Geovisualization of historical cartography as an educational and informative resource: the case of the provinces of Spain

The science of cartography went through revolutionary changes in the post-World War II period. In the near future the new types of artifacts and materials produced by the cartographers of this period will form the basis for the study of the history of modern cartography. Computer software, new computational devices, computer hardware, and complex mathematical algorithms all need to be preserved in a way that allows researchers access to the concepts and techniques that make up the cartography of today and the future. The following paper is a case study in the preservation of collections that are typically not part of the traditional materials found in map libraries. Although this paper is pragmatic in nature and focuses in particular on the software and algorithms found in the John Snyder Collection of satellite mapping materials now in the Library of Congress, it also addresses the many conceptual and theoretical problems that arise in the preservation of what the author calls “foundational collections” in the history of cartography.

The university library has an essential role in promoting Open Science by providing resources, information and services that facilitate free access to knowledge. The activity of the library is oriented towards organizing and facilitating access to open resources: databases, digital repositories, open access journals, online collections and other open resources. The library is involved in various initiatives and communities that promote open science, thereby strengthening global and local efforts to support this approach in research and higher education. The creation and management of the Institutional Repository is an important responsibility for the library in the context of promoting open science and facilitating access to academic research. By promoting open access publishing of textbooks, scientific publications, and other educational resources, open science provides students and teachers with free access to quality information, thereby contributing to the quality of scientific studies and research. Organizing and conducting various information and training activities about the benefits and practices of Open Science contributes to awareness of the impact of open science in the university scientific community and to promoting the use of open resources. The library supports researchers in publishing their work in open access journals, develops guides and informative resources about open science, including how to find open resources, copyright and open licenses.

A number of contemporary factors have combined to create a situation that encourages and supports international collaboration among institutions of higher education. Factors such as the globalization of the economy, the increasingly international nature of higher education, and the development of an inexpensive and virtually worldwide system of communication, the Internet, have all played their part. This paper focuses on one aspect of international collaboration—the creation and dissemination of information resources and information/educational technologies, such as software. Movements such as Open Source and Open Access have encouraged colleges and universities to consider alternatives to the dominant model for acquiring everything from college textbooks to academic computing software. Today for-profit companies supply most such resources to institutions, faculty, and students. The open source software approach is an alternative based on collaboration between both institutions and individuals, and it is a viable alternative to commercial, for-profit development and dissemination systems. Today, open access journals, for example, compete with journals from commercial publishers and provide free access to anyone via the Internet. Resources such as the courseware management system, Moodle, and the multipurpose software package, Sakai, are examples of open source software-developed resources that are widely used today in higher education. The OpenCourseware initiative at Massachusetts Institute of Technology is an example of free and open dissemination of course resources. Variations of the open source software model support the creation of everything from infrastructure software such as Sakai to remixable textbooks. Remixing is, in fact, a major advantage of the approach Connexions, based at Rice University, has taken to create information resources for educational use. Open access, open source, and other similar approaches can be subsumed under the term open education. That movement is a viable, and rapidly growing, alternative for the creation and distribution of information and information technology resources for higher education that is particularly suited to collaborative, international partnerships.

With the development of regionalization and differentiation of China's economy, the unbalanced characteristics of educational information resources in regions, urban and rural areas, key schools and non key schools are becoming more and more obvious. Insufficient information resources, unreasonable allocation of high-quality educational resources, and unfair education in the whole society are the main problems that cause this problem and need to be solved urgently. However, the current evaluation effect of the balance value of educational resources is poor, and it is impossible to accurately analyze the impact of Internet resource sharing on the balance of educational resources. Therefore, this paper analyzes the relationship between Internet resource sharing and education resource balance in detail, establishes the value evaluation model of education resources, and analyzes the impact of Internet resource sharing on education resource balance, with a view to providing some help for promoting the good sharing of Internet teaching resources and the sustainable development of education resources, and realizing the balance of education resources. With the development of regionalization and differentiation of China economic, the unbalanced characteristics of education information resources between regions, urban and rural areas, key schools and non-key schools are more and more obvious, information resources are lack and allocation of limited quality education resources are not reasonable, and the unfair education of whole society is a major problem caused this and needs to be solved urgently. The distribution of education resources in the world and even in some areas has great differences, and the traditional model of higher education development is difficult to quickly reduce the difference. Through the Internet resources sharing, education resources cannot be restricted by time and space, so it can bring the vitality to the development of higher education. It has become an important part of the balanced process of education resources. This paper mainly analyzes the correlation between Internet resources sharing and education resources balancing, and builds the value evaluation model of education resources, and analyzes the impact of Internet resources sharing on the balance of education resources.

Introduction. The global concept of "sustainable development", aimed at preserving civilization, defines the social significance of education and building of the information society as its most important constituent elements. The pandemic and other global challenges state the important role of education as a means of human survival, designating knowledge as public goods. The movement towards sustainable development of the society is similar to the formation of a new educational reality based on new approaches and principles, including open science. Purpose setting. The current trend in the development of higher education is the course towards the openness of content, the use of digital educational technologies, which is reflected in the documents of the international movement for the creation and dissemination of open educational resources. An analysis of domestic scientific publications shows that open access to scientific and educational information is of particular importance, since the transformation of the education system is taking place against the backdrop of restricting our state’s access to world information resources, sanctions, and import substitution. The agricultural sector, which has a special mission to provide the population with food, has faced the task of filling the shortage of highly qualified specialists. In the current period of transformation of the educational system, open educational resources are becoming innovative tools; the experience of agricultural universities in their use during the pandemic has shown good results in the quality of education. However, the global and highly fragmented volume of information on the Internet in the absence of standardization of open educational resources makes the process of finding information for learning complex and time-consuming. Methodology and methods of the study. The results of the analysis give grounds to speak about the need to create a national information aggregator system in order to ensure constant open access to information resources for participants in the educational process of the agricultural industry. Results. The results of the study made it possible to prepare a guide to open sectoral information resources of the agro-industrial complex – open educational resources "Navigator of Open Educational Resources for the Agricultural Industry", which is presented on the "Library for Open Science" platform (available at: http://lib-os.ru/obrazovatelnye-resursy/navigator-oor-apk/) and allow users to find the information they need faster and more efficiently. Conclusion. The results of the study give reason to talk about the need to create a national data aggregation system to provide permanent open access to the information resources of participants in the educational process of the agricultural industry.

Editor's Note: This paper has been edited for the Bulletin from Mr. Lu's much longer submission to the SIG/III 2002 International Paper Competition, in which it was awarded first place. The original article contains numerous references to support the statistics and data presented here, but space precludes including them in the Bulletin. Mr. Lu presented his paper at the 2002 ASIST Annual Meeting. The new technological revolution with digitization, networking and information as its major features is sweeping across the globe and exerting great influence upon social, political, economic and cultural activities as well as people's daily lives. Sharing global resources requires many diverse databases. Ever since the end of the 1980s, based on their faster economic development, Southern, Eastern, Northern and Central China have started digitization of traditional Chinese information resources and have achieved a certain level of progress. There were only 806 (mainly bibliographic) databases in 1991, but they had increased to over 8000 in 2000. However, Western China, which is rich in historical and cultural resources, has lagged behind in information digitization and has been unable to turn its resource advantage into a development advantage. Western China has started construction of digital libraries, but only some traditional catalogs (with various forms of entries) and a limited number of small graphical and textual databases for local tourism or about minority ethnic group traditions have been made available. These databases also suffer from problems of uneven quality, unnecessary duplication and low rates of access and utilization. There is no authorized agency for coordination of information resource acquisition or digital base construction in Western China. Western China This paper focuses on the special characteristics and position of Western China literature resources; their distribution in major libraries in Western China; existing problems in collecting, organizing and providing access to these special resources; governmental policies and investments for information resource development; and possible approaches for developing the special resource digital databases in Western China. Western China is composed of the following 12 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions: Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Sichuan, Chongqing, Yunnan, Guizhou, Tibet, Guangxi and Inner Mongolia. This vast area includes 53.8 million square kilometers (56 percent of the country) and 358.46 million people (in 1999), or 23 percent of the total. Western China boasts very rich natural and cultural resources. Among China's 56 diverse nationalities, 44 of them are in Western China. Western China is also the location of such important and symbolic historical cultural remains as the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, the terra cotta figures of warriors in the First Emperor's Mausoleum, the ancient Loulan Kingdom, the Yuanmou Man site, the Potala Palace and the southern and northern Silk Routes. Western China Literatures as discussed in this paper refers to the following resources: Local literatures – the information of specific localities that assumes the role of carrier of their culture, comprehensively recording and maintaining the historical conditions and events related to the local politics, economy, culture, education and other important information The literature of local nationalities or ethnic groups collected and maintained in the public libraries. Other multimedia literatures to be developed in the Western China. The second category, the literature of nationalities (or ethnic groups), is the totality of the specially-featured literature resources about their history, geography, humanism, natural surroundings, economic conditions, culture and so forth formed and accumulated in specific historical periods and specific regions. Due to the special features of the social histories, economies and cultures of the minority nationalities, their historical literatures can be divided into some basic types: Orally Transmitted Literatures: A few ethnic groups did not develop writing scripts of their own in history, and their understanding of the natural world and their society was passed on generation by generation usually by means of the oral dictation. Even those ethnic groups who had their own scripts commonly resorted to oral transmission for passing on information, experience and knowledge. Simple Graphic Symbol Literatures: A few of the minority nationalities used simple graphic patterns to record and transfer cultural information. For instance, those on woodcuts, bamboo carvings, stone carvings, gravestone inscriptions, sculptures or bronze ware reflect the production, life, historical events and historical figures, religious legends and religious dances of the minority nationalities. This kind of literature can often be collected and maintained by means of replicating, rubbing or photographic copying. Textual Literatures of Minority Nationalities: Some ethnic groups used or are currently still using their own writing scripts for recording and transferring their cultural information. For example, among the 26 nationalities in Yunnan, there are 11 nationalities that formerly used 24 writing scripts. Through the reform of their writing system, currently there are 21 systems available for these 11 minority groups to use. Historical literatures written in such scripts are rather plentiful, forming, for instance, the Dongba literature in the Dongba pictographic characters of the Naxi people, the Yi literature, the Tibetan literature, the Mongolian literature, the Bai literature. Literatures Containing Cultural Information about Specific Ethnic Groups Written in Chinese or the Writing Systems of Other Nationalities: In China the writing system of the majority Han nationality is dominant, and it is directly and indirectly used for recording the cultural information of minority nationalities or ethnic groups. The huge volume of such writings is very valuable. And there are many other materials that are the object of study for scholars interested in the distinctive cultures, history and geography of Western China. These include archeological or other preserved sites and areas, as well as artistic and historical artifacts such as the oracle bone scripts, bamboo tablets, wooden tablets, silk books and their hand-sheets, block-printed copies, ancient calligraphy works and paintings, and inscription rubbings. According to incomplete statistics, various libraries in China hold more than 2.2 million volumes of "rare" books made before 1794; 26.45 million volumes of "ancient" books published before 1911; and 6300 periodicals, magazines and newspapers published before 1949. A part of these materials has been micro-processed in libraries for protection and utilization. The statistics by the end of 1999 show that 36.3 million camera shots had been done in the whole country, involving 2349 rare books, 2160 newspapers and 8325 periodicals. Another part of these materials will be processed for safekeeping by using the digital techniques. But, only the National Library and the local libraries of Shanghai City, Zhejiang Province, Guangdong Province and Shenzhen City currently do the above micro-processing. In Western China, only Guangxi Library has established a certain number of database entries, including 560,000 catalog records, and a small number of the small-scale, specialized full-text databases. However, the provinces and autonomous regions that are extremely rich in literature resources such as Sichuan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Guizhou, Yunnan and Inner Mongolia have not yet started to carry out literature information digitization. Take Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Library as an example. Its collections of Mongolian literature are extremely plentiful and are in an independent system. Among them are 7800 volumes of ancient Mongolian books and 71,200 volumes of Mongolian books published after the founding of the People's Republic of China, in addition to 6300 volumes of Slav-Mongolian books, 14,600 volumes of ancient Tibetan books and 3400 volumes of ancient Manchu books. In these collections, there are the full sets of the Tibetan version of "Ganjur" scripture and the Mongolian versions of both "Ganjur" and "Danjur" scriptures. Currently, there are 44,730 volumes of Tibetan and Chinese local literature books in Inner Mongolia that are carefully kept in the library. Through scores of years of collation and processing, the book collections in the major libraries in Western China have formed comparatively complete systems in their structures, having considerable scale and special features. They are among the most important collections of Western China literature held by libraries and our first choice for the digitization. At present, however, the level of construction and management for China's libraries is still low in comparison with that of the developed countries, and this gap is prominent in Western China. By the end of 2001 in China, there were altogether 2689 public libraries above the county level, of which 963 were in the 12 provinces and regions in Western China (2001 statistics). They held 136.8 million books of around 400 million books in the whole country. In these areas there were 13 provincial libraries keeping 24.78 million books of 132 million in all the provincial libraries in China. The problems of inadequate book collections, low book quality, poor library facilities and shortage of book purchase funds at various levels of libraries have not been solved yet. In the year 2000, 738 or 27.6 percent of the libraries in China did not purchase even one new book for a whole year; 70 percent of these libraries are located in Western China. As the pace of economic globalization increases, the Chinese government has been emphasizing the importance and urgency of speeding up information system construction to raise China's comprehensive competitiveness. The government has promulgated relevant rules and regulations and has instructed the ministries and commissions concerned to work out detailed implementation guidelines and applicable measures. The government of China has started to realize that digital libraries are key to construction of the digitalized China. Starting with the implementation of the Ninth Five-Year Plan in China, the Chinese central government has increased its investments in the construction of information resource databases, and the local governments allot large amounts of funds for basic research and development of information databases in concerted actions with the central government, which has made special-purpose financial appropriations available. By the end of 2001 the central government of China and the local governments involved had respectively made investments of 8.16 billion and 14.916 billion Yuan RMB (about 1 billion and 1.8 billion US dollars) to improve hardware in local libraries and support digitization. The National Library and the Shanghai Library consecutively launched digital library projects, and the provinces and regions in Western China also made positive responses. Nonetheless, almost all of the above support has been concentrated in the Eastern China areas. Only one project has been supported in Western China at Yunnan Provincial Library with funding in excess of 50 million Yuan (about 6.05 million USD). In May 2000 the Chinese Ministry for Cultures (Proposals Concerning Western China Development Strategies and Strengthening Western China's Cultural Construction) put forward 15 suggestions to promote the construction of a public library network system and digital libraries in the Western China areas. In August 2000 the Ministry of Science and Technology pointed out the importance of digitalization of Western China ( Proposals Concerning Scientific and Technological Work in Western China Development). The General Planning for the Western China Development in the Period of the Tenth Five-Year Plan clearly pointed out the importance of vigorously pushing forward information system construction in the large and medium-sized cities, perfecting the computer information networks and developing the public information service platforms (Leading Team for Western China Development, State Council. General Planning for Western China Development During the Tenth "Five-Year Plan," July 2002). "Proposals Concerning Several Policies and Measures for Western China Development" (Leading Team for Western China Development, State Council, August 2001) also emphasized the favorable policies adopted for the use of the state special-purpose subsidy funds both for cultural facility maintenance and for the cultural units at and above the county level in the border areas in Western China. Besides, the provinces and regions in Western China, when formulating the development guidelines adopted in the Tenth Five-Year Plan, all took information system construction as the priority for their near future work, in which resource digitization again stands at the fore. In May 2002 the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Finance issued the "Circular Regarding Application of the All-China Cultural Information Resource Sharing Projects." The circular also pointed out that the first batch of the 25-million-Yuan (3 million USD) special purpose funds for the "Sharing Projects" arranged by the central government as well as the relevant complementary funds to be allotted by the local governments for the year should mainly be used to support Western China and other underdeveloped areas for grassroots center construction. As of May 2002, 12 libraries in Western China had been enlisted among the member libraries covered by the digitization projects. In China the state information infrastructure construction has taken shape, and the main communication network has also been established, which includes the data network, the optical fiber trunk network, the ATM network, the SHD synchronous digital serial network and the optical fiber linkage network. The wide-band networks under construction in some large and medium-sized cities in Western China will provide the necessary communication platform to carry out Western China literature resource digitization. According to Xu Wenbo, the head of China Digital Library Development Strategy Group, the targets to be achieved for the construction of databases in the China Digital Library Project include that the system should be distributed with uniform standards, be able to work on unified network platform and be expandable (Xu, W. Thoughts on Creating Digital Libraries. May 2002. Available at www.ccnt.com.cn/library/luntan/show.htm?id=20010302002). The digitization of Western China information resources should stress selection and quality rather than scope or amount of development at the initial phase. It has a very clearly defined target to enrich the Chinese network resources to allow the country's characteristics to be more fully and perfectly exposed through the global Chinese resource networks. The establishment of a special resource database in Western China is an indispensable link in the formation of the all-China Chinese database groups and similar to the construction of special databases in other regions or localities. Such databases in Western China could not be implemented independent of the general framework of the state distributed asynchronous system of the Chinese resources. Since the Western China provinces and regions are vast in area with relatively poor communications and ill-balanced development in library facilities, each library involved in the special database development and construction should assign relevant personnel to investigate local resources as their conditions allows. They should study and collect relevant information material in such sources as the cultural organizations, art groups, museums, nationality communities, religious communities and geological departments, as well as the villages in all the districts, prefectures and cities. The construction of the resource databases should be phased and layered to establish the multiple hierarchies of the database protection systems step by step. Participating libraries and enterprises should start with small special projects that can eventually converge into the state-level special information resource database group services. Some steps necessary to ensure eventual merger include the following: Each library should finish their investigations within a specific period and work out "White Paper Books for the Construction of Special Local and Minority Nationalities Literature Database." They should develop plans for "Special Resource Catalogs" at that point and proceed to build up the catalog databases for special books for their own libraries. Finally, they should sum up the raw materials, do the online checks for duplicate records to avoid repeated construction and ensure the completeness of the materials collected. Based on the China Combined Catalogs of the Local Literatures, China Catalogs of Rare Books, and the Catalogs of Literatures for Minority Nationalities, as worked out by each library with support from the literature information organizations that have completed catalog database construction for standard books, the special book catalog databases of Western China should be organized and established as soon as possible. These catalogs can be the basis of the local combined catalogs, can perfect and standardize the construction of the catalog data, promote inter-library loan and resource sharing and greatly reduce duplication of effort in database construction. The projects should comprehensively utilize the database resources established and under current construction by various literature information organizations. Asynchronous database platforms for the special resources should be constructed and the unnecessary duplication of effort by libraries should be avoided so as to form a number of special literature resource database groups in a short period of time. If a project for a specialized database has been started, it is necessary to pay special attention and ensure that the general design method and general framework planning for this digital system is in appropriate coherence with the state construction plan for digital libraries. Each library should investigate and analyze the original data available from the special full-text databases in existence or under the current construction as well as from electronic publications. There should be an appropriate way to use and catalog those non-digital media resources from radio broadcasting stations and television stations as well as from research units of various kinds, artistic groups and personages. The relevant software such as text-retrieval systems or optical character recognition could be used to do the necessary transformation and processing. The first step would be to make a great effort to produce multimedia databases with high quality content that relate to ecological tourism, ethnic culture, rare species, special minerals, flowers, butterflies, and ethnic dances, plays, operas and costume as the trial project to introduce the resources of a certain area. The resources on the Internet should be effectively organized and utilized in support of the key projects and the key disciplinary development direction to build up all the specialized databases. Scientific, standardized and normalized digital database construction is the fundamental element of network information dissemination. Standardization in libraries in Western China has lagged behind that in other parts of the country, especially with respect to seeking, collecting, cataloging, indexing and managing local literatures. The literatures of nationalities and their ancient books, in most cases, were handled by different libraries in different ways. Up to now, nearly all the classification systems seen or heard of in other parts of China such as "Four-Division Classification," "Liu Guojun Classification," "Pi Gaopin Classification" and the "Dewey Decimal Classification" have been adopted to classify the collections of special literatures in the libraries of Western China, including those at the provincial level. To implement the digitization of the ancient book resources as national legacies, the first problem that must, therefore, be solved is the normalization and standardization of cataloging methods. In China, the State Standard Commission should provide the solutions ahead of the schedule for the digitization. For instance, it should work out the ancient book and literature classifications, ethno-nationality literature cataloging and indexing methods for unified use across China. In addition to meeting the literature processing standards, database construction must also be in compliance with the relevant network transfer protocols such as X.25, TCP/IP, ATM and DTM, as well as utilizing standard digital literature formats such as MARC, JPEG, GIF, PNC, PDF, MPEG-X, TXT, REALMAIDIL and MOV. It also needs to employ such mature network information processing tools as XML and the Z39.50 information retrieval protocol, which are in global use. Special database construction involves a great amount of ancient literatures and various kinds of unique and rare copies of books, and the information carrier forms include and bamboo and wooden tablets, silk books, books and books. in the of digitization, the problems that the libraries in Western China with literature – standard and protection – they also special These include data standard and for the relevant ancient books, the databases for literature written in the traditional Chinese characters and those in the and choice and classification for the ancient Chinese in the digitization of the local ethno-nationality the normalized and standardized software for processing nationality or ethnic writing scripts is also The and implementation of and have a and fundamental role in database construction in Western China and for its quality and level. can avoid the of repeated construction by and can reduce and the for data and libraries and in the with the technological and new and will also be and all of literature digitization, network system software and hardware should be done in and standard and and space should be for and in the Special literature databases are the important parts the general databases. have a with database and their data and data should have very In the database should be taken for database space planning and database management of the data data and data will be very important to future database the digitization of the literatures and their cultural resources, the will be put out in the form of databases. There is no these databases and other information systems in respect to the for system resource the to on various system and in The databases are for after so they must also very and each digital has for its The first is management as in the of the All-China Literature Resource The second is the distributed management Each member library is the and it the networks to complete and data The of this is to the local software and hardware some choice of the raw material for their databases and their implementation of and processing not be of The management is the of the distributed management in of the and The distributed management should be adopted it is much more for the current and future distributed database development for digital library resource databases in China is both of technological and the conditions in China, There is no for that can central databases. There are no special at the A distributed the to make use of the and space available on and of within the networks to complete library processing work that requires great amounts of database on the by through services. The and used by distributed are and the location of distributed on the networks and the systems in use are all to distributed have on the networks. Resource is the most part of digital library and it is also the of the digital information platforms The development of digital libraries can the of each resource and the construction of databases that their special features. protection for literature resources and them from large of resources on the of and various kinds of media resources around different areas and the of resource the standardization and normalization of the literature the of network and computer in library construction and Based on these the of this through his and of the existing conditions in Western China, including problems in library construction here, has formed the following should be construction planning should be worked should be made to converge and the raw material of the resources. methods should be Construction should be and through an effort be able to the and the in the construction of the digital libraries in Western China. should be that in Western China there are very rich and ecological resources as well as their literature, especially the resources. with the development and transformation of economy, society and cultures, especially with the and in the scope and of the of people, the resources in Western China are the of and that in other developing should utilize all means to develop and promote the Western China resources, to turn its resource into the development and to to the great of Chinese information resources.

Vienna was the site for the 16th International Conference on the History of Cartography, 11-15 September, 1995. The lovely late summer weather, the architectural and historical glories of the city, and its cultural excitement attracted the enthusiastic participation of some 260 participants from 40 countries and five continents. Those registered for the conference found included in their packets a programme in the three official languages, English, French and German; the abstracts of papers with curricula vitae of each speaker; catalogues for some of the exhibitions; and-one of the nicest features of the arrangements-a week's transportation pass for Vienna's excellent system of trams, buses and metros. All soon learned to appreciate the easily mastered, clean, rapid, convenient Vienna metro. Several meetings were held on Sunday, 10 September, prior to the formal opening-the International Society for the Curators of Early Maps (ISCEM), and the International Cartographic Association's (ICA) session on Teaching the History of Cartography. Ed Dahl chaired the ISCEM gathering, attended by some 40 curators. The theme of this year's meeting was New Technologies, and participants discussed their use in disseminating information on early maps. Several curators called up their home pages on the World Wide Web to demonstrate the possibilities of this rapidly enlarging resource. Robert Karrow of the Newberry Library, Chicago, was unanimously elected the new chairperson of ISCEM; David Bosse remains as editor of the ISCEM Newsletter. The conference formally opened in the Prunksaal, or Hall of State, of the Austrian National Library with a flourish, literally. The imposing circular hall, flanked by statues of members of the 206 House of Habsburg and with a statue of Emperor Charles VI in its centre, holds the libraries of Prince Eugene of Savoy and other illustrious men on its main level and on galleries encircling the high domed ceiling, which is embellished with paintings of allegorical figures. Once participants were seated, two trumpeters appeared on facing galleries and played a fanfare to announce the official start of the conference. Hans Marte, Director General of the Austrian National Library, welcomed members of the conference to the Library and to the great city of Vienna. Franz Wawrik, Director of the Austrian National Library Map Library, outlined highlights of Austrian cartography, and Tony Campbell, Map Librarian at the British Library and spokesman for Imago Mundi, welcomed the audience. Those participating in the academic sessions then walked through the heart of Vienna's Old City, past archaeological remains of 2000 years of the city's history, to the lecture hall of the Bank fur Arbeit und Wirtschaft (BAWAG), which the bank had graciously made available to the conference. In this suite of rooms, in a handsome, modern building sitting cheek-by-jowl with structures pre-dating it by centuries, the bulk of meetings were held during the next few days. Papers in the first session, on the future of the history of cartography, and on the exhibitions arranged for the conference (21, 9) set a standard for the sessions to follow. One of the themes of this conference, the history of the mapping of Central Europe, was elaborated on in the second session (32, 28, 6), while the emphasis shifted farther east in the third session, with papers on mapping in Russia and Estonia (27, 20, 26). The first day of the conference ended in grand style back at the Oratorium of the Austrian National Library with a cocktail reception hosted by the Director General of

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Even though the public has been exposed to a tremendous number of recruitment ads with over a half billion spent annually on advertising specific trials, response rates are as low today as they were twenty years ago. What steps are necessary to improve recruitment for cancer prevention research? The first critical step is public education that is not study specific, that addresses the broader benefits of clinical research, and that is collectively embraced by all the stakeholders in clinical research and healthcare. The need for outreach and education is clear: 74% of the public say that they have no “real” knowledge of the clinical research process, and 98% don't know where and how to identify and evaluate appropriate clinical studies. Furthermore, there is an erosion of confidence in the clinical research enterprise that is rooted in many causes, including widespread media coverage of industry missteps and tragic errors resulting in harm to patients. These have contributed to an atmosphere of suspicion and doubt which have left the public troubled and confused. If we are to engage the public, the stage must be set for the message to be heard and that calls for a national public education media campaign. With pro-bono support from the international advertising and marketing agency Ogilvy & Mather, a new public service campaign has been developed to educate and win over the public about the importance of clinical research participation. During the campaign's yearlong development process and extensive focus group testing, strong support was expressed for Medical Heroes' easy-to-remember messaging and acknowledgement of ordinary people's contributions to public health. During screenings before test audiences, the ads were lauded for their “humanity and emotional appeal,” as viewers declared, “These people are heroes in their own way,” “They've done something great for all of us,” and “I see the benefit of clinical research to society.” The Medical Heroes campaign has been market tested in 30 sites across 18 U.S. markets by Eli Lilly and Company. In wave 1 of the market test, the control group was established as 12 markets that ran their typical recruitment ads; in 6 comparable markets, concurrent Medical Heroes ads were run as well as recruitment ads — and these markets showed a 38% increase in patient recruitment rates over the control group. The test was repeated and the results of wave 2 showed that response rates to recruitment ads more than doubled in the markets where the Medical Heroes campaign was also run. The campaign met its ultimate goal of providing the public with an increased awareness of research participation and an improved perception of clinical research volunteers. Implementation of the Medical Heroes national media plan is enabling the campaign to reach over 120 million people quarterly through print, radio and TV ads. In order to dramatically increase the reach and frequency of this important public service message, CISCRP provides the Medical Heroes print, radio and TV ads to all those organizations who contribute to the national campaign — which enables these organizations to run the Heroes ads in their local markets. This broad public awareness is encouraging more people to seek information about clinical trials prompting a greater need for educational tools in the form of easy-to-read brochures, DVDs, and newsletters. CISCRP has a growing collection of educational brochures that take complex questions about clinical research and put them into everyday language. Foremost among the materials is the Education Before Participation series, widely used today by universities, hospitals, clinical research organizations, Boards of Health, civic organizations, and community health clinics to educate people about clinical trials and the need for participation. Expanding the outreach to minority audiences, CISCRP has also developed customized versions for African Americans and Hispanics, and has translated the brochures for use globally with country-specific lists of government, disease-advocacy, and industry resources for residents of Argentina, Brazil, Canada (French speaking), China, Czech Republic, France, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Philippines, Poland, Russia, South Korea, Spain, and Ukraine. By providing valuable information about the benefits and risks of participation, questions to ask, and places to find more information, the Education Before Participation series is a valuable tool for beginning the discussion with prospective clinical research volunteers. Clinical research sites have found that these brochures ease the informed consent process. Beyond the use of educational brochures, there is real value in providing the public with disease-specific educational DVDs that use the voices and images of real-life volunteers and healthcare experts. Input from prominent African American and Hispanic researchers and physicians was obtained to help guide the content and earmark culturally relevant issues as well as ethnomedical values and beliefs. The DVD series targets specific areas such as clinical research and cancer, diabetes, mental illness, breathing problems, and heart disease. CISCRP plans to continue the clinical research series with additional disease-specific educational DVDs. Such DVDs have great impact when they are being shown on a loop in waiting rooms, and they can also be posted on websites. Most important is providing prospective volunteers with DVDs to be watched at home-as a tool to help them influence their families and friends who criticize them for choosing to be “guinea pigs.” Another educational tool is The Medical Heroes newsletter, published by CISCRP every other month throughout the year. The newsletter focuses on subjects that matter to current and future clinical research volunteers, and provides ongoing information and valuable resources. A look at some recent issues offers insight into the newsletter's impact. In one edition, the inspiring story is told of John Cleland, who was successfully treated for metastatic testicular cancer in a clinical trial of the drug cisplatin 36 years ago. In another issue, an article addresses readers' fears about getting a placebo. Another article explains the process of accrediting human research protection programs and why participants need to know about it. Beyond educational tools, outreach is critical to the learning process. CISCRP conducts events entitled “AWARE for All-Clinical Research Education Days” in major cities across the United States. These free public programs are the culmination of a 3- to 6-month outreach process. AWARE brings together disease advocacy groups, hospitals and healthcare organizations, educational institutions, and community organizations to provide health information and exhibits, as well as free health screenings. In addition, distinguished local politicians and opinion leaders, physicians and healthcare providers, and clinical research professionals serve as keynote speakers and workshop leaders-all volunteering their time on a Saturday to help educate the public. In each AWARE location, CISCRP's outreach efforts take many forms. Active contact is made with 30 to 50 community partners, and personal outreach and education is extended to the distinguished members of each city's Honorary Committee. Local churches, community and health centers, and disease-specific organizations give grassroots support by bringing AWARE's message directly to their constituents. To date, close to 300,000 people have been impacted by the program. AWARE has put a human face on the people who volunteer for clinical trials while building public understanding of the risks and benefits of participating. AWARE is building a movement at the local level and there is a need to bring this form of outreach to many more communities. When asked whether they are more likely or less likely to participate in a clinical trial after attending AWARE, 75% of the attendees respond, “more likely.” With all of the information about clinical research that is available online, what the public wants most can be difficult to find. In a CISCRP survey of more than 4,500 online registry users, the public explained that they are not concerned about the volume and sophistication of clinical trials data they can find online. Instead, users want easy-to-process trial summaries that help them find trials in convenient geographic locations as well as contact information for those trials. These eye-opening findings prompted the development of CISCRP's free public service, www.SearchClinicalTrials.org (SCT). Launched in November 2006, this online tool uses sophisticated technologies to scan the web and compile clinical trial listings and results in one location. But when the online search is too difficult, the public is urged to call CISCRP. Their search request is fulfilled via mail or email and includes an educational brochure as well as contact information for research site staff who can help them decide if the trial is right for them. Education and outreach are the keys to increasing trust and understanding. Working together across the industry - healthcare, patient advocacy, government, and research professionals -can provide the public with educational resources and shift the public's mindset from confusion and concern to recognition and appreciation. From CISCRP's point of view, it's time to say “Thank You” to the millions of people globally who give the gift of p

Sustainable development of education - attitudes of Polish academics towards OER

The purpose of this study was to answer the following two questions: What are clinical nurses’ rationales for their approaches to finding patient educational materials on the web? What are perceived barriers and benefits associated with the use of web-based information resources for patient education in the context of nursing clinical practice?Over 179 individual data units were analyzed to understand clinical nurses’ rationales for their approaches to find patient educational materials on the web. Rationales were defined as those underlying catalysts or activators leading to an information need. Analyses found that the primary reasons why clinical nurses conducted web-based information searches included direct patient requests ( 9 requests), colleague requests (6 requests), building patient materials collections (4), patients’ family requests (3), routine teaching (1), personal development (1), or staff development (1). From these data, four broad themes emerged: professional reasons, personal reasons, technology reasons, and organization reasons for selecting information resources. Content analysis identified 306 individual data units representing either ‘benefits’ (178 units) or ‘barriers’ (128) to the nurses’ use of web resources for on-unit patient care. Inter-rater reliability was assessed and found to be excellent (r = 0.943 to 0.961). The primary themes that emerged as barriers to the used of web-based resources included: 1) time requirements to perform a search, 2) nurses’ experience and knowledge about the resources or required technology, 3) specific characteristics of individuals electronic information resources, and 4) organizational procedures and policies. Three primary themes that represented the benefits of using web-based resources were also identified: 1) past experiences and knowledge of a specific resource or the required technologies, 2) availability and accessibility on the unit, and 3) specific characteristics of individual information tool. In many cases, nurses commented on specific characteristics or features of favorite information resources. Favorite sites included a variety or reputable health care organizations that displayed context in text, audio, and/or video. In addition such sites were described as easy-to read and provided content related to patient-focused information or specific content such as toll free telephone contact numbers.Information searching is the interaction between and among information users and computer-based information systems. Information seeking is becoming an important part of the knowledge work of nurses. Information seeking and searching intersects with the field of human computer interaction (HCI), which focuses on all aspects of human, and computer interactions. Users of an information system are understood as “actors” in situations, with a set of skills and shared practices based on work experiences with others. Designing better tools and developing information searching strategies that support, extend, and transform practices, begins by asking: Who are the users? What are the tasks? What is the interplay between the technology and the organization of the task? This study contributes fundamental data and information about the rationales nurses use in information seeking tasks. In addition it provides empirical evidences regarding barriers and benefits of information seeking in the context of patient education needs in inpatient clinical settings.

The aim of the research is the study of the functionality of modular object-oriented dynamic learning environment (Moodle) to development the informational and educational and educational research resource for training students in the disciplines of natural-scientific and engineer science. Have considered scientific-practical and methodological experience in the development, implementation and use of the interdisciplinary automated training system based on the Moodle system in the educational process. Presented the structure of the typical training course and set out recommendations for the development of information and educational resources different types of lessons and self-study students. Have considered the features of preparation of teaching-research resources of the assignments for lab using the software package MatLab. Also has considered the experience of implementing the discipline “Remote educational technologies and electronic learning in the scientific and the educational activities” for the training of graduate students at the Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia. The proposed an article approaches to the implementation of informational and educational and educational research resources in the interdisciplinary automated training system can be applied for a wide range of similar disciplines of natural-scientific and engineering sciences in a multilevel system of training of graduates.

У статті автор розкриває роль інформаційно-освітнього середовища закладу вищої освіти при ресурсно-орієнтованому навчанні студентів у вищій школі. Інформаційно-освітнє середовище закладу вищої освіти як дидактична основа ресурсно-орієнтованого навчання студентів у вищій школі представлене як педагогічна система, що об’єднує в собі інформаційні освітні ресурси, комп’ютерні засоби навчання, засоби управління навчальним процесом, педагогічні прийоми, методи і технології, направлені на формування інтелектуально-розвиненої соціально-значущої творчої особистості, що володіє необхідним рівнем професійних знань, умінь і навичок для ефективного функціонування в інформаційному суспільстві. Компонентами інформаційно-освітнього середовища закладу вищої освіти є суб’єктно-ресурсний, матеріально-технічний, дидактичний, технологічний компоненти та веб-система закладу вищої освіти. Суб’єктно-ресурсний компонент визначає користувачів, розробників та учасників середовища, консолідує ресурси закладу вищої освіти для створення та розвитку середовища: кадрові, матеріально-технічні, навчально-методичні, фінансові та інформаційні ресурси. Матеріально-технічний компонент містить аудиторії, лабораторії, спеціальні кабінети, бібліотека закладу вищої освіти як комплексний медіацентр, що забезпечує доступ до інформації, комп’ютерна техніка, мультимедійні пристрої, комп’ютерні мережі тощо. Дидактичний компонент містить форми, методи та засоби навчання студентів, які, разом з традиційними, реалізуються за допомогою програмно-технічних і телекомунікаційних засобів (дистанційне, змішане, мобільне навчання). Технологічний компонент забезпечує доступ до навчальної інформації завдяки сучасним інтернет-технологіям, можливості розробки електронних освітніх ресурсів, організацію технологій взаємодії (інтерактивної, мобільної, візуальної). Веб-система закладу вищої освіти як компонент його інформаційно-освітнього середовища є об’єднуючим для усіх чотирьох компонентів – сукупність веб-сайтів, об’єднаних офіційним веб-сайтом. Розглянуто важливі складові інформаційно-освітнього середовища ВНЗ Укоопспілки «Полтавський університет економіки і торгівлі»: Головний центр дистанційного навчання, віртуальне навчальне середовище Інституту економіки, управління та інформаційних технологій, електронні навчально-методичні комплекси дисциплін, створені у вигляді дистанційних курсів за допомогою сервісу https://sites.google.com/.

Creating a valuable patient information resource for MSK conditions: By not re-inventing the wheel

Child population, economic development and regional inequality of education resources in China