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This paper aims to investigate the current state and influential factors in the development of digital literacy of the students in Thailand’s higher education institutions.

The quantitative research method was applied with a survey conducted to collect information from the target group that consisted of administrators, lecturers and students of 116 Thai universities. Respondents included 81 administrators, 500 lecturers and 1,000 students.

The findings revealed that 61.73 per cent of the universities set digital literacy as an undergraduate program policy, 30.86 per cent set it as a student development policy, while 12.35 per cent do not have any policy in this regard. In total, 40.74 per cent of the universities establish digital literacy as the required graduates’ trait, and 22.22 per cent establish it as a graduate’s identity. The study of factors related to digital literacy development showed that the respondents see that all of the factors affect students’ digital literacy development at a high level, including infrastructures, human resources, students’ awareness, external environments, development process, university’s policy and academic management.

In Thailand, universities have seen the importance of information literacy development for students at a certain level. However, the concepts of information literacy and digital literacy differ. While information literacy mainly comprises technical skill and information management skill, digital literacy is composed of technical skill, cognitive skill and emotional-social skills. This paper presents the first research on digital literacy development in Thai higher education.

The maker movement is showing signs of gaining popularity as it matures. As information institutions, libraries find themselves admirably positioned to serve as hosts for formal makerspaces that encourage turning ideas into reality. Though equipment for innovation is becoming more affordable and therefore more available for general use, many products do not include accessible design, which hinders the significant population of potential inventors who have disabilities. This chapter seeks to provide guidance to organizations that want to implement universally accessible makerspaces.

This chapter is the result of a semester-long project in which students at the University of Maryland worked with a local library seeking to build a new universally accessible makerspace. Article reviews, interviews, and solicitations for information from the field helped form the understanding and suggestions provided in this project.

Interaction with field experts led to specific suggestions for library staff on policy, equipment, and staffing.

Accessible makerspaces make it possible for anyone to exercise creative endeavors by providing equipment and materials that encourage innovation regardless of ability.

Literature about universally accessible library-owned makerspaces is very scarce. This chapter serves to bring together writing and practice in both universal accessibility and makerspaces to provide a starting point for other institutions considering implementing similar services.

The aim of this paper is to investigate whether/how youths’ pre-existing beliefs regarding health-related topics influence their online searching behaviors, such as their selection of keywords and search results, their credibility assessments and the conclusions they draw and the uses they make (or do not make) of the information they find. More specifically, we sought to determine whether positive hypothesis testing occurs when youth search for health information online and to ascertain the potential impacts this phenomenon can have on their search behaviors, their ability to accurately answer health-related questions and their confidence in their answers.

An exploratory field experiment was conducted with participants in an after-school program (“HackHealth”), which aims to improve the health literacy skills and health-related self-efficacy of middle-school students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

Evidence of positive hypothesis testing among the participants was found and important impacts on their search outcomes were observed.

The paper was concluded with suggestions for improving digital literacy instruction for youth so as to counteract the potentially negative influences of positive hypothesis testing.

This study extends existing research about positive hypothesis testing to investigate the existence and impact of this phenomenon within the context of tweens (ages 11-14) searching for health information online.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on disadvantaged tweens’ (ages 11 through 13) strategies for making predictive and evaluative judgments of the credibility of health information online. More specifically, this paper identifies the features of Google search results pages and web sites that signal credibility (or lack thereof) to this population and the reasons behind their perceptions.

The authors employed an ethnographic approach (using various types of data collection methods) targeted to generate in-depth descriptions of tweens making predictive and evaluative judgments of credibility, focussing on the ways in which these tweens naturally assess the credibility of online information.

The research has yielded novel findings concerning the types of factors that influence disadvantaged tweens’ credibility assessment strategies, such as limited English-language vocabularies, lack of familiarity with perhaps otherwise well-known sources, and forced reliance on (and/or general preference for) non-textual modalities, such as audio and video.

The findings indicate a need for implementing digital literacy programs in a naturalized setting, building on tweens’ existing heuristics and thereby resulting in strategies that are simultaneously compatible with their natural inclinations within the online environment and likely to consistently lead them to accurate credibility-related judgments.

This study provides novel insights into how disadvantaged tweens interact with online health information in a natural context, and offers invaluable information regarding the ways in which credibility assessment processes should be facilitated within formal or informal digital literacy programs.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on middle-school-aged young people’s information-seeking behavior and the knowledge and perceptions they have of and about federal government websites.

The case study included 37 youth across four middle schools in the mid-Atlantic USA who all participated in a research-focused after-school program. During these sessions, they participated in several data collection activities, including an interview, a survey, a word association activity, an evaluation of the homepage of a government website, and card-sorting. Using conventional, directed, and summative content analysis techniques, the narratives from each data collection activity were coded using in vivo and theory-based terms.

The study finds that the majority of participants viewed government websites favorably, but were frequently unsure of what government websites are or who is responsible for their creation. Perhaps more significantly, participants’ views of information-related policies frequently were raised during discussions about government websites. The perceptions reflected the youth information-seeking behaviors and information literacy gaps.

Overall, these findings shed light on the opinions of an understudied population in e-government research and inform both policy makers and educators on how to best disseminate government information to youth.

To establish an accurate and sensitive method to characterize the moisture content of a particular environment.

This paper proposes a relatively simple humidity sensor design consisting of electrodes on a suitable substrate coated with a polyimide material. The changes in relative humidity are denoted by a corresponding change in the polyimide material's electrical resistance profile. The design proposed in this work can be microfabricated and integrated with electronic circuitry. This sensor can be fabricated on alumina or silicon substrates. The electrode material can be made up of nickel, gold or aluminum and the thickness of the electrodes ranges typically between 0.2 and 0.3 μm. The sensor consists of an active sensing layer on top of a set of electrodes. The design of the electrodes can be configured for both resistive and capacitive sensing.

The polyimide material's ohmic resistance changes significantly with humidity variations. Changes in resistance as large as 4‐6 orders of magnitude are attainable over the entire operational humidity range.

As the sensitivity varies non‐linearly with the humidity, the measurement has to be carried out over a very wide range in order to calibrate the sensor. The sensitivity and output range of the sensor can be easily controlled by changing the electrode spacing or geometry.

The control of humidity is important in many applications ranging from bio‐medical to space exploration.

A simple, easy to fabricate and measure, and low cost resistive‐type humidity sensor was developed. The realized sensor is suitable for integrating with microfabrication. Hence, multiple sensors of varying sensitivities and output ranges could be integrated on the same chip. Over the last few years, newly emerging micro‐electro‐mechanical‐systems technology and micro‐fabrication techniques have gained popularity and importance in the miniaturization of a variety of sensors and actuators.

This study aims to examine the combined impact of environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings on the market and financial performance of Egyptian companies during the period from 2007 to 2016 and, thereby, determines the influence of the recent political revolutions –that broke out in the MENA region in early 2011 – on the association between ESG practices and corporate performance.

The present work uses data from the S&P/EGX ESG index, which is the first of its kind in the MENA region. The ESG index is designed to increase the profile of companies listed on the Egyptian Exchange and is expected to boost the level and quality of ESG practices in the Egyptian context. The sample includes the 100 most active Egyptian companies in the Egyptian Stock Exchange as measured by the EGX 100 index in the financial year that ended in 2016. The sample begins in 2007, concurrent with the start of the ESG index, and ends in 2016. The period from 2007 to 2010 represents the pre-revolution period, and the period from 2012 to 2016 is the post-revolution period.

Firms with high ESG ratings are found to enjoy a better financial and market performance. The authors found some evidence that the influence of ESG ratings on financial performance is more obvious after the revolutions than before the revolutions.

This study provides insights regarding the impact of political events on the market in the Middle East region. Despite its increasing economic and political importance, this region still suffers from inadequate attention in the literature. The present work investigates the variances that evolved out of the events that started in early 2011 and the implications of these events on the market. The results of this study have implications for regulators and investors in the Egyptian stock market. The authors believe that the relatively new S&P/EGX ESG index provides a way to enhance ESG ratings in Egypt.

The results of the present study provide insights for policymakers regarding the usefulness of the sustainability indices.

The present results contribute to the growing literature on the economic consequences of ESG ratings, especially in relation to a context characterized by intense political/revolutionary changes. In particular, this study contributes to the few works that have addressed the economic implications of ESG ratings in emerging markets.

The purpose of this study is to explore the configuration of network ties that would have a positive impact on performance outcomes and test the presumed impact of multilevel strategic alliances on innovation and firm performance in a specific industry.

This study comprises part of a larger project on the network relations of yacht-building firms operating in Turkey. Data of the study was collected through face-to-face interviews and questionnaires with 143 yacht-building firms operating in major yacht-building regions of the country.

The findings of the study indicated the presence of meaningful relationship between total number of (strong) network relations perceived as strategic alliance and overall innovation performance. The generally presumed positive relationship between innovation performance and firm performance was supported. The type of innovation performance that was found to be related to the total number of network ties perceived as strategic alliance at national and global levels was product innovation performance.

A possible contribution of this study for industry members would be the implications of the finding that indicates positive impact of strategic alliances with different actors of the industry.

This study contributes to the exploration of network configurations that have a positive impact on innovation and firm performance, by dealing with the impact of the size, strength and geographical level of network relations in one single study. The yacht-building industry as the empirical setting represents a specific category of industry that rests on customized individual or small-batch manufacturing requiring considerable interaction with customers and suppliers. Because no study exists on this topic, findings can inspire similar industries.