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- Genre: Doctoral Dissertation
Description
Ample evidence exists to support the conclusion that enterprise search is failing its users. This failure is costing corporate America billions of dollars every year. Most enterprise search engines are built using web search engines as their foundations. These search engines are optimized for web use and are inadequate when used inside the firewall. Without the ability to use popularity-based measures for ranking documents returned to the searcher, these search engines must rely on full-text search technologies. The Information Science literature explains why full-text search, by itself, fails to adequately discriminate relevant from irrelevant documents. This failure in discrimination results in far too many documents being returned to the searcher, which causes enterprise searchers to abandon their searches in favor of re-creating the documents or information they seek. This dissertation describes and evaluates a potential solution to the problem of failed enterprise search derived from the Information Science literature: subject-aided search. In subject-aided search, full-text search is augmented with a search of subject metadata coded into each document based upon a hierarchically structured subject index. Using the Design Science methodology, this dissertation develops and evaluates three IT artifacts in the search for a solution to the wicked problem of enterprise search failure.
ContributorsSchymik, Gregory (Author) / St. Louis, Robert (Thesis advisor) / Goul, Kenneth M (Committee member) / Santanum, Raghu (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
The community college leadership pipeline is a source for concern in the face of anticipated retirements, yet most administrators come only from the ranks of classroom faculty, not from the full spectrum of all faculty. Librarians, whose experiences lend themselves to many administrative duties, seldom advance into administrative positions. This study was centered on the development of a career coaching intervention by which participants from a subset of California community college libraries received guidance from administrators who had previously been librarians. The aim was to see whether such an intervention could increase administrative skills, improve self-efficacy to perform in administrative roles, increase perceptions of the desirability of attaining such positions, and lead to greater intent to move onto such career pathways. The study found that a career coaching program had mixed success at addressing the study aims, but that it also opened space for librarians alone to explore other leadership and professional growth opportunities. The research argues for the restaging of such a career coaching program, centered on librarians only, so as to encourage their advancement, whether into administrative ranks at their community colleges or otherwise.
ContributorsHepburn, Peter (Author) / Gee, Elisabeth (Thesis advisor) / Buss, Ray (Committee member) / Aguiñaga, José (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
University students face an information landscape that is overburdened with the proliferation of information as a result of increased and improved technology. Students will be better able to navigate such information overload only if they are information literate enough. Being information literate is having the ability to utilize information effectively and ethically. Information literacy has become a critical aspect of higher education in ensuring that students develop skills and attitudes to access information effectively, efficiently, and ethically. This study investigates a way to systematically integrate information literacy instruction into the undergraduate curriculum of a university through alignment with an established framework. This mixed methods study adopted an action research approach to explore the situating of information literacy into the curriculum. Action research is about the repeated application of results and findings to a specific problem of practice in a specific context. The iterative process of action research allowed for three cycles of research which culminated into an information literacy intervention aligned to the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education that resulted in changed student perceptions of their information literacy self-efficacy, skills, and abilities, all of which has the potential to translate into a changed undergraduate student learning experience.
ContributorsBernard, Simone Vanessa (Author) / Thompson, Nicole (Thesis advisor) / Basile, Carole (Committee member) / Kammerlocher, Lisa (Committee member) / Ross, Lydia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
Libraries provide a needed third place for students to engage with their peers and faculty, both academically and socially. Staff behavior, knowledge, and skills in providing an accessible and inclusive environment are key to helping students with disabilities feel that they belong in the libraries. This makes training in disability and accessibility awareness a necessary component of the overall program for the library. This study assessed a locally-developed, online training program for staff of all levels that was intended to improve staff knowledge and skills in disability etiquette, library services and spaces that support people with disabilities, and the policies that govern this work. The program used the four-part Deines-Jones (1999) model for its content and the core principles of andragogy for its instructional design. Assessment focused on changes in beliefs and knowledge using an adapted standardized scale, and evidence for learning from responses to training program questions, focus group discussions, and survey responses. Further development of the training program was informed by the principles of andragogy. Participants in the training program improved their scores in the knowledge domain but had no change in their beliefs domain. Learning was most evident in spaces where it engaged with previous knowledge and supportive customer service approaches. Participants identified and, in several cases, independently pursued new questions that were prompted by the training program. On the whole, participants found the training to be supportive and engaging, with minor changes to structure and focus recommended for the next iteration.
ContributorsVaughan, K.T. (Author) / Bernstein, Katherine (Thesis advisor) / Puckett, Kathleen (Committee member) / VanScoy, Amy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
This qualitative study examined how the scientific journal PLOS ONE assembled its editorial board, which is made up of more than 10,000 academic editors based in 131 countries. The study investigated how the board’s geographic diversity is enacted by the human and nonhuman actors of the assemblage. PLOS ONE is an open-access (OA) mega-journal launched in 2006 by the nonprofit organization Public Library of Science (PLOS). It publishes over 16,000 papers yearly, covering more than 200 scientific subjects of science and medicine. I drew on Actor-Network Theory (ANT), which proposes that processes, ideas, organizations, or objects are continuously generated within a network of relationships between human and nonhuman actors. I used the case study methodology and employed two qualitative research methods. First, I conducted semi-structured interviews with 26 academic editors from different fields, including biology and life sciences, chemistry, medicine and health sciences, physics, and social sciences. These editors are affiliated with research institutions across 14 countries. Additionally, I interviewed PLOS leaders, staff members, and a representative from an external contractor. Second, I employed documentary analysis of organizational documents and online secondary data. Findings showed that the human and nonhuman actors of the PLOS ONE editorial board reproduce biases in science based on authors’ and editors’ geographic origin, the journal’s size and the low diversity of PLOS staff members. I also identified that APCs (Article Processing Charges) act as mediators that trigger betrayals among the actors, which has consequences on the stability of the assemblage, especially in terms of trust between the publisher and the scientific community. Finally, this study also identified that publishing an OA mega-journal has contradictions and unexpected effects on the publishing landscape due to its large scale.
ContributorsLujano Vilchis, Ivonne (Author) / Fischman, Gustavo (Thesis advisor) / Kim, Jeongeun (Committee member) / Hailu, Meseret (Committee member) / Dussel, Inés (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023