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This study aims to assess the spread of environmental literacy graduation requirements at public universities in the USA, and to highlight factors that mediate the adoption of this curriculum innovation.

The author analyzed the undergraduate general education curriculum requirements at all 549 public BA-granting higher education institutions in the USA between 2020 and 2022.

The study found that only 27 US public universities out of 540 have an environmental literacy graduation requirement, which represents 5% of universities and is substantially lower than previous estimates.

First, this study provides a more complete, more reliable and more current assessment of the graduation requirement’s presence at US tertiary institutions, and shows the number of universities that have implemented this innovation is lower than was estimated a decade ago. Second, it draws from the scholarship on the infusion of sustainability into the university curriculum to provide a comprehensive discussion of factors that mediate the pursuit and implementation of the graduation requirement. As well, it identifies factors that played a key role in one pertinent case.

Currently, consumers of financial products and services have become more vulnerable to predatory financial institutions, especially in the aftermath of Covid-19 pandemic. Therefore, financial consumers like the persons with disabilities (PWDs) should be equipped with knowledge and skills to help them to evaluate complex financial products on offer in financial markets, especially in developing countries to avoid being victims of fraudulent lending. The purpose of this study is to establish whether customized financial literacy mediates the relationship between financial consumer protection and financial inclusion of PWDs’ owned MSMEs in rural Uganda post Covid-19 pandemic.

SmartPLS 4.0 was used to construct the measurement and structural equation models to test whether customized financial literacy significantly mediates the relationship between financial consumer protection and financial inclusion of PWDs’ owned MSMEs in rural Uganda post Covid-19 pandemic.

The results revealed a partial mediating effect of customized financial literacy in the relationship between financial consumer protection and financial inclusion of PWDs’ owned MSMEs in rural Uganda post Covid-19 pandemic. Conducting customized financial literacy increases financial consumer protection by 12 percentage points to promote financial inclusion of PWDs’ owned MSMEs in rural Uganda post Covid-19 pandemic.

This study focused only on customized financial literacy and financial consumer protection to promote universal financial inclusion of PWDs’ owned MSMEs post Covid-19 pandemic. Future studies may use data collected from other vulnerable groups amongst the unbanked population in developing countries, Uganda inclusive. In addition, this study also collected only quantitative data from the selected population. Further studies can be conducted using key informant interviews and focused group discussion to get the perceptions of the PWDs on being protected from exploitation by unscrupulous financial institutions.

The findings from this study can help policymakers in developing countries like Uganda to revise the existing consumer protection law to include strong clauses on protection of people with special needs like the PWDs. The law must ensure that they are not exploited by financial institutions because of their conditions. The law ought to make sure that the PWDs are educated about their rights in the financial market place and all information on financial products offered by financial institutions should be simplified and interpreted to them before they make consumption decisions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the present study is amongst the first few studies to provide a meticulous and unique discourse on the ever increasing role of financial literacy combined with consumer protection to reduce consumption risks within the financial markets, especially in developing countries in the aftermath of global pandemic shocks. This study uses the social learning theory, theory of reasoned action and theory of planned behaviour to elucidate how customized financial literacy can enhance consumer protection to increase financial inclusion of groups with special needs like the PWDs who have become more susceptible to exploitation by unscrupulous financial institutions in under-developed financial markets, especially in post Covid-19 pandemic.

This research examined the effects of information literacy on lifelong learning, creativity, and work performance among journalists in Pakistan.

Survey research design was applied to conduct this research. The participants were recruited through a stratified convenient sampling process from the press clubs of four provinces (e.g. Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Baluchistan) and the federal capital Islamabad with the consent of relevant authorities for data collection. An online questionnaire was distributed among these journalists and a total of 1,089 responses were received. The data were analyzed by applying descriptive and inferential statistics in SPSS.

The results revealed that these journalists perceived themselves as information literate. The information literacy (IL) skills of journalists appeared to have a direct and positive effect on their lifelong learning, creativity, and work performance. In other words, the lifelong learning, creativity, and work performance of journalists increase as their levels of IL skills increase.

These results generated useful insights for academicians and organizations about the importance of IL in the workplace and its influence on organizational effectiveness and performance in gaining a sustainable competitive advantage. This knowledge might be crucial for media employers to initiate training programs for journalists to impart IL education.

This research would be a worthwhile contribution to the existing research on workplace IL, particularly in the context of journalists' workplace as no such comprehensive study using these variables appeared so far.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-06-2022-0345.

The purpose of this paper is to characterize library and information science (LIS) as fragmenting discipline both historically and by applying Whitley’s (1984) theory about the organization of sciences and Fuchs’ (1993) theory about scientific change.

The study combines historical source analysis with conceptual and theoretical analysis for characterizing LIS. An attempt is made to empirically validate the distinction between LIS context, L&I services and information seeking as fragmented adhocracies and information retrieval and scientific communication (scientometrics) as technologically integrated bureaucracies.

The origin of fragmentation in LIS due the contributions of other disciplines can be traced in the 1960s and 1970s for solving the problems produced by the growth of scientific literature. Computer science and business established academic programs and started research relevant to LIS community focusing on information retrieval and bibliometrics. This has led to differing research interests between LIS and other disciplines concerning research topics and methods. LIS has been characterized as fragmented adhocracy as a whole, but we make a distinction between research topics LIS context, L&I services and information seeking as fragmented adhocracies and information retrieval and scientific communication (scientometrics) as technologically integrated bureaucracies.

The paper provides an elaborated historical perspective on the fragmentation of LIS in the pressure of other disciplines. It also characterizes LIS as discipline in a fresh way by applying Whitley’s (1984) theory.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a transcript of a dialogue among literacy educators and researchers on the impact of generative aritficial intelligence (AI) in the field. In the spring of 2023, a lively conversation emerged on the National Council of Research on Language and Literacy (NCRLL)’s listserv. Stephanie initiated the conversation by sharing an op-ed she wrote for Atlanta Journal-Constitution about the rise of ChatGPT and similar generative AI platforms, moving beyond the general public’s concerns about student cheating and robot takeovers. NCRLL then convened a webinar of eight leading scholars in writing and literacies development, inspired by that listerv conversation and an organizational interest in promoting intergenerational collaboration among literacy scholars.

As former doctoral students of two of the panel participants, webinar facilitators Grace and Victoria positioned themselves primarily as learners about this topic and gathered questions from colleagues, P-16 practitioners and those outside the field of education to assess the concerns and wonderings that ChatGPT and generative AI have raised. The following webinar conversation was recorded on two different days due to scheduling conflicts. It has been merged and edited into one dialogue for coherence and convergence.

Panel participants raise a host of questions and issues that go beyond topics of ethics, morality and basic writing instruction. Furthermore, in dialogue with one another, they describe possibilities for meaningful pedagogy and critical literacy to ensure that generative AI is used for a socially just future for students. While the discussion addressed matters of pedagogy, definitions of literacy and the purpose of (literacy) education, other themes included a critique of capitalism; an interrogation of the systems of power and oppression involved in using generative AI; and the philosophical, ontological, ethical and practical life questions about being human.

This paper provides a glimpse into one of the first panel conversations about ChatGPT and generative AI in the field of literacy. Not only are the panel members respected scholars in the field, they are also former doctoral students and advisors of one another, thus positioning all involved as both learners and teachers of this new technology.

This paper shares findings from a multi-year literacy professional development partnership between a school district and university (2014–2019). We share this case of a Literacy Cohort initiative as an example of cross-institutional professional development situated within several of NAPDS’ nine essentials, including professional learning and leading, boundary-spanning roles and reflection and innovation (NAPDS, 2021).

We asked, “In what ways did the Cohort initiative create conditions for community and collaboration in the service of meaningful literacy reforms?” Drawing on social design methodology (Gutiérrez & Vossoughi, 2010), we sought to generate and examine the educational change associated with this multi-year initiative. Our data set included programmatic data, interviews (N = 30) and artifacts of literacy teaching, learning and leading.

Our findings reflect the emphasis areas that are important to educators in the partnership: diversity by design, building relationships through collaboration and rooting literacy reforms in teacher leadership. Our discussion explores threads of reciprocity, simultaneous renewal and boundary-spanning leadership and their role in sustaining partnerships over time.

This paper contributes to our understanding of building and sustaining a cohort model of multi-year professional development through the voices, perspectives and experiences of teachers, faculty and district administrators.

The purpose of this study is to explore and understand, how strong financial literacy influences the cognitive biases of students in Germany while investing. Second, it also evaluates the most influential cognitive biases that students encounter when undertaking their investment decisions within this environment.

A quantitative approach is used to assess the relationship between financial literacy and students’ investment-related cognitive biases by using the frameworks proposed by Clercq (2019) and Pompian (2012).

The results advocate that the students’ financial literacy positively impacts their cognitive biases within the investment process. It additionally revealed the most significant biases regarding students’ investment decision-making and proposed the possible reasons behind their behavioral distortions.

The study provides a detailed review of the behavioral tendencies of the younger generation while investing and creates recommendations for prospective researchers.

This research lies at the junction of the behavioral finance field, suggesting that it assists in developing a theoretical framework of cognitive biases within students’ financial decisions. Furthermore, it serves as an addition to the financial management subject course that would provide valuable insights about, first and foremost, financial literacy and subsequently, the theory behind the investment process.

The 2020 Coronavirus pandemic forced universities to hastily transition to eLearning on a mass scale, necessitating the identification of populations who are more challenged by the transition. This study aims to identify how students’ level of introversion/extraversion and digital literacy come to play in their satisfaction with the eLearning environment.

The analysis examined 272 Israeli students who moved from a face-to-face learning environment to a Zoom learning environment between March–July 2020, following the outbreak of the pandemic. All the participants completed two rounds of surveys, and 62 of the 272 participants were then interviewed, and their social network was mapped using a sociogram.

Findings indicated that, in accordance with the “poor get richer” hypothesis, introverts expressed more satisfaction from the transition to the video-conferencing Zoom platform than extraverts. In addition, for highly introverted people, high digital literacy was significantly associated with increased course satisfaction, whereas for highly extraverted people, a high number of social ties with peers from the course was associated with course satisfaction.

As expected, the study’s findings shows that there is no “one size fits all” approach for online learning. Learners with different personalities can benefit from learning environments that foster greater satisfaction with the learning experience. Online platforms can, and should, be designed in a way that offers this needed personalization, and this study provides initial principles that can inform such personalization.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-01-2023-0028

This study reports on changes made within the study, plan, teach and reflect steps of lesson study with pre-service teachers who were learning to teach within a disciplinary literacy course.

Using methods associated with formative experiments and design-based research, this study gathered data over four iterations of the disciplinary literacy course. Data included the course materials, pre-service teachers’ written work, observational notes from research lessons, transcripts of post-lesson discussions and teacher-educators’ analysis sessions and pre-service teachers’ post-program interviews. Data were analyzed within and across iterations.

Initial adjustments to the lesson study process focused on the reflect step, as we learned to better scaffold pre-service teachers sharing of observational data from research lessons. Later adjustments occurred in the study and plan steps, as we refined the design of four-day lesson sequences that better supported pre-service teachers’ attention to disciplinary literacy while providing room for their instructional mentors to provide specific team-based feedback. Adjustments to the teach step included reteaching and more explicit attention to literacy objectives.

This paper contributes to the literature by explicitly applying formative experiment and design-based research methods to the implementation of lesson study with pre-service teachers. Furthermore, it contributes examples of lesson study within a disciplinary literacy context, expanding the examples of lesson study’s applicability across content areas.

Climate change poses risks to society and the demand for carbon literacy within small and medium-sized enterprises is increasing. Skills and knowledge are required for organizational greenhouse gas accounting and science-based decisions to help businesses reduce transitional risks. At the University of Copenhagen and the University of Northern British Columbia, two carbon management courses have been developed to respond to this growing need. Using an action-based co-learning model, students and business are paired to quantify and report emissions and develop climate plans and communication strategies.

This paper draws on surveys of businesses that have partnered with the co-learning model, designed to provide insight on carbon reductions and the impacts of co-learning. Data collected from 12 respondents in Denmark and 19 respondents in Canada allow for cross-institutional and international comparison in a Global North context.

Results show that while co-learning for carbon literacy is welcomed, companies identify limitations: time and resources; solution feasibility; governance and reporting structures; and communication methods. Findings reveal a need for extension, both forwards and backwards in time, indicating that the collaborations need to be lengthened and/or intensified. Balancing academic requirements detracts from usability for businesses, and while municipal and national policy and emission targets help generate a general societal understanding of the issue, there is no concrete guidance on how businesses can implement operational changes based on inventory results.

The research brings new knowledge to the field of transitional climate risks and does so with a focus on both small businesses and universities as important co-learning actors in low-carbon transitions. The comparison across geographies and institutions contributes an international solution perspective to climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies.