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The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which HTTPS encryption and Google Analytics services have been implemented on academic library websites, and discuss the privacy implications of free services that introduce web tracking of users.

The home pages of 279 academic libraries were analyzed for the presence of HTTPS, Google Analytics services and privacy-protection features.

Results indicate that HTTPS implementation on library websites is not widespread, and many libraries continue to offer non-secured connections without an automatically enforced redirect to a secure connection. Furthermore, a large majority of library websites included in the study have implemented Google Analytics and/or Google Tag Manager, yet only very few connect securely to Google via HTTPS or have implemented Google Analytics IP anonymization.

Librarians are encouraged to increase awareness of this issue and take concerted and coherent action across five interrelated areas: implementing secure web protocols (HTTPS), user education, privacy policies, informed consent and risk/benefit analyses.

Third-party tracking of users is prevalent across the web, and yet few studies demonstrate its extent and consequences for academic library websites.

This study explores the benefits of accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA), according to those who are engaged in the practice.

The authors collected data through open-ended, semi-structured telephone interviews. The authors analyzed the data using an inductive methodology.

The authors found that CALEA police accreditation enhances organizational learning through the development of knowledge brokers, the creation of communities of practice, support for knowledge repositories, support for knowledge managers and greater levels of transparency.

This qualitative study, which focuses on the perceptions and experiences of those involved in the CALEA process, provides a valuable complement to the quantitative literature on accreditation by shedding light on the organizational learning resulting from accreditation.

The purpose of this paper is to uncover the right type of organizational slack for innovation. It examines how city managers conceive slack, and how they create slack to facilitate innovation while dealing with fiscal stress.

The study is built around a comparative case study approach to uncover contrasts, similarities and patterns of slack-building for innovation in austere times. It relies on the experiences of 12 experienced city managers. Data are sought from elite interviews and one focus group.

The main finding is that innovation in the public sector does not benefit from slack in general, but from a specific type of slack. The evidence shows that useful slack for innovation is not so much about financial slack or HR slack, but about psychological slack.

This study adds to the literature that the key questions of slack research should not only focus on identifying the “right amount” of slack but also on identifying of the “right type” of slack.

Public managers who want to deal with (fiscal) crises more innovatively might reconsider their perceptions of slack and its value. Rather than operating on a pure cost effectiveness paradigm, they should balance the costs of slack and its innovative abilities.

This paper highlights the social/psychological side of austerity management. It concludes that increasing the ability of public organizations to innovatively cope with fiscal stress is not so much about increasing predictive capacity or financial buffers, but about increasing the mental leeway of coworkers.

This paper theoretically and empirically analyzes the effects of the elderly’s physical health status on their need for care and the choice of care models in China.

Empirically, the estimation results of a large-sample randomized intervention trial with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients through the difference-in-difference method indicated the following: (1) After the COPD intervention trial, the physical health status of the elderly in the treatment group improved significantly, the need for care was substantially reduced and the health improvement led to a 35.5% reduction in the probability of using elderly care. (2) The reduction in the need for care regarding the treatment group occurred mainly in social care. The probability of using social care decreased by 67.8% due to the elderly’s health improvement, while that of home care remained unchanged generally. (3) Further heterogeneity tests suggested that families with fewer potential internal resources for caregiving had a more pronounced decline in the need for social care.

Theoretically, these empirical results support the existence of the “pecking order” theory in the family’s choice of elderly care model, that is, families tend to employ all internal resources for caregiving before resorting to social care, resulting in a higher sensitivity of social care to health.

The main policy implication of this paper is that ex ante preventive health intervention policies can significantly alleviate the burden of care, especially social care, on families. And preventive health intervention policies are particularly effective in reducing the burden of the families with relatively few resources for informal internal care.

The increasing frequency and intensity of the extreme weather events could cause devastating consequences in tourism. Climate change–related extreme weather events and their relation to tourism is an emerging field for education and research. The purpose of this study is to categorize the impact of climate change on tourist destinations with regard to extreme weather-related risks in outdoor recreation and tourism. Managerial implications for policymakers and stakeholders are discussed.

To outline the risks from climate change associated with tourism, this study uses the Prisma analysis for identification, screening, checking for eligibility and finding relevant literature for further categorization.

Based on a thoroughly examination of relevant literature, risks and threats posed by climate change could be categorized into following four areas: reduced experiential value in outdoor winter recreation; reduced value in beach scenery and comfort; land degradation and reduced biodiversity; and reduced value in personal safety and comfort in tourism. It also focuses on the significance of using big data applications in catastrophic disaster management and risk reduction. Recommendations with technology and data analytics to continuously improve the disaster management process in tourism education are provided based on findings of this study.

Primary contributions of this study include the following: providing a summarized overview of the risks associated with climate change in terms of tourist experiential value for educational implications; and revealing the role of data analytics in disaster management in the context of tourism and climate change for tourism education.

Validation of the Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES) for use with teachers in Macao (SAR) was undertaken to determine its usefulness as a measure of teacher self-efficacy for inclusive education. This paper discusses the results found by analyzing various versions of the TSES and TSES-C in a Chinese format with 200 pre-service teachers in Macao (SAR). Psychometric analyses were undertaken to investigate the validity of the existing scales and the three and two factor solutions. The results indicated a preferred 9-item version that produced improved factor loadings and reliabilities. The use of a relatively quick and short scale to measure such a complex phenomenon as teacher self-efficacy is discussed. Issues are raised regarding generalizability of scales and the impact of culture, demographics, and edifying issues that may impact on the usefulness of such scales.

This paper aims to unpack the sets of policy ideas underpinning the use of social innovation, thus permeating the allegedly politically neutral language of the concept.

Drawing on Daigneualt (2014), this paper adapts a four-dimensional approach to investigate the sets of ideas underpinning different conceptualisations of social innovation, particularly in relation to who the actors driving social change are, the nature of the problems addressed, the objectives pursued and the means used to achieve these objectives.

Applying the four-dimensional approach to a corpus of literature, this paper found evidence of two different perspectives along each dimension, namely, a radical empowerment approach and an incremental market-oriented one.

A limitation of the study is the focus on academic literature, whereas a broader focus on policy discourse may give further insights. However, this paper argues that this study can be the ground for future research to investigate whether and how the two approaches identified have been adopted in different institutional and policy contexts.

The paper contributes to the development of social innovation research by boosting and encouraging further investigation on how different sets of ideas underpin social innovation discourse and its use as a policy concept.