Scott Nicholson

Socialization in the "Virtual Hallway": Instant Messaging in the Asynchronous Web-based Distance Education Classroom

This research reports the findings from a survey that examined the differences in communication between students who used instant messenger (IM) services and those who did not in the same asynchronous distance education Web-based course. It was found that students who used IM services found it easier to communicate, felt a stronger sense of community, and had more venues for informal and social communication about not only class material, but also information about the school and their common degree program. In traditional classroom buildings, the common spaces such as hallways provide the venue for this informal communication; IM services can enhance the distance education environment by providing the “virtual hallways” for students and instructors to meet.

A RECIPE for Meaningful Gamification

Meaningful gamification is the use of gameful and playful layers to help a user find personal connections that motivate engagement with a specific context for long-term change. While reward-based gamification can be useful for short-term goals and situations where the participants have no personal connections or intrinsic motivation to engage in a context, rewards can reduce intrinsic motivation and the long-term desire to engage with the real world context. If the goal is long-term change, then rewards should be avoided and other game-based elements used to create a system based on concepts of meaningful gamification. This article introduces six concepts—Reflection, Exposition, Choice, Information, Play, and Engagement—to guide designers of gamification systems that rely on non-reward-based game elements to help people find personal connections and meaning in a real world context.

The current state of digital reference: validation of a general digital reference model through a survey of digital reference services

This paper describes a study conducted to determine the paths digital reference services take through a general process model of asynchronous digital reference. A survey based on the general process model was conducted; each decision point in this model provided the basis for at least one question. Common, uncommon, and wished-for practices are identified, as well as correlations between characteristics of services and the practices employed by those services. Identification of such trends has implications for the development of software tools for digital reference. This study presents a snapshot of the state-of-the-art in digital reference as of late 2001-early 2002, and validates the general process model of asynchronous digital reference.

A conceptual framework for the holistic measurement and cumulative evaluation of library services

This conceptual piece presents a framework to aid libraries in gaining a more thorough and holistic understanding of their users and services. Through a presentation of the history of library evaluation, a multidimensional matrix of measures is developed that demonstrates the relationship between the topics and perspectives of measurement. These measurements are then combined through evaluation criteria, and then different participants in the library system view those criteria for decision making. By implementing this framework for holistic measurement and cumulative evaluation, library evaluators can gain a more holistic knowledge of the library system and library administrators can be better informed for their decision‐making processes.

The basis for bibliomining: frameworks for bringing together usage-based data mining and bibliometrics through data warehousing in digital library services

Over the past few years, data mining has moved from corporations to other organizations. This paper looks at the integration of data mining in digital library services. First, bibliomining, or the combination of bibliometrics and data mining techniques to understand library services, is defined and the concept explored. Second, the conceptual frameworks for bibliomining from the viewpoint of the library decision-maker and the library researcher are presented and compared. Finally, a research agenda to resolve many of the common bibliomining issues and to move the field forward in a mindful manner is developed. The result is not only a roadmap for understanding the integration of data mining in digital library services, but also a template for other cross-discipline data mining researchers to follow for systematic exploration in their own subject domains.

Playing in the Past: A History of Games, Toys, and Puzzles in North American Libraries

Games and other forms of play are used in today’s libraries to attract underserved patrons, to introduce patrons to other library resources and services, and to facilitate engagement between library patrons. While many perceive gaming as a new library service, gaming services have been part of librarianship since the nineteenth century through chess clubs. During the Great Depression, libraries supported patrons with puzzle contests and developed circulating toy and game collections. Academic libraries built game collections for research and classroom needs, while school libraries collected and facilitated educational games to aid teachers. Video games have been used in libraries to help patrons learn to use technology and to bring groups of patrons together to enjoy shared experiences. The goal of this article is to demonstrate the different ways in which libraries have used games, toys, and puzzles over the last 150 years through both collections and services.

Bibliomining for automated collection development in a digital library setting: using data mining to discover web-based scholarly research works

This research creates an intelligent agent for automated collection development in a digital library setting. It uses a predictive model based on facets of each Web page to select scholarly works. The criteria came from the academic library selection literature, and a Delphi study was used to refine the list to 41 criteria. A Perl program was designed to analyze a Web page for each criterion and applied to a large collection of scholarly and nonscholarly Web pages. Bibliomining, or data mining for libraries, was then used to create different classification models. Four techniques were used: logistic regression, non-parametric discriminant analysis, classification trees, and neural networks. Accuracy and return were used to judge the effectiveness of each model on test datasets. In addition, a set of problematic pages that were difficult to classify because of their similarity to scholarly research was gathered and classified using the models. The resulting models could be used in the selection process to automatically create a digital library of Web-based scholarly research works. In addition, the technique can be extended to create a digital library of any type of structured electronic information.

A Conceptual Framework for the Holistic Measurement and Cumulative Evaluation of Library Services

This conceptual piece presents a framework to aid libraries in gaining a more thorough and holistic understanding of their users and services. Through a presentation of the history of library evaluation, a measurement matrix is developed that demonstrates the relationship between the topics and perspectives of measurement. These measurements are then combined through evaluation criteria, and then different participants in the library system view those criteria for decision-making. By implementing this framework for holistic measurement and cumulative evaluation, library evaluators can gain a more holistic knowledge of the library system and library administrators can be better informed for their decision-making processes.

Go back to start: gathering baseline data about gaming in libraries

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop some baseline data about games in libraries in North America. The term games is taken broadly in this piece to mean all types of games from card and board games to video games. The focus is primarily on public libraries, but there is some discussion of school and academic libraries as well.Design/methodology/approach – There were two surveys done. The first was a phone survey of 400 public libraries, selected at random. The second survey was a Web‐based convenience sample of libraries of different types. In both studies, we asked questions about the support of gaming in the library, the types of gaming programs run in the library, and the goals and outcomes of those gaming programs.Findings – Around 78 per cent of public libraries support gaming of some type. About 40 per cent run formal gaming programs, and about 20 per cent circulate games. The larger the library, the more likely they are to support gaming. The primary goals of gaming in libraries are to...

Approaching librarianship from the data: using bibliomining for evidence‐based librarianship

Purpose – The purpose of this work is to present an alternative way of considering evidence‐based librarianship (EBL) through an examination of the data that makes up studies used for EBL.Design/methodology/approach – This piece starts with the standard evidence‐based librarianship definition and deconstructs it down to the level of the individual user, and that data is considered in a different context.Findings – The bibliomining process, or the combination of data warehousing, data mining, and bibliometrics, is used as a framework to build a different path to EBL. Bibliomining‐based evidence‐based librarianship is not appropriate for all topics; however, when the artifacts of library use can be gathered and explored, this method can provide a different path to reach the goals of EBL.Originality/value – As the quantity of studies needed for traditional EBL are not currently available, this alternate method provides a way to achieve the goals of EBL through data already in the library systems.