides novel insights into the underlying dynamics of the emergence, management, and sustainability of a shared information practice within a contemporary mothers group on Facebook.

This paper aims to carry out a literature review on the implementation of digital preservation policies, strategies and actions by institutional repositories. The objective is to identify, out of the published experiences, at which level they are fulfilling the function of ensuring the long-term availability of the deposited materials.

Using a systematic literature review methodology, a total of 21 articles from international refereed journals published between 2009 and 2020 are reviewed.

The research production on this subject is very limited. The scarce number of published articles proves that the interest of repository managers has been focused on issues other than to assure the long-term availability of the assets they store. The literature review has not found clear evidence about how institutional repositories are implementing digital preservation. It is particularly striking the lack of works focused on the situation in European countries. More field studies are needed. They would allow to extract conclusions and produce best practices to help managers to improve preservation strategies.

This study has shown that one of the main functions of repositories is not being dealt with as promised by repository managers. More work in this area is needed. In particular, it is necessary for a study at the European level to gather detailed data that will allow to draw a portrait of the current situation, extract conclusions and produce best practices to help managers to improve or develop preservation strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a dialogically based theory of documentary practices and document work as a promising framework for studying activities that are often conceptualised as information behaviour or information practices within Library and Information Science (LIS).

An empirical example – a lesson on how to read railway timetables – is presented. The lesson stems from a research project including 223 Swedish lessons recorded in Swedish primary schools 1967-1969. It is argued that this lesson, as many empirical situations within LIS research, can fruitfully be regarded as documentary practices which include document work such as reading, rather than instances of information behaviour.

It is found that the theoretical perspective of dialogism could contribute to the theory development within LIS, and function as a bridge between different subfields such as reading studies and documentary practices.

The framework is yet to be applied on a larger scale. This would require a willingness to go beyond the entrenched idea of information as the core theoretical concept and empirical object of study within LIS.

The theoretical framework offers a view of the relations between individuals, documents, and social contexts, through which it is possible to explore the social significance of core LIS concerns such as reading, literacy, and document work.

The theoretical framework offers an alternative to the monologist, information-based theories and models of people’s behaviours and practices prevalent in LIS.

The purpose of this study is to contribute with knowledge about how valid research data in biodiversity citizen science are produced through information practices and how notions of credibility and authority emerge from these practices.

Data were collected through an empirical, interview-based study of the information practices of 15 participants active in the vicinity of the Swedish biodiversity citizen science information system Artportalen. Interview transcripts were analysed abductively and qualitatively through a coding scheme by working back and forth between theory and data. Values of credibility, authority and validity of research data were unfolded through a practice-oriented perspective to library and information studies by utilising the theoretical lens of boundary objects.

Notions of credibility, authority and validity emerge through participant activities of transforming species observations to data, supplementing reports with objects of trust, augmenting identification through authority outreach and assessing credibility via peer monitoring. Credibility, authority and validity of research data are shown to be co-constructed in a distributed fashion by the participants and the information system.

The article extends knowledge about information practices in emerging, heterogeneous scholarly settings by focussing on the complex co-construction of credibility, authority and validity in relation to data production.

The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the discursive construction of multimorbidity. The study illustrates how the social reality of multimorbidity and the agency of patients are discursively constructed in scientific articles addressing care for people with multiple chronic conditions.

The study is based on the postmodern assumptions about the power of talk and language in the construction of reality. Totally 20, scientific articles were analysed by critically oriented discourse analysis. The interpretations of the findings draw on the agency theories and principals of critical management studies.

Four discourses were identified: medical, technical, collaborative and individual. The individual discourse challenges patients to become self-managers of their health. It may, however, go too far in the pursuit of patients’ active agency. The potential restrictions and consequences of a “business-like” orientation must be paid careful attention when dealing with patients with multimorbidity.

The data consisted solely of scientific texts and findings therefore serve as limited illustrations of the discursive construction of multimorbidity. In future, research focusing for example on political documents and practice talk of professionals and patients is needed.

The findings highlight the power of talk and importance of ethical considerations in the development of care for challenging patient groups.

By identifying the prevailing discourses the study attempts to cast doubt on the taken-for-granted understandings about the agency of patients with multimorbidity.