Carolyn Hank

The state of social media policies in higher education.

This paper presents an analysis of the current state of development of social media policies at institution of higher education. Content analysis of social media policies for all institutions listed in the Carnegie Classification Data File revealed that less than one-quarter of institutions had an accessible social media policy. Analysis was done by institution and campus unit, finding that social media policies were most likely to appear at doctorate-granting institutions and health, athletics, and library units. Policies required that those affiliated with the institution post appropriate content, represent the unit appropriately, and moderate conversations with coworkers and external agencies. This analysis may inform the development and revision of social media policies across the field of higher education, taking into consideration the rapidly changing landscape of social media, issues of academic freedom, and notions of interoperability with policies at the unit and campus levels.

Faculty and student interactions via Facebook: Policies, preferences, and practices

Abstract Students and faculty members have always interacted informally. However, Facebook and other social networking sites (SNSs) present interaction spaces that blur the boundaries between professional, academic and personal lives. The impetus for this study is to understand the extent of SNS-mediated informal interactions between faculty members and students and the policies, preferences, and practices that inform these interactions. Adopting a multiple-case approach, interviews with faculty members and graduate students at three North American library and information science schools were completed to examine behaviors when interacting through Facebook. Additionally, syllabi at two of the case settings were analyzed to see if they contain any polices, guidelines, or other expectations for faculty and student interactions via SNSs. Interview findings show that a majority of faculty members and students prefer not to interact via Facebook, with several having developed ad hoc, informal personal guidelines informing their decision-making. No faculty or students reported explicit SNS policies or guidelines at their respective institutions addressing faculty-student interactions. The lack of explicit directives was apparent in the syllabi analysis as well. The implications for higher education and development of policies are discussed.

Communications in Blogademia: An Assessment of Scholar Blogs’ Attributes and Functions

Traditional, peer-reviewed, and formally published communications are a staple of the scholarly record. So too are the informal communications of scholars. Blogs may be seen to represent such communications. But, are blogs scholarship? Though blogging is ongoing in academe for about a decade, there is limited empirical reporting on how blogs are perceived as both a product and process of scholarly communication. This paper reports select findings from a descriptive study of blogging scholars from the fields of history, economics, law, biology, chemistry, and physics. Findings, drawn primarily from 153 completed questionnaires, are complemented by select interview excerpts and blog analysis data. Most questionnaire respondents (80%) consider their blogs as a component of their respective cumulative and persistent scholarly record, with a majority (66%) agreeing that their blog satisfies the criteria for scholarship for unpublished communications. Blogging is seen to contribute to improvements across multiple aspects of respondents’ scholarly lives and leads to invitations to publish, present, serve, and collaborate. These results are of use to blogging scholars, as support for their activity; administrators and peers, to provide context for assessing the potential value of these communications; and information organizations, including libraries and archives, to inform considerations for collecting and stewarding these communications into the future.

Before Blogs, There Were Zines: Berman, Danky, and the Political Case for Zine Collecting in North American Academic Libraries

Recent attention has been paid to collecting born-digital, nontraditional, self-published forms, such as blogs and tweets. However, what of print-based, nontraditional, self-published materials? Before there were blogs, there were zines. Zines, much like blogs and tweets, are a challenging and difficult material to collect, but upon consideration of the concepts of Sandy Berman and James Danky, the onus is on academic libraries to have zine collections. An examination of ARL and CARL websites indicates that zine collecting is not a widespread practice in academic libraries; this article argues that, even in our contemporary digital, social-networked era, it should be.

The Structure of the Biblioblogosphere: An Examination of the Linking Practices of Institutional and Personal Library Blogs

The biblioblogosphere is comprised of the institutional publication of blogs of libraries and the personal, professionally-oriented publication of blogs by librarians. Since introduction of this neologism in 2004, a number of researchers have examined this particular class of bloggers and blogging. However, there is limited investigation into the structure and connectivity of blogs within the biblioblogosphere. This article reports a study of interlinkage patterns within a sample of 1,604 biblioblogs. Findings suggest the biblioblogosphere conforms to the locally dense, globally sparse structure of blog networks established by previous studies of other blog types. The majority of blogs within the sample did not link to any other sampled blog. Those that did tended to cluster according to library type, blog subject, or geographical proximity. About one-third of the interlinked blogs were located within a single, massive component (that is, a networked group of blogs), while the rest were in smaller networks of two or three nodes. Personal biblioblogs, characterized as blogs published by individuals independently of an institution, are more likely to be located within a more densely populated network than institutional blogs. These findings indicate that “personal-professional” bibliobloggers are actively shaping the structure of the library blogosphere, while institutional blogs demonstrate much less overall connectivity.

Earth Science Data Management: Mapping Actual Tasks to Conceptual Actions in the Curation Lifecycle Model

Earth science, like other data intensive sciences, requires data that are discoverable and usable by a variety of designated communities for a multitude of purposes in our transforming digital world. Data must be collected, documented, organized, managed, and curated with data sharing in mind. Actual, rather than supposed, practices of data managers provide insight into how earth science data are preserved and made available, and the requisite skills required to do so. This study’s purpose is to explore the job practices of earth science data managers as they relate to the data lifecycle. Twelve earth science data managers were interviewed using a job analyses approach focused on job tasks and their frequencies. Data managers identified tasks related to preservation and curation in the data lifecycle, though the most mentioned tasks do not relate directly to sequential actions in the data lifecycle, but rather are more oriented toward full-life cycle actions. These are communication and project management activities. Data managers require domain knowledge of science and management skills beyond the data lifecycle to do their jobs. Several tasks did relate to the data lifecycle, such as data discovery, and require an understanding of the data, technology, and information infrastructures to support data use, re-use and preservation. Most respondents lacked formal education, acquiring necessary skills through informal, self-directed study or professional training, indicating opportunity for integrating information science and data management curriculum in disciplinary academic programs.