Educational Digital Libraries Research Articles

Introducing open educational resources typology to digital libraries

ABSTRACT The increased tendency towards the open education movement and the widespread use of Open Educational Resources (OER) demonstrate the potential value of sharing and reusing free digital resources among educational communities. Effective OER management, essential for all educational digital libraries, facilitates the reuse, retention, revision, remixing, and redistribution of OER. It also requires proper identification of OER. The purpose of this paper is to introduce different types of OER to digital libraries. A hybrid approach was taken which incorporated a systematic review of published articles and interviews with domain experts and a preliminary list of OER types was extracted, completed, categorised, and approved. As a result of this research, more than 90 OER types have been introduced and divided into three categories including educational content, software, and complementary materials. Identifying various types of OER in each category not only allows for better use of these resources to improve educational practices but also begins to provide an infrastructure for both human and machine use.

Analisis Resiko Keamanan Informasi Website Repository Digital Library Menggunakan Framework ISO/IEC 27001 & 27002: Studi Kasus Perguruan tinggi X

The continuous evolution of digital repositories in the era of globalization, especially in context of higher education digital libraries, poses security risks that raise concerns among users. Existence of sensitive user data that requires protection by universities adds to this concern. This research aims to conduct comprehensive analysis of information security risks associated with digital library repository websites. This research seeks to identify potential vulnerabilities, threats that could compromise the confidentiality, integrity and availability of digital assets stored in repositories. Through detailed risk analysis, this research provides actionable insights and recommendations to improve the information security posture of digital libraries using the ISO/IEC 27001 and 27002 IT governance framework specifically tailored to information security standards. This research uses a literature review and interviews with responsible parties at the University of X's digital library repository. Findings show that the use of tools such as Acunetix helps identify vulnerabilities in web repositories. Risk mitigation in digital library web repositories involves the application of ISO/IEC 27001, 27002 standards, which results in specific risk mitigation actions. For example, universities should create policies to monitor information technology assets, ensuring regular monitoring to protect technology assets. In addition, for Database Management System (DBMS) management (e.g., MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, Ms SQL Server), colleges must facilitate easy access and storage of information. By implementing the recommendations obtained from this research, higher education institutions can ensure safe environment for users accessing digital library web repositories, thereby reducing concerns about the security of their information.

Kajian Literature: Implementasi Perpustakaan Digital di Perguruan Tnggi

This study aims to describe the implementation of digital libraries in universities. This research is a descriptive study with a literature review method. Five articles were selected that discussed the differences and similarities in user satisfaction between undergraduate and postgraduate students regarding the existence of digital libraries. This study discusses similarities, dissimilarities, provides views, compares and summarizes selected articles. It was found that there are differences and similarities in user perceptions in the use of higher education digital libraries, factors that influence user satisfaction with digital libraries such as system quality, information, and services, digital library affinity, perceived ease and satisfaction felt by users. The five selected articles stated that in a group of academics in which there were undergraduate and postgraduate students had different perceptions of digital libraries. Undergraduate students tend to emphasize speed of access, while postgraduate students prioritize the validity and up-to-date of an information source to meet their needs for information. The results of this study are expected to be a material consideration for policy makers in planning the development of digital libraries so that they are right on target so that their utilization can be maximized

Digital Library Education in Tertiary Institutions: Roadmap to Revolutionizing Nigerian University Library Services

The purpose of the paper is to bring to light the state of education in Digital Libraries (DLs) in tertiary institutions in Nigeria, and the readiness of library schools to produce future digital librarians in Nigeria. The study covered 31 universities offering Library and Information Science (LIS) approved by the National Universities Commission (NUC) of Nigeria. The main data collection method for the study was analysis of departmental documents containing the LIS curriculum. Second, six Library and Information Science educators in universities that are yet to integrate digital libraries course in their LIS curricula were interviewed. The study revealed that majority of the library schools offer a course in digital libraries or related areas as a core course in their curricula. However, only a few library schools have computer laboratories for students to enhance their digital library skills. Some LIS educators identified challenges such as lack of qualified ICT staff to handle the course and a lack of computer laboratories equipped with modern computers and stable Internet facilities in the LIS departments. Findings from the study will inform library educators on the need to redesign curricula to integrate digital libraries course, in order to produce future digital librarians in this digital era and thus overcome the frequently mentioned challenge of lack of ICT staff to manage digital libraries in Nigeria. The project will enable library schools in Nigeria to provide a world class library education that is in line with the standard recommended by international and national LIS professional bodies.

A user-transaction-based recommendation strategy for an educational digital library

The automated recommendation of content resources to learners is one of the most promising functions of educational digital libraries. Underlying strategies should take the individual progress of the learner into account to provide appropriate recommendations that are meaningful to the learner. If presented with appropriate assistance, learners will more likely engage in productive learning strategies, such as reading up on concepts and accessing preparatory materials, and refrain from unproductive behavior, such as guessing on or copying of homework. In this exploratory case study, we are analyzing transactional data within an educational digital library of online physics homework problems and learning content. The sequence of events starting with a learner failing to solve a particular problem, interacting with other online resources, and then succeeding on that same problem is used to identify potentially helpful resources for future learners. It was found that these “success stories” indeed allow for providing recommendations with acceptable accuracy, which, when implemented, may lead to more productive learning paths.

An evaluation of digital library education in library and information science curriculum in Nigerian universities

Purpose The purpose of this study is to evaluate the library school’s curriculum in Nigeria with the aim of comparing it with international and national library and information science (LIS) guidelines regarding provision of “digital libraries” course. Design/methodology/approach This study covered 31 universities offering LIS approved by the National Universities Commission (NUC). The main instrument for data collection for the study was analysis of departmental documents containing the LIS curriculum. Second, some library and information science educators from universities that were yet to integrate the course digital libraries in their LIS curriculum were interviewed. Findings This study revealed that majority of the library schools offer the course “digital libraries” or related areas as core course in their curricula. However, only few library schools have computer laboratories for students to enhance digital library skills. Some LIS educators in the library schools identified challenges such as lack of qualified information and communication technology (ICT) staff to handle the course coupled with lack of computer laboratories equipped with modern computers with stable internet facilities in the LIS departments in Nigeria. Practical implications The findings from this study may inform curriculum revision and updating efforts to make it more relevant by incorporating a stand-alone course on “digital libraries” and provision of computer laboratories in the LIS departments to produce future ICT/digital librarians. Originality/value If university administrators, decision-making body in the departments and LIS educators understand the factors that are currently standing in the way of integrating a course on digital libraries, then those barriers can be removed or lowered. If the enabling factors are appreciated, then actions can be taken to stimulate the implementation of the Librarians’ Registration Council of Nigeria (LRCN)/NUC recommendations in all library schools in Nigerian universities.

Interdisciplinary Programs for Digital Library Education

This study aims to study the most important features of LibrariesEducation and topics which related to it, identifying the meaning of DLE its limitsfields and targets, Determine the scope of the formal Conceptual frameworks forDLE. Some of the most important results: DLE case took the attention ofspecialists since (1999) and till now .and since 2005 there were an increase inthe literature which informed this study, Many reports have stressed theimportance of incorporating interdisciplinary in DLE, The digital mergedas a topic in different courses in (1990) but the concern of make separatecourses with title Digital libraries In (1996) and first cooperation effort inteaching digital was in (1999- 2000). Based on the results obtained, theauthors contend that the future LIS education will consist of more of collaborativeprograms with several disciplines including CS, management, culture science,and so onto build an interdisciplinary Programs for Library Education.

A Reflection on the Development of an Erasmus Mundus Digital Library Learning (DILL) Programme

The purpose of this article is to reflect on the development of an Erasmus Mundus Digital Library Learning (DILL) program to understand the impact of the changes in technology on the role, skills and competencies of the digital librarian in contemporary society. This reflective article is based on the writer’s experience as a participant observer of the DILL program on its 10 years of development. A literature review was also employed to gather information from scholarly articles that were analyzed to help answer the research questions. Analysis of data followed a thematic approach where key ideas were identified and grouped together into themes that have been used to structure the discussions in the article. The discussions in this article have implications for further developments of education for information, particularly relating to the development of digital library learning programs in different contexts. Any effective digital library program should focus on content within a specific context, with required technology and a unique digital library education curriculum that is separate from LIS syllabi. The program may also be more effective if its curriculum content is designed to evenly assess the professional knowledge, generic skills and specific personal competencies of today’s digital librarians.

Discovering the contextual factors for digital library education in Vietnam

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to discover the contextual factors affecting the development of digital library education (DLE) in Vietnam and to determine how those factors are enabling or hindering its development.Design/methodology/approachBased upon the literature and the theories of Fullan (2007), Nowlen (1988) and Rogers (2003), an initial model of contextual factors that were potentially affecting DLE development in Vietnam was developed. The model was then tested using a qualitative methodology involving interviews and focus groups with key stakeholders, along with the gathering of documentary evidence. The data were then analysed using the interactive model of Miles et al. (2014), and the initial model was then revised.FindingsThe initial model allowed for the depiction of potential factors, both internal and external, along with some relationships between the factors. Based on the data analysis, a revised model was developed composed of seven major contextual factors that were enabling and/or hindering DLE development in the Vietnamese context. These are grouped into three categories: external factors – government, IT infrastructure and social and cultural values; internal factors – stakeholders’ attitudes, DLE characteristics and the personal and organisational nexus; and change agents, which is both an internal and external factor. These factors had different levels of influence on DLE development and are inter-related.Originality/valueNo prior study has looked at contextual factors affecting DLE development in a developing country such as Vietnam.

Unbalanced Multistage Heat Conduction and Mass Diffusion Algorithm in an Educational Digital Library

Discovering valuable and diverse resources in an educational digital library can be difficult with the existing large number of content collections. Researchers in information retrieval and related domains have moved from considering only keyword-based matching to modeling the underlying behavior pattern of users. To achieve the purpose of both precision and diversity while providing online educational resource services, in this paper, we propose a weighted network-based information filtering framework that models user usage as a bipartite user-resource network; users and resources are treated as nodes in this network, each edge from a user to a resource means usage, and the weight represents the accumulation of multiple usage scenarios. Under this framework, we propose two individual algorithms, the unbalanced heat conduction algorithm and the unbalanced mass diffusion algorithm, and one hybrid multistage heat conduction and mass diffusion algorithm. There are two stages in these algorithms. In stage 1, an initial energy is assigned to each resource that has been visited by the target and passes to users according to a specific strategy. In stage 2, the energy is similarly transferred from users to resources, and a sorted resource list ranked by energy is presented to the target user. Experiments on a real-world dataset of one year of academic search logs showed improved performance from multiple indicators compared to existing algorithms.

Digital Library Education in Europe

Research in digital libraries (DLs) has gained much interest across the globe. Most funding related to DL are available for building DLs, rather than producing digital librarians by developing the DL curricula and offering necessary funding to introduce state-of-the-art DL labs for future library professionals. Based on online surveys, this article investigates the status of DL education/courses in Europe, particularly, it examines the curriculum contents of DL courses, explores the future direction of library and information science (LIS) curricula, and identifies the competitors of LIS schools in the DL world. This study received responses from 54 LIS schools/departments in 27 European countries. The results of the current study clearly show that the majority of the LIS schools have already integrated digital librarianship in their regular bachelor’s and master’s degree programs. The importance of practical aspects in DL curricula has been highlighted by the authors. The study also reports the recommended books and journals on DL, direction of LIS curricula, and the competitors of LIS schools in the digital world. A number of future research directions have been offered by the authors. The authors expect that the study will contribute to the discussions and debates toward identifying subject elements for DL courses. The top subject areas based on their importance as reported by the participants of the current study should be taken into consideration before designing curricula for DLs and before developing a Europe-wide unique LIS curriculum.

Scalable continual quality control of formative assessment items in an educational digital library: an empirical study

An essential component of any library of online learning objects is assessment items, for example, homework, quizzes, and self-study questions. As opposed to exams, these items are formative in nature, as they help the learner to assess his or her own progress through the material. When it comes to quality control of these items, their formative nature poses additional challenges. e.g., there is no particular time interval in which learners interact with these items, learners come to these items with very different levels of preparation and seriousness, guessing generates noise in the data, and the numbers of items and learners can be several orders of magnitude larger than in summative settings. This empirical study aims to find a highly scalable mechanism for continual quality control of this class of digital content with a minimalist amount of additional metadata and transactional data, while taking into account also characteristics of the learners. In a subsequent evaluation of the model on a limited set of transactions, we find that taking into account the learner characteristic of ability improves the quality of item metadata, and in a comparison to Item Response Theory (IRT), we find that the developed model in fact performs slightly better in terms of predicting the outcome of formative assessment transactions, while never matching the performance of IRT on predicting the outcome of summative assessment.

식생활교육 디지털도서관을 위한 메타데이터 요소 개발에 관한 연구

식생활교육 디지털도서관을 위한 메타데이터 요소 개발에 관한 연구

Enhancing Inquiry-Based Language Learning With Educational Digital Library

As the amount of information available in online digital libraries increases exponentially, questions arise concerning the most productive way to use that information to advance learning. This study investigated the value of an organized educational digital library in supporting and improving EFL students’ inquiry learning process. Ninety-eight participants in two groups were compared in their learning performance. One approach used traditional open access to information while the other used an online digital library to accessing information during their inquiry-based information search process. A One-Way ANCOVA and an Independent-Samples t-test were used to examine the two groups on their English reading comprehension and learning attitudes. Results indicated students who used structured search strategies with digital libraries had higher learning performance in English reading comprehension. Digital libraries can also increase the quality of learning process and enhance the students' learning with more positive attitude.

Harvesting latent and usage-based metadata in a course management system to enrich the underlying educational digital library

In this case study, we demonstrate how in an integrated digital library and course management system, metadata can be generated using a bootstrapping mechanism. The integration encompasses sequencing of content by teachers and deployment of content to learners. We show that taxonomy term assignments and a recommender system can be based almost solely on usage data (especially correlations on what teachers have put in the same course or assignment). In particular, we show that with minimal human intervention, taxonomy terms, quality measures, and an association ruleset can be established for a large pool of fine-granular educational assets.

CIS Libraries Forum: integration, innovation and access for all

PurposeThis report aims to provide an overview of the CIS Libraries: Integration, Innovation and Access for All Forum held in Astana, Kazakhstan, on September 26‐28, 2012.Design/methodology/approachThe report provides general information about the CIS Libraries Forum, and lists its main topics and outcomes.FindingsThe report reveals that topics such as challenges of libraries in the digital era, library and information science education, and work of library associations were discussed. Memorandum on Collaboration and Cooperation of Library Associations was signed by representatives of nine CIS countries.Originality/valueThe report updates librarians and researchers on the state of library development and collaboration in CIS countries.

Automated approaches to characterizing educational digital library usage: linking computational methods with qualitative analyses

The need for automatic methods capable of characterizing adoption and use has grown in operational digital libraries. This paper describes a computational method for producing two, inter-related, user typologies based on use diffusion. Furthermore, a case study is described that demonstrates the utility and applicability of the method: it is used to understand how middle and high school science teachers participating in an academic year-long field trial adopted and integrated digital library resources into their instructional planning and teaching. Use diffusion theory views technology adoption as a process that can lead to widely different patterns of use across a given population of potential users; these models use measures of frequency and variety to characterize and describe such usage patterns. By using computational techniques such as clickstream entropy and clustering, the method produces both coarse- and fine-grained user typologies. As a part of improving the initial coarse-grain typology, clickstream entropy improvements are described that aim at better separation of users. In addition, a fine-grained user typology is described that identifies five different types of teacher-users, including "interactive resource specialists" and "community seeker specialists." This typology was validated through comparison with qualitative and quantitative data collected using traditional educational field research methods. Results indicate that qualitative analyses correlate with the computational results, suggesting automatic methods may prove an important tool in discovering valid usage characteristics and user types.

The grammatical approach: A syntax-directed declarative specification method for XML processing tasks

This paper describes the grammatical approach, an approach to the specification of XML processing tasks based on attribute grammars. This approach describes how to provide task-specific context-free grammars for XML documents, as well as how to decompose complex processing tasks into simpler ones with attribute-grammar fragments. The result is a high-level, syntax-directed declarative specification for the processing of XML documents, which facilitates the development and maintenance of complex XML processing applications while preserving the flexibility of general-purpose XML processing models. The grammatical approach is illustrated using Chasqui, an e-learning platform for building educational digital libraries of learning objects.

Perceptions of usability and usefulness of digital libraries

This paper provides an overview of a case study research that investigated the use of Digital Library (DL) resources in two undergraduate classes and explored faculty and students' perceptions of educational digital libraries. This study found that students and faculty use academic DLs primarily for textual resources, but turn to the open Web for visual and multimedia resources. The study participants did not perceive academic libraries as a useful source of digital images and used search engines when searching for visual resources. The limited use of digital library resources for teaching and learning is associated with perceptions of usefulness and ease of use, especially if considered in a broader information landscape, in conjunction with other library information systems, and in the context of Web resources. The limited use of digital libraries is related to the following perceptions: 1) Library systems are not viewed as user-friendly, which in turn discourages potential users from trying DLs provided by academic libraries; 2) Academic libraries are perceived as places of primarily textual resources; perceptions of usefulness, especially in regard to relevance of content, coverage, and currency, seem to have a negative effect on user intention to use DLs, especially when searching for visual materials.

Supporting Research in Scotland: The Scottish Higher Education Digital Library

The Scottish Higher Education Digital Library was established in 2009. This paper examines the environment which led up to its establishment in universities, libraries and with procurement. The investigative report which led to the creation of SHEDL is described, together with the first steps and a description of the SHEDL model. SHEDL has continued to grow and is well used. It is widely recognized as a successful shared service, which was created from existing funds with no additional funding. Challenges facing the SHEDL model are reviewed. While there are many challenges, there are also many opportunities. SHEDL is well placed to move forward addressing both challenges and opportunities within an environment which has changed radically since the project was started.