Maria Henkel

Coverage of academic citation databases compared with coverage of scientific social media: Personal publication lists as calibration parameters

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show how the coverage of publications is represented in information services. Academic citation databases (Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar) and scientific social media (Mendeley, CiteULike, BibSonomy) were analyzed by applying a new method: the use of personal publication lists of scientists. Design/methodology/approach – Personal publication lists of scientists of the field of information science were analyzed. All data were taken in collaboration with the scientists in order to guarantee complete publication lists. Findings – The demonstrated calibration parameter shows the coverage of information services in the field of information science. None of the investigated databases reached a coverage of 100 percent. However Google Scholar covers a greater amount of publications than other academic citation databases and scientific social media. Research limitations/implications – Results were limited to the publications of scientists working at an information ...

Educators of the information society: information literacy instruction in public and academic libraries of Canada

As information literacy is a key competence of the information society, information literacy instruction in public as well as academic libraries is crucial. Today, librarians do not only act as providers of information but also as educators of the information societys citizens. This study aims to assess the perceived quality of information literacy instruction in libraries of Canadas informational cities: Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. Therefore, librarians were interviewed by means of a questionnaire inspired by the SERVQUAL diagnostic tool. The questionnaire comprises of two parts: The first part consists of questions regarding information literacy instruction, in the second part the focus is on the seven competence areas of information literacy. Based on the difference between the librarians’ “Expectation” and “Experience” scores, gap scores for all questionnaire items were calculated and are now being presented and discussed. At the same time, results of public and academic libraries are compared to show the differences in information literacy instruction and the perceived value of the different information literacy competence areas.

Information and Media Literacy in Kindergarten

This paper describes a methodological approach towards studying information literacy of kindergarten children (age three - six years). As information literacy gains more and more importance, its representation in young children becomes a particularly interesting aspect. Media and Information Literacy (MIL) is a subject in the educational context in early childhood. We want to define what MIL means for small children and what can be done in kindergarten to promote it. To find out what children aged from three to six years are able to do with new media and information, this paper shows a method to perform an analysis with children, their parents and their nursery nurses. This analysis is to take place across different nurseries in Dusseldorf and later in Hong Kong.

Rewarding Fitness Tracking—The Communication and Promotion of Health Insurers’ Bonus Programs and the Use of Self-tracking Data

This paper analyzes German and Australian health insurer programs that offer self-tracking options for customers. We considered aspects of program promotion, program goals, and data privacy issues. Results are based on scanning current information available online via insurer websites. Seven Australian and six German insurers apply self-tracking. Programs in both countries vary, whereas most Australian insurers build their programs on third-party providers, and German insurers offer direct financial rewards. Those differences may be reasonable due to diverse health systems in both countries. Commonalities regarding the programs’ intentions are obvious. Furthermore, concerns about data policies arise across countries. The reward systems and intended program goals vary. The outcomes give insights into the status quo of self-tracking health insurer programs and contribute to a better understanding of the use of self-tracking data by providers. Moreover, further questions arise about the benefits of those programs and the protection of sensitive self-tracking data.

Privacy Protecting Fitness Trackers: An Oxymoron or Soon to Be Reality?

The rapid technological advancements are supposed to simplify our everyday life. They are also increasingly utilized to support an active lifestyle with diverse tracking devices, like fitness trackers or smart watches. However, they do not seem to make the life of legislators and data privacy advocates easier. In contrary, with better and faster technology our (health-related) private data faces more and more threats. To better understand the current status of the intersecting domains of devices like fitness trackers and the data privacy, we have analyzed the development of general data privacy regulations in the EU as well as the data transfer modalities between EU and USA. Afterwards, we reviewed scientific publications on fitness trackers (or smart watches) and data privacy, in order to identify, whether there is interest in this topic among scholars and if so, which aspects do they investigate in particular.

Knowde: A Visual Search Interface

Information Visualizations are well established to represent high density information in an intuitive and interactive way. There are no popular general retrieval systems, however, which utilize the power of information visualizations for search result representation. This paper describes Knowde, a search interface with purely visual result representation. It employs a powerful information retrieval system and works in a common web browser in real-time. This working prototype, with three different variations of network graphs will assist us in exploring current issues in visualization research, such as the challenge of system evaluation.

How Public Libraries are Keeping Pace with the Times: Core Services of Libraries in Informational World Cities

Abstract In a survey of 31 informational world cities, we investigate the state of the art public library core services. For this study, we applied the core service catalog developed by (Mainka, A., S. Hartmann, L. Orszullok, I. Peters, A. Stallmann, and W. G. Stock. 2013. “Public Libraries in the Knowledge Society: Core Services of Libraries in Informational World Cities.” Libri 63 (4): 295–319. 10.1515/libri-2013-0024), counted the services offered by the libraries and compared findings with the results from 2013, allowing us to calculate a score for each library and rank them accordingly. An overall improvement of the range of services was observed, with North American libraries taking the top three positions in the ranking. To get a clearer picture of the challenges facing libraries today, personal interviews were also conducted with (chief) librarians, especially concerning developments such as maker spaces, increasing demand for information literacy instruction and the changing role of physical library space. The results presented in this paper highlight best practice examples of library services in prototypical cities of the knowledge society.

Comparing Information Literacy Levels of Canadian and German University Students

The objective of this study is the assessment and comparison of information literacy among Canadian and German students from informational cities. 892 students from Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver completed our multiple-choice questionnaire. In most cases, a significant difference between Canadian and German students is confirmed. In both countries surveyed, the majority of students reach only the beginner level.

Informationswissenschaft in der Urbanistik

Zusammenfassung Zeitgenössische und zukünftige Städte der Wissensgesellschaft werden oft als „smarte Städte“, „digitale Städte“ oder „ubiquitäre Städte“, „Wissensstädte“ und „kreative Städte“ bezeichnet. Die informationelle Urbanistik umfasst alle Aspekte von Information und (implizitem wie explizitem) Wissen in Hinblick auf städtische Regionen. „Informationelle Stadt“ (oder „smarte Stadt“ im weiteren Sinne) ist ein Sammelbegriff, der die unterschiedlichen Trends der informationsbezogenen Stadtforschung vereint. Die informationelle Stadtforschung ist ein interdisziplinäres Unternehmen, das einerseits Informatik und Informationswissenschaft sowie andererseits Stadtforschung, Stadtplanung, Architektur, Stadtökonomie und Stadtsoziologie vereint. In diesem Artikel präsentieren wir einen konzeptionellen Rahmen für die Forschung zu informationellen Städten. Dieses Framework besteht aus sieben Bausteinen, nämlich Informations- und Wissensinfrastrukturen, Wirtschaft, Politik (eGovernance) und Verwaltung (eGovernment), Räume (Räume der Ströme und Räume der Plätze), Standortfaktoren, das Informationsverhalten der Menschen und die Problembereiche.

Informationskompetenz — Forschung in Graz und Düsseldorf

Zusammenfassung Die Themen Informations- und Medienkompetenz werden seit vielen Jahren von verschiedensten Institutionen rund um den Globus wissenschaftlich beleuchtet. Auch die Abteilung für Informationswissenschaft der Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf und das Institut für Informationswissenschaft und Wirtschaftsinformatik der Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz forschten zu unterschiedlichen Aspekten aus diesem Bereich. Neben der Erfassung des Stands der Informationskompetenz verschiedener Zielgruppen wurden auch neue Ansätze zur Vermittlung von Informationskompetenz in den Fokus genommen. Dieser Artikel gibt eine Übersicht über die an den Universitäten Düsseldorf und Graz erarbeiteten Forschungsprojekte zum Thema Informationskompetenz der letzten Jahre. Hierfür werden zunächst die nötigen theoretischen Grundlagen der Informations- und Medienkompetenz dargestellt und die Anstrengungen der beiden Standorte in diesen Bereichen aufgezeigt. Im Anschluss werden die Ergebnisse der verschiedenen Studien der Institute verglichen, diskutiert und zusätzlich die Möglichkeiten zur Vermittlung von Informationskompetenz erläutert. In diesem Zusammenhang wird dem vielversprechenden Thema der MOOC ein besonderer Platz eingeräumt.