Search results

The purpose of this study is to discuss the strategies to promote a culture of professional learning within an Australian academic library. As the COVID-19 experience has shown new and evolving roles require skills, knowledge and abilities that current library employees may not have trained for. One framework which supports continuous professional development and employee motivation is the concept of a learning organisation, where staff across all levels of the library acknowledge the value of continuous learning and autonomously engage in activities to keep their skills up to date and relevant.

The article is a case study of a three-year period of interventions and outcomes in an Australian academic library.

The strategies discussed provide insights for library managers and leaders about how organisational change can be incrementally embedded through clarity of purpose, aligned leadership, transparent processes, self-determination and social learning.

The case study examines a single institution.

The paper provides practical strategies and examples from the case study of one university library which has successful embedded workplace learning as a regular and accepted part of staff routines.

A scholarly collaborative partnership is a capability that develops over time. Its quality is an outcome of the collaborative context, the alignment of purpose, development of work and learning processes, development of shared language and success stories. In this chapter, the authors engage in a metalogue where their shared reflection on the formation and development of their collaborative scholarship in the field of organization development and change is itself an instance of a process of shared scholarship. By adopting the format of a metalogue, they provide the voices of their individual thinking and their reflective conversation so as to offer an expression of the process of theorizing to scholars who wish to embark upon or study shared scholarship.

This paper aims to report on a literature review that aimed to establish a guiding framework for the development of digital scholarship services in China’s university libraries.

The framework was developed through systematically searching, screening, assessing, coding and aggregating digital scholarship services as reported in the existing body of literature. Three types of literature were included in the analysis: international academic literature as reported in English; academic literature in Chinese; and relevant professional reports.

The literature analysis pointed to 25 different digital scholarship services, which emerged in six themes: supporting services, formulating research ideas, locating research partners, writing proposals, conducting research and publishing results.

Although this literature review focused on university libraries in China, the research findings and the guiding framework developed provide useful insights and indications that can be shared across international borders.

This chapter narratively examines the value of scholarship grants to seven underrepresented science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students who attended the same research comprehensive university. The scholarships that the students in our convenience sample received were awarded by six National Science Foundation grant programs in the United States. A literature review tracing the effects of scholarships, instrumentalism, and the core purpose of education sets the context for this narrative investigation. The four pillars comprising the theoretical framework are value, experience, story, and identity. The seven stories of impact that emerged from the narrative inquiry reveal multiperspectival insights into the value of scholarships to students' lives, careers, and selves. Moreover, we also explore how scholarship recipients established their sense of value in autonomous and committed ways while promoting their personal welfare and seeking the common good of others. All of these important considerations contribute to the national and international literature relating to diversity, higher education, STEM careers, and the power of scholarship grants to transcend instrumentalism privileging workforce demands.

In 2008 the University of Tasmania and the Tasmanian Department of Education (TasED) entered into a high-level Partnership agreement. The Partnership in Teaching Excellence, funded by the Federal Smarter Schools National Partnerships – Improving Teacher Quality agreement, included higher education funded places for teachers wishing to complete a Master’s degree, and at the other end of the profession, an innovative alternative teacher education pathway for final-year pre-service teachers (PSTs), run as a competitive scholarship program. The intent of the program was threefold, to assist PSTs in becoming quality reflective practitioners with the capacity to work in high needs schools, explore ways of improving mentor teachers and PSTs’ reciprocal relationships, and increase the retention of teachers in TasED schools. Begun at a time of intense industrial action, the Partnership program appeared rather one-sided with little apparent benefit conferring to the University and was at all times highly contentious.

Using Kagan’s six stages of collaboration as a framework, and drawing on interviews with the first cohort of scholarship PSTs, and a range of personal files documenting the beginnings of the Partnership, including minutes of meetings, PST results, and unpublished reviews commissioned by the TasED, this chapter explores the beginnings of the Partnership, as together those on the ground worked out what “Partnership” meant. It presents an evaluation of those initial successful first years, including the learning outcomes of the PSTs and discusses the lessons learned for establishing future university/school Partnership. The Partnership program continued to 2013, when Federal funding for the project was discontinued.

This paper aims to address issues of ethics and trust in a digital scholarship environment relating to: accuracy of data, integrity of scholarly research process, electronic publications and communications; intellectual property rights, confidentiality/privacy and data security. The paper raises such questions as: To what extent do faculty trust digital research process? How can trust be nurtured in a scholarly environment where research is undertaken wholly or in part electronically?

The paper is based on critical analysis of existing literature especially the theoretical models of ethics and trust drawn from across different disciplines such as marketing, psychology, management, and information systems.

Despite the increasing adoption of digital scholarship strategies among universities, ethics and trust issues are not being addressed. In order for digital scholarship to be effectively integrated within the institutional operational milieu and institutionalised, a number of interventions are required, such as: putting in place an e‐strategy; a research portal that facilitates data transfer; knowledge sharing, protocols of uploading content; open access standards; institutional repositories; e‐research librarians responsible for training, faculty and students re‐orientation; provision of digital curation services such as standards, software, and access cyber infrastructure.

The subject of ethics and trust has hardly been researched in a digital scholarship environment. Consequently, there is limited literature on the subject. Empirical research is needed to address issues of trust and ethics in digital learning and research environment in order to leverage the proliferation of technology to optimise benefits for scholarly endeavours.

Institutions of higher learning, especially universities, must strive to integrate into their learning and research strategies ethical and trust aspects of digital scholarship to ensure that information and communication technologies that are implemented meet acceptable scholarly standards with regard to access, usability, productivity and more.

Issues of ethics and trust have become more important than before because of the evolving knowledge economy and the pervasity of information and communication technology in society emanating from increased rollout of e‐government infrastructures throughout the world by governments.

The subject of ethics and trust has hardly been addressed in literature in the context of digital scholarship, yet more educational institutions the world over are moving toward embracing digital scholarship environments.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a multi-layered theoretical framework to enable engaged scholarship to develop as a practice in entrepreneurship and small business research. To do so, it illuminates the salient features of engaged scholarship, collaborative learning and actor-network theory (ANT).

The paper follows a narrative or traditional literature review design. Specifically, it adopts a thematic approach for summarising and synthesising a body of literature on engaged scholarship, collaborative learning and ANT with the view to develop a new multi-layered theoretical framework.

Applying the theory of engaged scholarship to pivot entrepreneurship/SME research provides scholars with an opportunity to unlock the theory vs practice paradox. Moreover, engaged scholarship offers valuable instructions for encouraging interactionism between entrepreneurship researchers and practitioners as well as reconcile their polarised views. Co-production and co-creation of knowledge addresses the concerns often raised by the practitioner community regarding the relevance and applicability of academic research to practice.

The proposed multi-layered framework provides entrepreneurship researchers, and the practitioner community with a taxonomy to use to encourage a joint approach to research. Developing deep partnerships between academics and practitioners can produce outcomes that satisfy the twin imperatives of scholarship that can be of high quality as well as a value to society.

The paper advances the theory and practice of engaged scholarship in new ways that are not common in entrepreneurship/SME research. This enables engaged scholarship to develop as a practice in entrepreneurship and small firms’ research. Through applying the proposed multi-layered framework in research, academics can deliver fully developed solutions for practical problems. The framework is useful in the theory vs practice and entrepreneurship researchers vs practitioner debates.

Following the mass closing of US schools during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, the authors noted an increase in discourse among literacy teachers and literacy coaches on social media platforms. Over a period of 9 months, the authors followed the interactions and work of social media scholars on the Twitter platform. In reflecting on Craig's (1995; Craig, Curtis, Kelly, Martindell, & Perez, 2020) illustrative pillars of knowledge communities and Brock's work on black cyberculture, we use narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Connelly & Clandinin, 1990) to: (1) explore the elements of social media scholarship and (2) reflect on how active engagement in social media scholarship aids in the development of online knowledge communities that amplify and sustain the work of black womxn scholars.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the challenges and opportunities for Zimbabwe’s academic libraries in their endeavour to provide quality services. It will examine how library consortia, namely, the Zimbabwe University Library Consortium (ZULC) and the College and Research Libraries Consortium (CARLC), have been able to provide for the information needs of their users at a time when budgets are inadequate and subscription costs to journals remain unaffordable. It will examine how academic libraries, through resource sharing platforms, have been able to exploit ubiquitous technologies and build on from the traditional interlibrary loan (ILL). The paper will recommend a strategy based on a model to strengthen access to scholarship through resource sharing.

The researcher opted for a qualitative research design. A purposive sample of 32 participants drawn from ten academic librarians located in Zimbabwe was used to collect the information. The participants were chosen because of their involvement in resource-sharing activities. The participants were drawn from the two library consortia, namely, CARLC and ZULC. Data for the study was collected using structured interviews.

The findings revealed that resource sharing was critical for the survival of academic libraries in Zimbabwe. The study found out that resource sharing was the only option to overcome the challenges of the paywall. It highlighted the need for a concerted effort of all academic institutions in adapting a model that provides for the diverse needs of members with regard to widening access to scholarship. However, in spite of the success of library consortia in enhancing resource sharing in Zimbabwe, there are challenges that require the concerted effort of all academic institutions in coming up with a model that best provides for the diverse needs of members with regard to resource sharing.

The results of the study will be useful in providing a long-term strategy for enhancing resource sharing among academic libraries in Zimbabwe in their endeavor to support teaching, learning and research.

There is a scarcity of scholarly studies on resource sharing initiatives among academic libraries in Zimbabwe. This study is unique because it tackles the experiences of the academic libraries in overcoming the challenges of the paywall.

The library and information science (LIS) profession experienced drastic changes in its job requirements due to emerging digital scholarship trends, especially the growth of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). As a result, there is a discrepancy between the job market and the LIS curriculum. This study addresses this gap by looking into incorporating digital scholarship into the LIS school curricula in South Africa. This may have implications for other contexts as well, because digital scholarship is becoming pervasive.

The study adopted a constructivist paradigm using a qualitative approach and a multiple case study design. Primary data using semi-structured interviews were collected from 10 academics at LIS schools and 10 librarians from both academic and special research council libraries in South Africa.

The study revealed that LIS schools did not have content on digital scholarship such as research data management (RDM), digitisation, metadata standards, open access, institutional repositories and other related content. Stakeholders who needed to be consulted included librarians, information technology (IT) and information and communication technology (ICT) specialists, computer scientists, humanists, the South Africa Qualifications Authority (SAQA) and Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) and LIS professional bodies. There were gaps and redundancies in the curriculum as far as digital scholarship was concerned. Digital scholarship presented opportunities for librarians and academics to acquire emerging jobs and to collaborate more in the digital space.

The article advances knowledge on the importance of incorporating digital scholarship in the LIS curriculum in South Africa. Furthermore, it provides guidance regarding stakeholders to be consulted when incorporating content into the LIS curriculum with the intention of closing the gaps and curbing or removing discrepancies between job requirements and graduates’ skills and competencies.