No abstract

Research data repositories perform many useful functions, the key ones being the storage of research datasets, and making the same discoverable for potential reuse. Over the years, various criteria for assessing the user-centeredness of information systems have been developed and standards have gradually been improved. However, there has been less development in case of research data management (RDM) systems. By means of a combination of userfocused research methods viz. questionnaire surveys, face-to-face interviews, a systematic appraisal of existing services and a technical experiment, we have sought to understand the meaning of user-centeredness pertaining to research data repositories, and identify some key indicators of it. We have furthermore translated our findings into design requirements based on which we propose to develop and test a prototype of a user-centered RDM system. This paper reports on how we identified the design requirements that would make the RDM systems more user-centered.

The iSchools Organization encompasses 121 information and library science schools around the globe, and is rapidly expanding. Officially begun in the early 2000s as a way to bolster a sense of field-wide purpose and identity relevant to the twenty-first century, among other objectives, iSchools are positioned as those sharing an interest in information, people, and technology. Early questions about endurance of the iSchools movement are now largely overshadowed by, and joined with, questions about coherence of the iSchools movement. This 90-minute virtual panel will present international findings about issues that are currently, as of 2020-2021, top-of-mind for iSchool leaders, pertaining to: 1.) views on and of the field of information; 2.) faculty and institutional relationships; and 3.) extra-unit alliances and alignments, including with and within the iSchools Organization itself. It draws mainly upon interview data from the funded project i4G: Shaping the iSchools' Identity and Interaction in a Globalized World.

Due to the comparatively more recent emergence of data retrieval systems than text-based search engines, the former have still yet to attain similar maturity in terms of standards and techniques. Most of the existing solutions for data retrieval are more or less makeshift adaptations of text retrieval systems rather than purpose-built solutions specially designed to cater to the particular peculiarities, subtleties, and unique requirements of research datasets. In this paper we probe into the key differences between text and data retrieval that bear practical relevance to the retrieval question; these differences we demonstrate by evaluating some representative examples of research data repositories as well as presenting findings from previous studies.

A reading list is a list of reading items recommended by an academic to assist students’ acquisition of knowledge for a specific subject. Subsequently, the libraries of higher education institutions collect and assemble reading lists according to specific courses and offer the students the reading list service. However, the reading list is created based on localised intelligence, restricted to the academic’s knowledge of their field, semantics, experience and awareness of developments. This investigation aims to present the views and comments of academics, and library staff, on an envisaged aggregated reading list service, which aggregates recommended reading items from various higher education institutions. This being the aim, we build a prototype, which aggregates reading lists from different universities and showcase it to 19 academics and library staff in various higher education institutions to capture their views, comments and any recommendations. In the process, we also showcase the feasibility of collecting and aggregating reading lists, in addition to understanding the process of reading lists creation at their respective higher education institutions. The prototype successfully showcases the creation of ranked lists of reading items, authors, topics, modules and courses. Academics and library staff indicated that aggregated lists would collectively benefit the academic community. Consequently, recommendations in the form of process implementations and technological applications are made to overcome and successfully implement the proposed aggregated reading list service. This proof-of-concept demonstrates potential benefits for the academic community and identifies further challenges to overcome in order to scale it up to the implementation stage.