RSS Feeds Research Articles

Alleviating information overload caused by volumes of numerical web data: the concept and development process

The really simple syndication (RSS), a popular information dissemination mechanism, to some extent, eases the overloaded users on the Web. However, because of the limitation in its original design, currently available RSS applications cannot salvage overloaded information consumers from volumes of numerical Web data. The present work aims to change the working pattern of users who rely on processing numerical Web data to accomplish their tasks and correspondingly to improve their productivity. An extended schema was developed for formally representing numerical data items in RSS documents, and thus data providers can distribute numerical data and textual messages to subscribers. A client-side productive tool was designed to support retrieval and manipulation of numerical data from RSS feeds, its prototype was developed to realise the proposed idea and demonstrate its usefulness. Based on the observation of actual usage, the foreseeable effect of this kind of applications is reducing users’ time spent on surfing, collecting, calculating and tracking numerical data on the Web. To make the present work more versatile and serve diverse users, it is rational to augment the prototyped tool as a general-purpose computing platform.

RSS-based e-learning recommendations exploiting fuzzy FCA for Knowledge Modeling

Nowadays, Web 2.0 focuses on user generated content, data sharing and collaboration activities. Formats like Really Simple Syndication (RSS) provide structured Web information, display changes in summary form and stay updated about news headlines of interest. This trend has also affected the e-learning domain, where RSS feeds demand for dynamic learning activities, enabling learners and teachers to access to new blog posts, to keep track of new shared media, to consult Learning Objects which meet their needs. This paper presents an approach to enrich personalized e-learning experiences with user-generated content, through a contextualized RSS-feeds fruition. The synergic exploitation of Knowledge Modeling and Formal Concept Analysis techniques enables the design and development of a system that supports learners in their learning activities by collecting, conceptualizing, classifying and providing updated information on specific topics coming from relevant information sources. An agent-based layer supervises the extraction and filtering of RSS feeds whose topics cover a specific educational domain.

DiArk 2.0 provides detailed analyses of the ever increasing eukaryotic genome sequencing data.

BackgroundNowadays, the sequencing of even the largest mammalian genomes has become a question of days with current next-generation sequencing methods. It comes as no surprise that dozens of genome assemblies are released per months now. Since the number of next-generation sequencing machines increases worldwide and new major sequencing plans are announced, a further increase in the speed of releasing genome assemblies is expected. Thus it becomes increasingly important to get an overview as well as detailed information about available sequenced genomes. The different sequencing and assembly methods have specific characteristics that need to be known to evaluate the various genome assemblies before performing subsequent analyses.ResultsdiArk has been developed to provide fast and easy access to all sequenced eukaryotic genomes worldwide. Currently, diArk 2.0 contains information about more than 880 species and more than 2350 genome assembly files. Many meta-data like sequencing and read-assembly methods, sequencing coverage, GC-content, extended lists of alternatively used scientific names and common species names, and various kinds of statistics are provided. To intuitively approach the data the web interface makes extensive usage of modern web techniques. A number of search modules and result views facilitate finding and judging the data of interest. Subscribing to the RSS feed is the easiest way to stay up-to-date with the latest genome data.ConclusionsdiArk 2.0 is the most up-to-date database of sequenced eukaryotic genomes compared to databases like GOLD, NCBI Genome, NHGRI, and ISC. It is different in that only those projects are stored for which genome assembly data or considerable amounts of cDNA data are available. Projects in planning stage or in the process of being sequenced are not included. The user can easily search through the provided data and directly access the genome assembly files of the sequenced genome of interest. diArk 2.0 is available at http://www.diark.org.

Prevalence and Global Health implications of social media in direct-to-consumer drug advertising.

BackgroundDirect-to-consumer advertising (DTCA), linked to inappropriate medication use and higher health care expenditures, is the fastest growing form of pharmaceutical marketing. DTCA is legal only in the United States and New Zealand. However, the advent of online interactive social media “Web 2.0” technologies—that is, eDTCA 2.0—may circumvent DTCA legal proscriptions.ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence of DTCA of leading pharmaceutical company presence and drug product marketing in online interactive social media technologies (eDTCA 2.0).MethodsWe conducted a descriptive study of the prevalence of eDTCA 2.0 marketing in the top 10 global pharmaceutical corporations and 10 highest grossing drugs of 2009.ResultsAll pharmaceutical companies reviewed (10/10, 100%) have a presence in eDTCA 2.0 on Facebook, Twitter/Friendster, sponsored blogs, and really simple syndication (RSS) feeds. In addition, 80% (8/10) have dedicated YouTube channels, and 80% (8/10) developed health care communication-related mobile applications. For reviewed drugs, 90% (9/10) have dedicated websites, 70% (7/10) have dedicated Facebook pages, 90% (9/10) have health communications-related Twitter and Friendster traffic, and 80% (8/10) have DTCA television advertisements on YouTube. We also found 90% (9/10) of these drugs had a non-corporate eDTCA 2.0 marketing presence by illegal online drug sellers.ConclusionPharmaceutical companies use eDTCA 2.0 to market themselves and their top-selling drugs. eDTCA 2.0 is also used by illicit online drug sellers. Regulators worldwide must take into account the current eDTCA 2.0 presence when attempting to reach policy and safety goals.

Automatic news recommendations via aggregated profiling

Today, people have only limited, valuable leisure time at their hands which they want to fill in as good as possible according to their own interests, whereas broadcasters want to produce and distribute news items as fast and targeted as possible. These (developing) news stories can be characterised as dynamic, chained, and distributed events in addition to which it is important to aggregate, link, enrich, recommend, and distribute these news event items as targeted as possible to the individual, interested user. In this paper, we show how personalised recommendation and distribution of news events, described using an RDF/OWL representation of the NewsML-G2 standard, can be enabled by automatically categorising and enriching news events metadata via smart indexing and linked open datasets available on the web of data. The recommendations—based on a global, aggregated profile, which also takes into account the (dis)likings of peer friends—are finally fed to the user via a personalised RSS feed. As such, the ultimate goal is to provide an open, user-friendly recommendation platform that harnesses the end-user with a tool to access useful news event information that goes beyond basic information retrieval. At the same time, we provide the (inter)national community with standardised mechanisms to describe/distribute news event and profile information.

Using RSS to stay current

With RSS (really simple syndication) and a feed reader, the latest news and blog posts are delivered to your computer in an easy-to-read digest form, instead of you having to hop from website to website and try to figure out what's new on each.

Maintaining and Enhancing a Customized Online Journal Web Service

This article illustrates the development and enhancement of a web service to provide access to online journals at the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library (CMHSL), University of Virginia Health System. The custom-designed system is intended to provide efficient access to electronic journals and is the library's most visited web page. A project team of librarians and web developers decided to enhance the page by adding: 1) a link to Journal Citation Reports® (Thomson Reuters) Impact Factors, 2) a simple web form for setting up e-mail subscriptions to tables of contents, and 3) a one-click action to subscribe to RSS feed table of contents services. The process for choosing and implementing these enhancements is described, as well as the rationale behind devoting time and expertise to efforts surrounding the electronic journal page.

Mining and visualising information from RSS feeds: a case study

PurposeRecent years have seen “really simple syndication” or “rich site summary”(RSS) syndication of frequently updated content become ubiquitous across the internet. RSS's XML‐based format allows these data to be stored in a semi‐structured format but, despite the presence of online aggregators and readers, and the related work in clustering feeds and mining subjects by keywords, much potentially useful information present in RSS may remain undiscovered. This paper aims to address this issue in an experimental setting.Design/methodology/approachThis paper presents two distinct technologies which employ the semi‐structured nature of RSS content to allow users to mine information directly from raw RSS feeds: occurrence mining counts occurrences of text strings in feeds, whilst value mining mines structured ticker tape numeric data. It describes both technologies and their implementation in an experiment, where 35 students mined small numbers of RSS feeds and visualised the data mined.FindingsThis paper analyses the results of the experiment and cites examples of data mined and visualisations produced. The subject matter of data mined is also explored and potential applications of the technologies are considered.Research limitations/implicationsThe mining technologies proposed in this paper have been developed to mine textual and numeric data directly from feeds, but can be extended to mine other data types present in RSS and to include other variants like Atom.Originality/valueThese technologies are seen to be applicable to data mining, the role of data and visualisations in social data analysis, issue tracking in news mining and time series analysis.

A Literature Review on Web 2.0

Dans son numero de fevrier 2008, la revue Harvard Business Review (HBR) classait les technologies collaboratives (sites de reseaux sociaux, mondes virtuels, jeux en reseaux, economie peer to peer…) comme l’une des 20 plus importantes evolutions dans le monde des affaires. Une etude de The McKinsey Quarterly realisee aupres de managers en juin 2008 montre une augmentation tres significative de l’utilisation des applications du Web 2.0 dans les entreprises sur les 12 derniers mois (blogs, flux RSS, plateformes wikis…). La proliferation des articles dans la presse, les medias et sur Internet demontrent un veritable interet pour le phenomene du Web 2.0. Bien que l’on soit pour l’instant au stade exploratoire, le Web 2.0 semble presenter des potentialites interessantes pour ameliorer les organisations et leurs differents processus. Dans le cadre de cette recherche menee pour le compte du CIGREF, nous avons choisi de faire une revue de litterature afin de mieux comprendre le concept du Web 2.0 au niveau des organisations. Nous chercherons donc dans une premiere partie a determiner ce que recouvre le Web 2.0 du point de vue des technologies et des systemes d’information avec une typologie en termes de fonctionnalites. Ensuite, nous proposerons une synthese detaillee de la revue de la litterature en Sciences de Gestion sur le Web 2.0 en demontrant la dimension transversale du concept et sa logique socio‐organisationnelle.

Jazz Music Library (review)

Reviewed by: Jazz Music Library Sha Towers Jazz Music Library. Alexander Street Press, LLC. http://jazz.alexanderstreet.com/ (Accessed August 2010 to December 2010). [Requires a Web browser and an Internet connection, Microsoft Windows 98 or higher/Macintosh 10.0 or higher, sound card with speakers/headphones, and Adobe Flash Player 7 or higher. Subscription pricing ranges from $995 - $3,000, depending on number of simultaneous users. Consortial or package discounts may apply.] Founded in May 2000, Alexander Street Press (hereafter ASP) began with the aim of publishing large, digital collections in the humanities and social sciences. The company entered the realm of streaming audio in November 2004 with the acquisition of Classical Music Library. In April 2009, ASP announced the release of Jazz Music Library (hereafter JML) with an initial offering of 18,000 tracks (representing 3,800 artists and licensed material from dozens of record labels). With this new service, ASP aspired to be the "largest and most comprehensive collection of streaming jazz available online" with coverage in "every jazz genre and time period."1 JML is available as a standalone subscription or through ASP's Music Online Listening Package, which offers aggregated access to all of ASP's streaming audio databases.2 Coverage As of September 2010, JML contained nearly 6,000 albums, totaling nearly 69,000 tracks. ASP staff notes that by the end of 2010, JML will include 100,000-120,000 tracks. The database currently includes 5,841 albums from 77 record labels. Initial reports indicated that JML included 5,888 albums for 109 record labels, though upon closer inspection it became clear that this estimate was in error, as the company's master list contained duplication of thirty-two labels. Presently, recorded materials in JML span from the 1920s (four works) to the 1990s (3,776 works). In this context, the term "work" represents either an entire album or (in the case of albums containing material recorded in various years) one or more tracks. Though the total number of [End Page 800] works does not correspond neatly to other reported data (works will be greater than the total number of albums and less than the total number of tracks), the breakdown of works by recording date is useful for a more informed view of the database's coverage (see Figure 1). The majority of works in JML have recording dates from the 1950s and 1960s. Together these two decades account for 14,221 works. In comparison, the last quarter of the 20th century is represented by 9,195 works. Click for larger view View full resolution Fig. 1. Number of works in Jazz Music Library arranged by decade of recording date (as of 1 December 2010) Though JML currently includes seventy-seven record labels, many of these offer only a few recordings. Nearly 20 percent of the labels include only a single recording. More than 50 percent of the labels include ten or fewer recordings. The four labels with the largest representation in JML—Universal Classics & Jazz (802), Verve (676), Blue Note (671), and Prestige (567)—make up 46 percent of the database. See Figure 2 for a breakdown of the number of albums available, by label. Often labels with few recordings in JML suggest that a label does not have digital rights for everything produced on that label or that these rights have not been conveyed to ASP. In other cases, a non jazz-centric label may have released a small number of jazz albums or is a sub unit of a larger label with greater representation in JML. Navigating JML JML navigation and menu options are clearly displayed in the header of the site, providing easy access to information about JML, searching, browsing, and creating playlists (discussed below). The "Help" page (browsable and searchable) includes FAQs, technical support contact information, troubleshooting guides, and tips on using the database. Newly-added recordings appear on a separate tab, and users can sort results (by album title, performer, label, genre, or recording date), though with updates of nearly 1,000 albums at a time, the value of this tab may be questionable. The header also includes a link to JML's RSS feed for...

Naxos Music Library Jazz (review)

Reviewed by: Naxos Music Library Jazz Sha Towers Naxos Music Library Jazz. Naxos Digital Services. http://www.naxosmusiclibrary.com/jazz/ (Accessed August 2010-December 2010). [Requires a Web browser and an Internet connection, sound card with speakers/headphones, and Adobe Flash Player 9 or higher. Pricing: $70 per user (annual subscription).] In 2004, Naxos Digital Services launched both its classical music streaming service (Naxos Music Library) and what would be the first jazz-focused music streaming service, Naxos Music Library Jazz (hereafter NMLJ). As of November 2010, Naxos reports the inclusion of over 52,000 tracks representing nearly 9,000 artists. Coverage As of this review, NMLJ included 109 record labels with 4,463 albums, however all of [End Page 807] these recordings are not available in the U.S. (or several other countries) due to copyright restrictions.1 Considering just the materials available in the United States, 20 percent of the labels in NMLJ have only one album. Sixty percent of the labels in NMLJ offer ten or fewer albums. The second and third largest labels, Challenge Classics (357) and Enja (351), make up 16 percent of the database, while the largest portion of NMLJ is comprised of the labels under the umbrella of Fantasy Records. Totaling more than 2,100 albums, the body of materials from Fantasy Records makes up 48 percent of NMLJ. While Fantasy Records has been involved in recording all kinds of music (making its first big break thanks to its relationship with Creedence Clearwater Revival), the company got its start in jazz with their first recording artist, Dave Brubeck. Fantasy went on to record other jazz artists like Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, Cal Tjader, Cannonball Adderley, Woody Herman, Bill Evans, Sonny Rollins, and Vince Guaraldi. In the 1970s the company began acquiring a number of independent jazz labels, a move that resulted in an extensive reissue program of recordings of landmark figures like Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, and the Modern Jazz Quartet.2 Navigating NMLJ The NMLJ homepage is clean and functional. Recent and featured additions can be browsed here and clicking on "more recent additions" displays the most recent upload (including artist/title/catalog number and date added to NMLJ. This page also provides options to select different date ranges (roughly a month's worth at a time). An RSS feed for new additions is also available. The main navigation for the site is found in the header with tabs for Labels, Artists, Composers, Genres, Playlists, and Advanced Search. The header also includes a keyword search box. Links to help files (searching tips, user instructions, and FAQs), though present, might be more effective if displayed more prominently with the rest of the main navigation. The searching tips file was obviously borrowed wholesale from Naxos Music Library (as all of the examples are drawn from the realm of Western classical music), suggesting that support for NMLJ was an afterthought. Browsing The "Labels" tab provides quick, easy access to all labels included in NMLJ, though this page doesn't indicate the quantity of recordings associated with each (see Fig. 1 for total number of albums per label). Clicking on a label name links to a list of its recordings and includes an icon and brief description of the label (ex. from Naxos Jazz Legends: "This label is devoted to the great jazz musicians of the past, from Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman and Louis Armstrong to Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Django Reinhardt.") The description is most useful when encountering unfamiliar labels ("Oh, they focus on Icelandic rag time cylinder reissues?"), but for companies [End Page 808] that are not exclusively jazz-related, the description may not be that helpful, as the information is not customized to explain why recordings from this label are included in NMLJ. However, selecting recordings from the list will at least indicate the assigned genre, which may help to discern a label's focus. The "Artists" and "Composers" pages provide a convenient way to browse people in the database. Some birth/death dates are included. Both tabs suggest the inclusion of biographies, though these appear to be rare (ex. Louis Armstrong). What biographies do exist seem to come from...

The Accidental Health Sciences Librarian

The Accidental Health Sciences Librarian

Creating an Internet Consumer Health Resource for Western New York Breast Cancer Patients

After a breast cancer diagnosis, it is important to locate quality, reliable information in order understand, explore, and discuss treatment options available to patients with their oncologists and health professionals. This column explores the creation of a consumer health resource for breast cancer patients and families using various Web 2.0 tools such as wikis and an RSS Feed.

The Presence of Web 2.0 Applications Is Associated with the Overall Service Quality of Library Websites

A Review of:
 Chua, A. Y. K., & Goh, D. H. (2010). A study of Web 2.0 applications in library websites. Library & Information Science Research, 32(3), 203-211. 
 
 Objective – To determine the prevalence and use of web 2.0 applications in library websites and to determine whether or not their presence enhances the quality of the sites.
 
 Design – Content analysis.
 
 Setting – Public and academic libraries in North America, Europe, and Asia.
 
 Subjects – A total of 120 academic and public library websites in English.
 
 Methods – This study identified and selected library websites from academic and public libraries using a combination of directories, ratings reports, and ranking lists from three geographic regions. Over a four-month period in 2009, three coders conducted a three-step content analysis of the selected library websites. This analysis was conducted after having established inter-coder reliability using Cohen’s Kappa and analytic procedure familiarity, using a randomly selected pilot set of 30 library websites. The remaining 90 websites were evenly distributed among the three coders for analysis. They determined whether web 2.0 applications were present, examined how those applications were used, and gave an overall appraisal of website quality. Coders inspected library website links, conducted site searches, used search engines, and searched within major social networking sites to determine the presence of web 2.0 applications. A quality framework classification scheme was used during coding to identify how the web 2.0 applications were being used within library websites. This framework was established around four dimensions of library services: information acquisition (blogs and wikis), information dissemination (Rich Site Summary, or “RSS”), information organization (social tagging), and information sharing (social networking and instant messaging). A five-point Likert scale was also used in concert with a website quality evaluation framework to assess the quality of the library websites. This framework included three aspects of website quality: system quality, information quality, and service quality. A combination of statistical techniques such as Chi-square analysis, Cramer’s V, analysis of variance, Tukey’s statistic, and multiple regression were then used to analyze the findings.
 
 Main Results – Web 2.0 applications have been adopted by libraries across North America, Europe, and Asia. The most popular web 2.0 applications were blogs (56.6%), RSS (50%), and instant messaging services (46.6%) while less prevalent were social networking services (20%), wikis (16.6%), and social tagging applications (16.6%). The extent of libraries’ adoption of web 2.0 applications also varied according to region. North American libraries used all web 2.0 applications most consistently and were more attuned to heavier users, particularly with regard to information sharing applications (e.g., instant messaging, social networking). European libraries lagged behind those in Asia in embracing information acquisition applications (e.g., blogs, wikis) but were comparable to other regions. Social networking services and instant messaging were strongly associated with region; RSS, blogs, and social tagging showed moderate to moderately strong associations; and only wikis did not demonstrate a statistically significant association with region. 
 
 This study also identified how web 2.0 applications were being used. Blogs were used to generate interest, engage users, and endear users to library personnel, while wikis culled resources from users thematically. RSS feeds communicated news, events or resource updates, and were also used in combination with library blogs. Social tagging invited users to save, organize, and share information, while some websites used librarian-generated tags for search and discovery or included them as tag clouds in library blogs. Instant messaging was used to assist users synchronously during scheduled timeslots; meanwhile, social networking sites offered alternate channels to communicate and build connections with users.
 
 The authors found a relationship between website quality and the presence of web 2.0 applications based on the criteria presented in their quality evaluation framework. Applications facilitating information sharing (i.e., social networks and instant messaging) had a stronger influence on a website’s overall quality than those being used for information acquisition and dissemination (i.e., RSS, wikis, and blogs). Web 2.0 applications among academic and public libraries shared a similar level of presence on the library websites; therefore, the type of library is not associated with the quality of the library website. North American websites tended to be higher in quality than European or Asian library websites, and differences in quality between European and Asian sites were insignificant.
 
 Conclusion – This study reveals that libraries in various geographic regions adopt web 2.0 applications differently. Web 2.0 applications in library websites enhance users’ experience with library resources and support their interests. Library websites are implementing web 2.0 applications in a myriad of ways, including using these applications in concert with one another to increase user engagement. The presence of web 2.0 applications strongly affects service quality but only weakly influences information quality.

Use of RSS Feeds for the Implementation of Clinical Reminder

A computer-based reminder system can help physicians get right information and make right decisions in daily clinical work in time. This study presents a RSS-based Clinical Reminding System (RCRS) designed for reminding clinicians to deal with their varied unfinished clinical works. The RCRS was implemented in a hospital to automatically generate messages for every clinician on the basis of clinical information gathered from the hospital information system (HIS) and send them by RSS feed. In order to allow all physicians to participate in the project, the RCRS was integrated with the Computerized Physician Order Entry (COPE) system to provide messages whenever a clinician logs in the HIS; the connection on screen lets the clinician easily make some response. The system can help clinicians focus on patient care without keeping track of the schedule of clinical chores stored in various systems. Two physicians, also directors from Clinical Informatics Research & Development Center (CIRD) who were appointed as project leaders of the RCRS project who went through the entire development process were chosen as interviewees to obtain a preliminary evaluation of the system. The results show the "Information Content" of this system was suggested to be modified, and "Information Accuracy", "Formats", "Ease of use" and "Timeliness" of the system were appropriate to meet the system design purposes.

Editorial

Dear Reader, Welcome to the latest issue of Steel Research International. Our journal entered 2011 in great health: The number of submissions we receive each year is steadily increasing, the overall quality of submissions remains very high, our journal is supported by an enthusiastic editorial board representing the top institutes, societies and manufacturers in the world of steel, and it features a robust infrastructure provided by Wiley-VCH, including online access via Wiley's new portal for journals and books, Wiley Online Library. But the good news does not stop there. This month we'd like to let you know about the most recent developments going on in our journal, and some indications of yet more good news to come. Following its long history of publishing as Archiv für das Eisenhüttenwesen and now as Steel Research International, our journal is, as of this year, managed by a dedicated, full-time team of professional editors based in Wiley-VCH's Weinheim office in south-west Germany. This same team is also responsible for leading high Impact Factor materials science journals such as Advanced Materials and the materials science news portal materialsviews.com Therefore, when you submit your work, you can expect to receive a quality service worthy of a high Impact Factor journal, and for your best work to be promoted to a very large interdisciplinary audience of materials scientists, physicists, chemists and engineers. Speaking of which, our journal now holds a monthly “Editor's Choice” award for the best paper published in each issue. The choice of the award is based on highly positive reviewer reports, anticipation of widespread interest amongst our readership, and exceptional scientific quality. The Editor's Choice paper will be highlighted in the table of contents, receive coverage on materialsviews.com, and the corresponding author will receive a certificate. Will your next submission be picked for the Editor's Choice? We began 2011 with two special issues: Issue 1 highlighted the hot topics discussed at the Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) conference in Darmstadt last year, while Issue 2 focused on ab initio techniques in steel research. We will continue to focus on important events and topical developments in steel research and related disciplines around the world, and we look forward to meeting you out and about. Looking at the most downloaded articles from last year (see below), the international appeal and broad scope of Steel Research International is readily apparent. Papers from the traditional European and Scandinavian strongholds for steel making and research are present in the Top 10, alongside contributions from two countries that are now strongly associated with steel production: India and Brazil. Japan and Korea would also be conspicuous by their absence from any list of Top 10 steel research papers, and we are enthusiastically developing our ties with metallurgists in Asia, for example by our association with the Chinese Society for Metals (pictured). Having got off to a great start in 2011, we are looking forward to developing the journal even more and engaging with you to report the most important developments in steel and related materials, wherever they may be occurring. We very much appreciate the continuing input and enthusiasm of our Editorial Board and Advisory Board, and for the great efforts of our authors and peer reviewers for their important contributions. Of course, if you have any comments, suggestion or questions for our journal, please just let us know; we'd be happy to hear from you. It only remains to wish you all the very best for your work, and we look forward to hearing about your latest discoveries. Best regards, Tim Adams & Jörn Ritterbusch PS: Did you know that you can have the latest Steel Research International articles sent directly to your web browser the moment they are published online? Go to www.steel-research.de and click “Get RSS feed” under Journal Tools. PPS: You can also stay up-to-date with Steel Research International at twitter.com/timfromsrin Tim Adams Jörn Ritterbusch Prof. Carl-Dieter Wuppermann representing the SRI Publisher Board, left Prof. Hong Jibi, executive Vice President and Secretary General CSM, right (Mrs.) Prof. Jiayuan Zhang, University of Science and Technology Beijing Most downloaded articles of 2010 10.1002/srin.200900112 10.1002/srin.200900093 10.1002/srin.200900118 10.1002/srin.200900108 10.1002/srin.200900064 10.1002/srin.200900069 10.1002/srin.200900114 10.1002/srin.200900095 10.1002/srin.201000020 10.1002/srin.200900099

Analysis of Content Legibility for Smartphones of Websites of the Korean Urological Association and Other Urological Societies in Korea

PurposeWe performed an analysis of the smartphone legibility of the websites of the Korean Urological Association (KUA) and other urological societies.Materials and MethodsThis study was conducted on the websites of the KUA and nine other urological societies. Each website was accessed via iPhone Safari and Android Chrome, respectively, to evaluate the establishment and readability of the mobile web pages. The provision of Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds by the websites and whether the websites had Twitter and Facebook accounts were evaluated. In addition, a validation test on the web standards was performed by using the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C®) Markup Validation Service, and subsequently the numbers of errors and warnings that occurred were analyzed.ResultsWhen accessed via Safari, two websites were legible, four were somewhat legible, and four were somewhat illegible. When accessed via Chrome, two websites were legible, six were somewhat legible, and two were somewhat illegible. One website provided an RSS feed and two websites managed members via separate Twitter accounts. No website supported mobile web pages. The result of the W3C® Markup Validation test on 10 websites showed a mean error rate of 221.6 (range, 13-1,477) and a mean warning rate of 127.13 (range, 0-655).ConclusionsThe smartphone legibility level of the websites of urological societies was relatively low. Improved smartphone legibility and web standard compliance of the websites of urological societies are required to keep up with the popularity of smartphones.

Using LibGuides to offer library service to undergraduate medical students based on the case-oriented problem solving curriculum model

Research suggests that creating subject guides at the course level increases library use [1]. Switching from a “library-centered” focus to “student-centered” focus, libraries should make subject guides available at the point of need [2] and design them so the content is available where students are working [3]. According to Morris and Del Bosque, “The emergence of Web 2.0 tools and social networking sites has contributed to a renewed interest in subject guides” [4]. LibGuides is web-authoring and -hosting software for publishing library subject guides, web portals, or course guides. This web-hosted software is available from Springshare, a company based in Gansevoort, New York, that develops Web 2.0 applications specifically for libraries. It incorporates Web 2.0 applications such as social bookmarking, really simple syndication (RSS) feeds, and podcasts, and it allows librarians to collaborate with the LibGuides' community. Librarians are able to collect feedback for their guides though polls and ratings, as well as gather detailed usage statistics. LibGuides allows a librarian to access annual usage statistics for each of their published guides. The annual report tracks monthly page and link hits. An analysis of these statistics determines which links and pages users view least and most frequently. This paper reports on a project to assess the usefulness of a web-based research portal, designed using LibGuides software and incorporating the architecture of the medical school curriculum. The portal facilitates use of electronic resources offered by the W. K. Kellogg Health Sciences Library at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada [5].

Integrating Web 2.0 Technologies into the College Classroom Using Xtranormal

The term Web 2.0 was introduced in 2004 and is used to describe a series of collaborative technologies that enable any user to create his or her own content. These technologies require minimal Web design or HTML skills and include blogs, wikis, RSS (really simple syndication) feeds; podcasts and vodcasts, social networking sites, user-added reviews and ratings, tagging and folksonomonies. Educators must incorporate these technologies into the classroom to teach students about intellectual property, privacy, social skills, evaluation and the role of new tools for academic purposes. Xtranormal, a cloud-based service used to create short animated movies, is one tool that can be used to address all of those topics in an entertaining and appealing format. Educators have used Xtranormal to create videos for lectures and as a tool for students to use to make videos themselves. Examples focus specifically on librarians using Xtranormal for information literacy instruction.

Utilizing Technology in Clinical Practice: A Comparison of Board-Certified Music Therapists and Music Therapy Students

Over the past several decades there has been an increase in the use of technology, especially since technology is fairly accessible to the general public. Recent consumer surveys and industry data indicate a continuous growth and accessibility of technology in the home environment (Barrett, 2005; Jacobs, 2009; Rose & Lenski, 2006). Results from a survey by Horrigan (2007) indicated that in 2006, 73% of Americans had cell phones, 68% had desktop computers, 55% had digital cameras, 43% had video cameras, 30% had laptop computers, 20% had iPods/mp3 players, 13% had webcams, and 11% had personal digital assistants (PDA). A different survey indicated that 81% of the U.S. population uses the Internet (Rose & Lenski, 2006), and for individuals with Internet access, many music opportunities are available, including purchasing online music, downloading music files, listening to online radio, and listening to music on computers (Barrett, 2005). Recently podcasts have gained popularity. Podcasts are digital content-related broadcasts available for free download from the Internet, which can be downloaded to a computer or portable media player. At the convenience of their own place and time, people can use mobile devices, such as personal media players, cellular phones, PDAs, and mobile computers to download learning materials (Cebeci & Tekdal, 2006).Discussion boards have provided opportunities for listeners to respond to weblogs, audio blogs, Rich Site Summary (RSS), and podcasts. A variety of podcast recording software is provided for free or provides free trials, such as CastBlaster, Audacity, Podifier, and Podcast Factory. As a matter of fact, Apple's GarageBand is automatically provided on every Apple computer that is sold. A number of editing software exits for PCs and Macs. Technological devices combined with software provide increased opportunities for average, everyday people to make and edit their own movies and music videos. In a recent survey, Rainie (2008) found that 22% of Americans make their own videos, and 14% post portions of their videos online. Opportunities to post videos online have grown over the past year, especially due to the increased number of video sites that are similar to YouTube. It is evident that there are many opportunities for the general public to utilize and connect with current technology trends.Technology in Higher EducationIn the past few years articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education have addressed the pros and cons of technology in higher education (Fernandez, 2007; Read, 2005), and many professors have provided information regarding the use of technology in the collegiate setting (Bergstrom, 2006; Cebeci & Tekdal, 2006). Cebeci and Tekdal (2006) explained the importance of making podcasts into learning objects or chunks of information that relates to a whole but provides easier learning through smaller portions. Thus, learning objects must have academic values, which differs from ordinary audio objects or podcasts files. Wafers-Like Audio Learning Object (WALO) proved to be efficient in learning by maintaining learner attention, regulating physiological capacity, retaining abilities, and involving sensory channels of students. One technology-based assessment used in higher education involves student response systems, often called clickers, which engages students in large lecture classes (Bergstrom, 2006). Professors presented questions on course material during class, which students answered by pressing a key on a clicker device; this allows professors to evaluate student understanding during lectures.Duke University provided iPods, equipped with Belkin Voice Recorders, for approximately 1600 incoming students for fall 2004 to encourage creative use of technology in academia (Belanger, 2005). In their final report, the various uses of iPods in academia were documented, including courses in which the iPods were especially useful for learning course material. …