JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Education for Library and Information Science.This study explores the effect of learning styles and online participation on students' self-reported enjoyment levels in distributed learning environments. One hundred and sixty-nine entering students, who were enrolled in their first course totally via Internet, were chosen from masters' students in the School of Library and Information Sciences at the University of North Texas. The students were asked to complete Kolb's Learning-Style Inventory during a face-to-face training session on web-based learning. Subjects also reported their performance and enjoyment level in the course near the end of the term. Web Course Tool (WebCT) courseware automatically recorded every student's participation in terms of pages accessed, pages read, and total postings made. Multiple regression analysis found learning style significantly impacts students' enjoyment level but class participation does not. Learning styles and class participation together explain students' enjoyment level with an effect size of R2 = .125 (p < .01). Learning styles also statistically impact student participation in terms of "hits" (p = .028) and "posts" (p = .038) in this web-based course.

Despite the growing interest of business executives, there is limited academic research on the contributions of virtual worlds to learning in organizations. We address this limitation by using a recently developed typology of virtual world capabilities to investigate the potential contributions of virtual worlds to learning in organizations. Recognizing that learning occurs at three levels within the organization, we proceed to develop a theoretical framework that relates virtual world capabilities to learning at each level. Our research contributes to the field by integrating multiple theoretically anchored dimensions and offering a framework that should serve as a building block for research on, and use of, virtual worlds in learning interventions in organizational settings.

Purpose The main purpose of this paper is to measure the status and quality of library and information science (LIS) open-access (OA) journals in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI). Design/methodology/approach The study selected 86 source journals of LIS in the SSCI as a sample and measured their status of open access. Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was used to analyze 36 OA journals of 86 source journals, especially their production capability, academic influence and network communication ability. Findings The results indicate that OA journals have become an increasingly important part of LIS journals. Production capability, academic influence and network communication ability are important factors affecting the quality of OA journals. These three evaluation indicators of LIS OA journals are high, but many still have room for improvement. Research limitations/implications As the paper is limited by collecting data, the indicators of OA journals’ quality are not all-around. So, they cannot reflect the quality of LIS OA journals. In the selection of the evaluation method, the evaluation results are limited because only one AHP method is used. Practical implications The research on evaluation of OA journals can help library and scientific research personnel use OA journals effectively. Identifying key factors on evaluation can help researchers to construct OA journals better. Social implications The research on OA journals’ quality can also promote the study on OA process in academic circles and promote the communication, development and utilization of academic information. Such research can also enrich the theory of OA, and provide some new perspectives for the study of journals’ evaluation. Originality/value This paper measures the quality of LIS OA journals by analyzing production capability, academic influence and network communication ability. Rather than the traditional research methods, the focus of this study is on the value of the Web as a source of impact indices. It contributes to the scholarly impact measurements of OA journals.

Robot will be used in the grinding industry widely to liberate human beings from harsh environments. In the grinding process, optimal trajectory planning will not only improve the processing quality but also improve the machining efficiency. The aims of this study are to propose a new algorithm and verify its efficiency in achieving the optimal trajectory planning of the grinding robot. An objective function has been defined terms of both time and jerk. Improved whale optimization algorithm (IWOA) is proposed based on whale optimization algorithm (WOA) and differential evolution algorithm (DE). Mutation operation and selection operation of DE are imitated in the part of initialization to process the population initialized by WOA, and then, the search tasks of WOA are performed. Motion with a constant velocity of the end-effector is considered during fine grinding. The continuity of acceleration and velocity will be achieved by minimizing jerk, and at the same time, smooth robot movement can be obtained. Cubic spline interpolation is implemented. A six-axis industrial robot is used for this research. Results show that optimal trajectory planning based on IWOA is more efficient than others. This method presented in this paper may have some indirect significance in robot business.

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