Brittany Brannon

Abstract: What really happens when student researchers meet a Google results page? How do students determine the authority behind each result? News, blogs, journals, Wikipedia, websites, e-books--with the vast array of online content available, how do students differentiate between them? Better still, do they differentiate between them or are these format agnostic students stymied by container collapse? The Researching Students’ Information Choices (RSIC) project is answering these questions. The Association of College and Research Libraries’ (ACRL) Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education aims to guide educators in their work to develop today’s students into critical thinking denizens of the digital world. The work of RSIC can directly inform the first frame, “Authority Is Constructed and Contextual.” This Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) funded study, examines and compares the judgments and perceptions of students (from late primary, secondary, community college/vocational school, undergraduate, to graduate school/postgraduate) as they select resources for science-related school inquiry projects. Our project team includes academic science librarians, pre-service LIS educators, school librarians, and research scientists. We enlisted K-12, community college, four-year college, and university librarians and faculty as members of our Advisory Panel. The analyses identify students’ perceptions and judgments related to the source and author/creator of three resources common to all participants included in Google search results, and the role the container plays in determining whether the resource is credible and citable for a school/academic project. Students used cues from the web search results screen in their judgements and educational stage influenced their behavior in some instances. These findings can be used by librarians to design scalable instructional models to support critical student inquiry skills. The research results also will contribute to and support evidence-based decision making for the implementation of information literacy instruction grounded in frameworks, guidelines, and standards.

Abstract: This project has at the very least a dual purpose. It seeks to elaborate on uptake, applying to it theories from sociology, linguistics, history, and philosophy, and to illustrate the process of uptake in Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South and demonstrate the applicability of rhetorical concepts to literary texts by generating a reading of that novel. In Chapter 1, “Explaining Selection in Theory,” I offer two principles, habitus and narrative memory, to explain selection, which Anne Freadman claims is the central mechanism of uptake but does not thoroughly account for. In Chapter 2, “Exploring Selection in Literature,” I use the events of the first two chapters of North and South to explore the ways that habitus and narrative memory guide characters’ selections. Close attention to uptake in the novel reveals the ways that Margaret’s powerlessness makes the subtle power dynamics of communication central to her ability to

Abstract: This interactive panel brings together researchers, practitioners, and educators to explore ways of connecting theory, research, practice, and LIS education around the issue of information format. Despite a growing awareness of the importance of information format to information seeking, discovery, use, and creation, LIS has no sound, theoretically‐informed basis for describing or discussing elements of format, with researchers and practitioners alike relying on know‐it‐when‐they‐see‐it understandings of format types. The Researching Students' Information Choices project has attempted to address this issue by developing the concept of containers, one element of format, and locating it within a descriptive taxonomy of other format elements based on well‐established theories from the field of Rhetorical Genre Studies. This panel will discuss how this concept was developed and implemented in a multi‐institutional, IMLS‐grant‐funded research project and how panelists are currently deploying and planning to deploy this concept in their own practice. Closing the loop in this way creates sustainable concepts that build a stronger field overall.

Abstract: How does educational stage affect the way people find information? In previous research using the Digital Visitors & Residents (V&R) framework for semi-structured interviews, context was a factor in how individuals behaved. This study of 145 online, open-ended surveys examines the impact that one's V&R educational stage has on the likelihood of attending to digital and human sources across four contexts. These contexts vary according to whether the search was professional or personal and successful or struggled. The impact of educational stage differs based on context. In some contexts, people at higher educational stages are more likely to attend to digital sources and less likely to attend to human sources. In other contexts, there is no statistically significant difference (p

Abstract: Column description The Future Voices in Public Services column is a forum for graduate students in library and information science programs to discuss key issues in academic library public services, to envision what they feel librarians in public service have to offer to academia, to tell us their visions for the profession, or to share research being conducted in library schools We hope to provide fresh perspectives from those entering our field, in both the United States and other countries Interested faculty of graduate library and information science programs, who would like their students’ ideas represented in these pages, are invited to contact Miriam L Matteson

Abstract: On behalf of Mr. Koichiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO, it is my great pleasure to welcome you all to this international scientific conference. Drylands are often considered fragile ecosystems, yet they have a remarkable resilience to stress. They are home to unique and well-adapted plant and animal species that we need to conserve. Some of the world’s greatest cultures and belief systems have originated in drylands. On the other hand, desertification and land degradation in drylands often result in poverty and cause environmental refugees to abandon their homes. These problems can only be addressed in a holistic manner, based on sound scientific research and findings. Solutions to the problems of dryland degradation need to be communicated as widely as possible through education at all levels. These are many reasons why UNESCO – within its mandate of science, education, culture and communication – took the intiative to organize this conference. And we are glad that so many partners have responded to our call. UNESCO considers this conference as its main contribution to the observance of the International Year of Deserts and Desertification in 2006. We have deliberately chosen the title ‘The Future of Drylands’ as we feel it is time to redefine our priorities for science, education and governance in the drylands based on 50 years of scientific research in arid and semi-arid zones. In fact UNESCO has one of the longest traditions, within the UN system, of addressing dryland problems from an interdisciplinary, scientific point of view. In 1955, the ‘International Arid Land Meetings’ were held in Socorro, New Mexico (USA). They were organized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), sponsored by UNESCO and supported by the Rockefeller Foundation. One important output of the International Arid Land Meetings was a book entitled The Future of Drylands, edited by Gilbert F. White and published in

Abstract: E-learners face a large amount of fragmented learning content during e-learning. How to extract and organize this learning content is the key to achieving the established learning target, especially for non-experts. Reasonably arranging the order of the learning objects to generate a well-defined learning path can help the e-learner complete the learning target efficiently and systematically. Currently, knowledge-graph-based learning path recommendation algorithms are attracting the attention of researchers in this field. However, these methods only connect learning objects using single relationships, which cannot generate diverse learning paths to satisfy different learning needs in practice. To overcome this challenge, this paper proposes a learning path recommendation model based on a multidimensional knowledge graph framework. The main contributions of this paper are as follows. Firstly, we have designed a multidimensional knowledge graph framework that separately stores learning objects organized in several classes. Then, we have proposed six main semantic relationships between learning objects in the knowledge graph. Secondly, a learning path recommendation model is designed for satisfying different learning needs based on the multidimensional knowledge graph framework, which can generate and recommend customized learning paths according to the e-learner’s target learning object. The experiment results indicate that the proposed model can generate and recommend qualified personalized learning paths to improve the learning experiences of e-learners.

Abstract: Introduction. Information literacy and critical thinking are discussed as distinct concepts by authors in different disciplines. This paper seeks to analyse their conceptions to determine the extent to which they overlap, and identify areas for collaboration across disciplinary lines. Method. A hermeneutic literature review was conducted, followed by a content analysis of information literacy papers discussing content evaluation, and critical thinking papers from key authors. Analysis. Proportions of identified themes represented within the two groups of papers were compared. Similarities and differences were assessed in conjunction with findings from the hermeneutic literature review. Results. Though divergent in their basic underpinning skills, critical thinking and information literacy conceptions pertaining to content evaluation were found to be strongly overlapping in their broader conceptions. Modern pressures giving rise to content evaluation concerns such as the ‘fake news’ phenomenon suggest a need for strong sense conceptions, and an avenue for integration between information literacy and critical thinking when evaluating information. Conclusion. Taken in their strong sense, information literacy and critical thinking conceptions show a high degree of overlap. Engagement across disciplinary lines could offer an enrichment to both concepts.