IM Public Lecture & Workshop: Vincent Larivière & Dr. Stefanie Haustein (University of Montreal)

February 26, 2016 dm531650

We are happy to welcome Dr. Vincent Larivière & Dr. Stephanie Haustein (University of Montreal) to SIM for two special events, co-sponsored by the Dalhousie President’s Office, SSHRC (Research Development Fund), and Dalhousie Libraries:

WORKSHOP: From Bibliometrics to Altmetrics – Current Challenges in the Measurement of Scholarly Activity

Monday, March 7th, 2016 from 12:00pm-1:30pm*

Room 3089, Kenneth C. Rowe Management Building, 6100 University Avenue

*A light lunch will be served at 11:45am in Rowe 3087

Abstract: Since the creation of the Science Citation Index in 1963, sociologists of science and information scientists have developed methodologies to quantify various aspects of scholarly activity based on papers and citations. The digital era, which makes it easier for knowledge to be diffused, accessed and used, has led to a diversification of the means for communicating scholarly information, but also increased the traces it leaves online—especially on social media. This workshop will provide an introduction to bibliometrics and to the new family of social media-based indicators of scholarly activity currently grouped under the umbrella term of “altmetrics”, emphasizing possibilities and limitations.

LECTURE: On Transformations of Scholarly Communication in the Digital Era (Dr. Vincent Larivière)

Tuesday, March 8th, 2016 from 4:15pm-5:15pm

Room 3089, Kenneth C. Rowe Management Building, 6100 University Avenue

Abstract: This year marks the 350^th anniversary of the creation of the first scientific journal, the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. At the beginning of the 19^th century, journals became the fastest and most convenient way of disseminating new research results, outranking correspondence and monographs with which they had happily coexisted until then. They consolidated this position throughout the 20^th Century, especially in the sciences. The advent of the digital era then challenged their traditional role and form. Indeed, digital technologies, which are easy to update, reuse, access, and transmit, have changed how researchers produce and disseminate knowledge, as well as how this knowledge is accessed, used, and cited. Drawing on historical and contemporary empirical data, this talk will address the past and current transformations of scholarly communication, with an emphasis on how these transformations have affected the speed at which knowledge is disseminated.

BIOS

Vincent Larivière holds the Canada Research Chair on the Transformations of Scholarly Communication at the Université de Montréal, where he is an associate professor of information science. He is also the scientific director of the Érudit platform, associate scientific director of the Observatoire des sciences et des technologies (OST) and a regular member of the Centre interuniversitaire de recherche sur la science et la technologie (CIRST). Vincent holds a bachelor’s degree in Science, Technology and Society (UQAM), a master’s degree in History (UQAM) and a Ph.D. in Information Science (McGill), for which he received the 2009 Eugene Garfield Dissertation Scholarship award.

Stefanie Haustein is a post-doctoral researcher at the Canada Research Chair on the Transformations of Scholarly Communication at the University of Montreal. Her current research focuses on social media in scholarly communication and making sense of so-called “altmetrics” and is supported by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. She is co-chair of the NISO Working Group on altmetrics data quality. Stefanie holds a Master’s degree in history, American linguistics and literature and information science and a PhD in information science from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany.

For more information on both events, visit the Public Lecture page of our website.

IM Public Lecture: Dr. Jamshid Beheshti (McGill University)

February 17, 2016 dm531650

The Information Management Public Lectures give attention to exciting advances in research and professional practice. The topics are diverse reflecting the importance and global extent of Information Management in today’s society. The lectures are open to all members of the Dalhousie campus and surrounding community. When feasible, recordings of the lectures are posted here for wider circulation. For the full schedule, visit the Public Lecture page of our website.

Designing Virtual Environments for Children and Teens: Challenges and Opportunities

Lecture Details
Monday, February 22nd, 2016 from 2:30-3:30pm
Room 3001, Kenneth C. Rowe Management Building, 6100 University Avenue

Abstract: Virtual environments (VEs) provide the unique experience of a sense of being within a 3D space, where the user is involved by interacting with objects. In education, immersion and presence can have strong motivational impact for students, who can actively be engaged in building their own internal models of the world. VEs may also be used as an alternative information retrieval tool by presenting a more engaging browsing environment for children and teens. Creating informational and educational VEs, however, can be perplexing, requiring multitudes of experts, advanced technologies, funds and time. In this presentation the challenges and opportunities in the design process of two different VE projects will be discussed.

Biography: Jamshid Beheshti, in collaboration with his colleagues, has produced more than one hundred publications, and has obtained close to three million dollars in research grants from SSHRC and other organizations over the past two decades. His research has focused primarily on investigating the information behavior of children and youth, and on designing and developing tools to assist them in their information seeking in the academic milieu. The culmination of his experience has led to the publication of two books on the topic of information behaviour. He served for five years as the Interim Dean and Associate Dean of the Faculty of Education, and for six years as the Director of the School of Information Studies at McGill University.

NOTE: We encourage you to attend in person, but if that is not possible you can access an audio recording + slides on our website following the lecture (a notice will be sent when posted). Web streaming is not currently available.

Reflections on Dr. Ingrid Parent’s Horrocks Lecture “Driving Influential Leadership in a Global Context in the Information Profession.”

February 10, 2016 dm531650

By: Domenic Rosati (MLIS Candidate 2017)

Listen to a video/audio recording of the lecture here.

This year’s Horrocks National Leadership lecture was given by Dr. Ingrid Parent, University of British Columbia’s University Librarian and past president of the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA). Dr. Parent’s lecture shared her insights about successful leadership within libraries. One of the key take away’s for me was that leadership in every sphere is always related to the values that we hold in common, such as (in the case of librarians and information professionals) access to and preservation of information.

Leadership in the community

Dr. Parent began by discussing one of the key issues that libraries and other memory institutions face: the democratization of access to information through technology. Before, libraries, archives, and museums could count on their roles as gatekeepers to the information and heritage universe. Now, individuals harness and expect instant access to information anytime, anywhere.

She asks us to think about how libraries and other memory institutions can deal with this through leadership in the community, using roles the library and information science community plays on a global level as an example. First, she spoke about the efforts of setting international standards and policies for our profession, and that we are often unaware that standards and policies made on a global level effect our local practices.

Dr. Parent illustrates this by telling us about her experiences with IFLA, specifically her involvement in an international intellectual property meeting. Her example spoke to the vital advocacy role that information professionals have in international discussions. As IFLA president, she had only three minutes to speak to the interests of our profession regarding fair copyright and intellectual property standards. Conversations she had with representatives of other professions were also important to continuing the borrowing and lending missions of libraries. Dr. Parent also spoke about her involvement with The Platform to Enhance the Sustainability of The Information Society Transglobally (PERSIST), and how she advised which resources and content were going to be selected for preservation.

Another value important to our profession is bringing the public together for a common cause. She gave two examples of successful library programming in two different cultural locations, Botswana and Brisbane, Australia, that demonstrated the value of access to resources and teamwork in very different contexts. Turning to her home institution, she spoke to how UBC has been able to apply some of those common values to support their aboriginal community, through truth and reconciliation initiatives, a free First Nations borrowing card, and partnerships to provide resources and spaces for indigenous communities for the digitization of heritage materials.

Unfortunately, the contemporary scholarly publishing model, with its increasing subscription fees and electronic access limitations, is threatening long term access to research. She argues that, with our library consortiums, we can advocate for alternatives, such as open access, or for consortia sized purchases and negotiation power.

Leadership in the Profession

Dr. Parent then spoke about the challenges library and memory institutions face as a whole. Those in our profession have developed contemporary information seeking practices, from innovative spaces that emphasize inclusiveness, to models of embedded librarianship to manage these challenges. The international advocacy that she has been involved in, such as getting the UN to adopt public access to information as one of its international goals, requires hard work that demonstrates action.

Leadership in the Library

First, Dr. Parent recommends that libraries inspire and lead with a strategic vision that is developed in consultation with all library stakeholders, translated into concrete deliverables, and able to get the various library units and staff to feel like it directly applies to their work.

Then it is important to cultivate and nurture teams. In particular she spoke about the necessity to cultivate a good workplace morale, which is everyone’s responsibility because leadership is actually a broad activity that encompasses all staff. Leaders are agents of change and part of that change is taking a 10 steps ahead approach. Since looking 10 steps ahead is inherently risky, she advised that thinking hard about risk is important to library leadership.

She also related some of the hard choices library leaders have to make, especially when libraries are hard-pressed financially. She spoke to this using the example of her oversight of a 3 year deficit reduction plan at UBC, which caused many hard choices to be made. Leadership in that circumstance required working through each negative scenario very thoroughly in order to make the best decision.

Dr. Parent emphasized the unique role the library can play in the field of advocacy. She eluded to an OCLC report that people are starting to think of libraries more and more as an enabling space. Dr. Parent argues that we can make the most of this role and advocate for important issues such as access to copyrighted material, or access to the internet.

In conclusion, Dr. Parent said we need to learn from each other both on a global and local scale. Learning from each other and taking care of each other are key ways in which we can start to understand our roles and responsibilities in being a force for change internationally, in the profession, and in our local institutions.

Lecturer, Ingrid Parent with Horrocks Award winner, Leah Boulos (MLIS ’16)

Communicating Information & Drug Fraud: Matthew Herder’s Lecture about the History of Drug Regulation in Canada

November 5, 2015 dm531650

By Domenic Rosati (MLIS candidate 2017)

Matthew Herder’s lecture about the history and present state of Canada’s drug fraud regulations was particularly interesting from an information management point of view because the central theme was the communication of information. The lecture was called “Fraud Forgotten” because recent/current drug regulation is characterized by elusiveness. Why? Herder asserts that over half of studies about drugs are not published and half of those published are likely to be distorted. Investigators of drug data receive little support, have to undergo rigorous procedures to request this information, and promise that they will not divulge any of the data publicly. The majority of communication that takes place between the drug companies and the regulators is closed

In order to understand how we got here, Herder took us on a journey through drug regulation history in Canada. One of the illustrations that he showed was an early Canadian drug fraud bulletin. This was a historical example of open communication where the public was involved in the process. After the 1887 Adulteration act, Canada’s drug regulation body began to publish fraud bulletins that reported known adulterated ‘nostrums’ or medicines and persons who were committing drug fraud. While Herder notes that much of the reporting in the bulletin was often not strong enough evidence for court action against fraud offences, the bulletin was important in the court of public opinion. If adulteration cases escaped the courts, the public was still aware of the offences and infractions, so Herder argued that the possibility of shame deterred potential fraud. Another function the bulletin served was establishing drug adulteration standards. Importantly, bulletins provided the potential for independent testing.

Around the 1920’s, relations between the drug industry and the medical profession, combined with changes in drug production contributed to a new perspective on drug regulation in Canada. There was a diminishing criticism of drug companies and a movement to try and protect proprietary information about the pharmaceutical industry. The result was a closed circuit regulatory communication channel wherein the bulletin was no longer published and drug fraud investigation and enforcement were now managed between by regulators and the drug industry. This trend has continued to the present day resulting in a lack of transparency, a narrow definition of fraud, and a weak drug fraud prosecution system.

While it is tempting to think the solution to drug fraud regulation is to open all communication to the public, Herder said we cannot assume transparency will automatically lead to effective regulatory practices. In other words, having access to drug fraud information does not mean that we are putting that information to good use. He argues that transparency and regulation practices have to go hand in hand. What we learn from Canada’s drug bulletin was that it was great for circulating standards, but failed to remain a strong regulator because it was not integrated with other areas of enforcement. A completely open channel of communication is complicated by proprietary information, the requirement for competent independent investigators, and more. Drug fraud policies also don’t account for contemporary ways of manipulating data.

Herder offers two steps that we can take to at least start thinking about more transparent communication with drug companies: de-antiquating adulteration (which is an attempt at revealing alternative methods of regulation and transparency with regard to drug fraud in Canada) and re-imagining local analysts (why do regulation bodies have to be in Ottawa, or government-centric? Perhaps better funding support could be provided to scientific researchers in order to empower them as analysts).

Herder’s lecture revealed the complications of regulating drug fraud. Importantly, he showed that an understanding of how the communication of information is vital to the understanding of this complex issue.

Informacy and Metaliteracy: What Literacy looks like in the Age of Google.

October 23, 2015 dm531650

By: Domenic Rosati (MLIS Candidate 2017)

Dan Russell’s Information Management public lecture Mindtools: What Does it Mean to be Literate in the Age of Google? was a challenge to common place notions of literacy in an information society heavily dependent on Google and other web services. He offered two alternative concepts that can help us understand what being literate could mean today: Informacy, the operational ability to use contemporary literacy technologies, and Metaliteracy, the ability to learn how to learn literacy technologies.

In order to understand the significance of Informacy, Russell asked us to think about about what it means to be literate. Using the example of reading music, Russell showed that literacy is tied into the ability to operate the technology associated with that literacy. He also mentioned that in the 18th century being literate would have meant knowing how to make a quill and ink. Russell’s point, following Walter Ong’s studies of the transformative effects of writing, is that “Literacy is a technology based system.” Informacy extends the notion of literacy to recognize this technical aspect of literacy. Russell argues that understanding literacy as Informacy is important because new literacy technologies are allowing us to search more than ever before, becoming more ubiquitous, and changing at a rapid rate. Reading and writing will not be enough for getting around in contemporary society; we will need to understand how to operate the tools we depend on to read and write.

Russell has seen the need for modifying our definitions of literacy in his work in researching user search experience at Google. His lecture provided us with many examples for his case. First, he mentioned a searcher tasked with finding activities in San Fransisco on a Saturday night. The example was humorous because the searcher began to search for ‘adult activities.’ Russell asked if the searcher was illiterate. While the searcher could read and write, Russell was making the point that not knowing the connotations of certain search conventions was a serious impediment to this searcher finding information. Russell went to on to cite ‘ctrl-f’, spoof sites, internet language and visual conventions of the web as examples where a user must have the knowledge of how these technologies operate in order to use them appropriately and garner information.

Instead of suggesting we get to work implementing technical literacy strategies about how to operate specific tools due to Informacy, Russell explains the need for a second concept: Metaliteracy. By way of statistics about youtube alone, Russell shows how we could never keep up with the amount of information added to the web. Less obvious is that we can also never keep up with the rate at which web sites and applications will change. Metaliteracy is learning how to deal with these changes and additions of content by always asking what is possible with the technology at hand, or learning “what changes and how.” One of the examples of this is his test put to 250 engineers to find a 1977 overhead picture of a certain address. They all failed to look in google earth under the image archive feature. His explanation for this is that the engineers were not looking out for what was possible. Russell also mentioned his son searching for a song using “oh oh oh oh oh song” as a query. Russell thought this would certainly fail and so he rejected the possibility that google could mine millions of QA posts with similar queries and match it with a correct answer. This possibility turned out to work and Russell’s son found the song. A more concrete example of Metaliteracy Russell gives is the grey arrow that expands information in google. He told us if a searcher ignored this button they could think that South Africa only has 6 official languages when it has more. Russell said that an important part of literacy is learning how to pay attention to these technical changes in websites and that Metaliteracy is that process.

His summary suggested that today’s literacy is captured by four, not three, R’s:

Reading
Writing
Arithmetic
Research

The fourth one, research, is added because Informacy and Metaliteracy are about knowing how to search and find information to read and write about within the framework of contemporary literacy technologies of the web. Without this research component, our reading and writing is not functional. That is, our reading and writing would not operate where information flows.

Both Russell and an audience member agreed that there is a clear distinction between capital-R research and research. Russell notes that we need to move beyond the look and find culture that has pervaded the web into a search and analyze culture. One instance mentioned was the idea of understanding web site credibility as a component of Informacy. As we understand internet genres and visual cues, we can have a better sense of what is credible on the internet. In addition to this, Russell briefly touched on the ability use Google Fusion with data sets found on the internet to get answers from data yourself.

With all of these examples in mind, Russell makes a pretty good case for having a modified understanding of literacy to include both awareness of the technologies that underpin literacy and the processes by which we learn how to learn these technologies. Informacy and Metaliteracy are certainly useful concepts to keep in mind when the technologies and standards you are using today are going to be changed tomorrow and these concepts can help us take hold of current trends that want us as students not to focus on specific software or tools but on the processes that underlay the operation of those tools.

Listen to an audio recording of the full lecture here.

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