Renate L. Chancellor, Paige DeLoach, Anthony W. Dunbar, Shari A. Lee, R. Singh
The death of George Floyd, at the hands of the Minnesota police on May 25, 2020, sparked a global uproar that many have argued has not occurred since the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. It is unclear why this particular incident elicited such a visceral and widespread response, especially in light of the fact that police brutality towards Blacks in America is not a new phenomenon. This paper examines the national response to Floyd’s death within the contexts of CRT, the history of systemic racism in the United States, and questions how race and inequity issues have been addressed in LIS. The authors provide actionable measures that could go a long way in moving the discipline toward a shift in thinking. However, they find that these efforts need to be sustained, because one-shot events, training sessions, or activities rarely result in any real change. Real progress, they conclude, will require more than new laws. It will also require a seismic societal shift in attitude.
{"title":"From protests to practice: Confronting systemic racism in LIS","authors":"Renate L. Chancellor, Paige DeLoach, Anthony W. Dunbar, Shari A. Lee, R. Singh","doi":"10.3233/EFI-211509","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3233/EFI-211509","url":null,"abstract":"The death of George Floyd, at the hands of the Minnesota police on May 25, 2020, sparked a global uproar that many have argued has not occurred since the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. It is unclear why this particular incident elicited such a visceral and widespread response, especially in light of the fact that police brutality towards Blacks in America is not a new phenomenon. This paper examines the national response to Floyd’s death within the contexts of CRT, the history of systemic racism in the United States, and questions how race and inequity issues have been addressed in LIS. The authors provide actionable measures that could go a long way in moving the discipline toward a shift in thinking. However, they find that these efforts need to be sustained, because one-shot events, training sessions, or activities rarely result in any real change. Real progress, they conclude, will require more than new laws. It will also require a seismic societal shift in attitude.","PeriodicalId":84661,"journal":{"name":"Environmental education and information","volume":"412 1","pages":"173-186"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75192382","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The goal of the Advanced Certificate in Social Justice for Information Professionals at St. John’s University (SJU) is to offer both current LIS practitioners and LIS students a curriculum explicitly grounded in social justice principles and concepts that builds and enhances capabilities to substantively counter racism and other challenges to social justice that are reflected in the information sphere of the 2020’s. This article reports on the contexts, motivations and considerations for developing the Certificate. Included is a brief overview of current courses related to social justice offered by ALA-accredited graduate programs in North America, and a list of thematic emphases based in social justice frameworks that will drive the Certificate upon its launch.
{"title":"Leveraging social justice pedagogy to counter racism: Conceptualizing an Advanced Certificate in Social Justice for Information Professionals","authors":"Rajesh Singh, Kevin S. Rioux","doi":"10.3233/EFI-211506","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3233/EFI-211506","url":null,"abstract":"The goal of the Advanced Certificate in Social Justice for Information Professionals at St. John’s University (SJU) is to offer both current LIS practitioners and LIS students a curriculum explicitly grounded in social justice principles and concepts that builds and enhances capabilities to substantively counter racism and other challenges to social justice that are reflected in the information sphere of the 2020’s. This article reports on the contexts, motivations and considerations for developing the Certificate. Included is a brief overview of current courses related to social justice offered by ALA-accredited graduate programs in North America, and a list of thematic emphases based in social justice frameworks that will drive the Certificate upon its launch.","PeriodicalId":84661,"journal":{"name":"Environmental education and information","volume":"96 1","pages":"203-217"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76863233","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This perspective essay explores Gasman & Arroyo’s (2014) HBCU-inspired framework for Black student success as a prism for re-envisioning LIS education. In response to calls for anti-hegemonic LIS education, the authors discuss a potential tool for Black student success and suggest its benefits to LIS education. The framework can introduce non-white, anti-racist educational practices to the work of educating the U.S. library workforce; it is relevant in light of ongoing racial and political strife in U.S. society.
{"title":"Adapting an HBCU-inspired framework for Black student success in U.S. LIS education","authors":"Ana Ndumu, Shaundra Walker","doi":"10.3233/EFI-211511","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3233/EFI-211511","url":null,"abstract":"This perspective essay explores Gasman & Arroyo’s (2014) HBCU-inspired framework for Black student success as a prism for re-envisioning LIS education. In response to calls for anti-hegemonic LIS education, the authors discuss a potential tool for Black student success and suggest its benefits to LIS education. The framework can introduce non-white, anti-racist educational practices to the work of educating the U.S. library workforce; it is relevant in light of ongoing racial and political strife in U.S. society.","PeriodicalId":84661,"journal":{"name":"Environmental education and information","volume":"2 1","pages":"219-229"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85444463","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
P. Mongeon, Alison Brown, Ratna Dhaliwal, Jessalyn Hill, A. Matthews
The purpose of this work in progress is to quantify the amount of attention given to questions of racial inequity experienced by BIPOC in LIS research. We find that despite a recent surge in BIPOC-related research output, the publications are low in numbers and tend to receive fewer citations than other work in the same research area. BIPOC-related research is present but unevenly distributed across several areas of the field. These trends may help create and sustain momentum towards addressing the persistent lack of diversity and equity in LIS.
{"title":"A bibliometric analysis of race-related research in LIS","authors":"P. Mongeon, Alison Brown, Ratna Dhaliwal, Jessalyn Hill, A. Matthews","doi":"10.3233/EFI-211513","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3233/EFI-211513","url":null,"abstract":"The purpose of this work in progress is to quantify the amount of attention given to questions of racial inequity experienced by BIPOC in LIS research. We find that despite a recent surge in BIPOC-related research output, the publications are low in numbers and tend to receive fewer citations than other work in the same research area. BIPOC-related research is present but unevenly distributed across several areas of the field. These trends may help create and sustain momentum towards addressing the persistent lack of diversity and equity in LIS.","PeriodicalId":84661,"journal":{"name":"Environmental education and information","volume":"36 1","pages":"231-246"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85744669","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The COVID-19 pandemic has had limited effects on access to and use of information. In the last few decades, much information has been digitised, if not created and produced, online. Confined in physical space and sitting at a desk (or kitchen table), people are able to connect to the outside world through various applications on a laptop and other mobile devices. It is difficult to imagine how people might live and work through the current pandemic without instant and constant information and communication. Yet, many old questions about information re-emerge and prompt re-thinking, in particular, the role of information and library professionals as they face the ever increasing volume of academic publications, as well as opinionated blogs, news articles, and tweets online. The author reflects on some of these issues and the question 'What is information?' in this short essay.
{"title":"Old questions, new circumstances: Some reflections on information during the COVID-19 pandemic","authors":"Lai Ma","doi":"10.3233/EFI-210002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3233/EFI-210002","url":null,"abstract":"The COVID-19 pandemic has had limited effects on access to and use of information. In the last few decades, much information has been digitised, if not created and produced, online. Confined in physical space and sitting at a desk (or kitchen table), people are able to connect to the outside world through various applications on a laptop and other mobile devices. It is difficult to imagine how people might live and work through the current pandemic without instant and constant information and communication. Yet, many old questions about information re-emerge and prompt re-thinking, in particular, the role of information and library professionals as they face the ever increasing volume of academic publications, as well as opinionated blogs, news articles, and tweets online. The author reflects on some of these issues and the question 'What is information?' in this short essay.","PeriodicalId":84661,"journal":{"name":"Environmental education and information","volume":"36 1","pages":"159-163"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77700420","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper calls for a global community of practice to support people to enact trauma-informed practice in the archival profession. Building on the literature around archives and affect, decolonising spaces, and centring communities, it proposes trauma-informed practice is implemented in archives, and a community of practice be established to support those doing the work. It recognises the emotional labour of many in the archival field, and furthers conversations held at the Archival Education and Research Institute 2019 where the value of a community of practice was evidenced. The community of practice would bring together communities, academics, researchers, practitioners, volunteers, users, donors, and anyone with an interest in improving archival theory, education and practice to support trauma-informed approaches in archives, and support those undertaking the work. It ends with a call for co-creators of a trauma-informed community of practice.
{"title":"Building a trauma-informed community of practice","authors":"Nicola Laurent, M. Hart","doi":"10.3233/efi-190363","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3233/efi-190363","url":null,"abstract":"This paper calls for a global community of practice to support people to enact trauma-informed practice in the archival profession. Building on the literature around archives and affect, decolonising spaces, and centring communities, it proposes trauma-informed practice is implemented in archives, and a community of practice be established to support those doing the work. It recognises the emotional labour of many in the archival field, and furthers conversations held at the Archival Education and Research Institute 2019 where the value of a community of practice was evidenced. The community of practice would bring together communities, academics, researchers, practitioners, volunteers, users, donors, and anyone with an interest in improving archival theory, education and practice to support trauma-informed approaches in archives, and support those undertaking the work. It ends with a call for co-creators of a trauma-informed community of practice.","PeriodicalId":84661,"journal":{"name":"Environmental education and information","volume":"23 1","pages":"27-32"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88300526","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This study analyzes the journal impact factor and related bibliometric indicators in Education and Educational Research (E&ER) category, highlighting the main differences among journal quartiles, using Web of Science (Social Sciences Citation Index, SSCI) as the data source. High impact journals (Q1) publish only slightly more papers than expected, which is different to other areas. The papers published in Q1 journal have greater average citations and lower uncitedness rates compared to other quartiles, although the differences among quartiles are lower than in other areas. The impact factor is only weakly negative correlated (r=-0.184) with the journal self-citation but strongly correlated with the citedness of the median journal paper (r= 0.864). Although this strong correlation exists, the impact factor is still far to be the perfect indicator for expected citations of a paper due to the high skewness of the citations distribution. This skewness was moderately correlated with the citations received by the most cited paper of the journal (r= 0.649) and the number of papers published by the journal (r= 0.484), but no important differences by journal quartiles were observed. In the period 2013–2018, the average journal impact factor in the E&ER has increased largely from 0.908 to 1.638, which is justified by the field growth but also by the increase in international collaboration and the share of papers published in open access. Despite their inherent limitations, the use of impact factors and related indicators is a starting point for introducing the use of bibliometric tools for objective and consistent assessment of researcher.
{"title":"Analysis of the journal impact factor and related bibliometric indicators in education and educational research category","authors":"M. Orbay, O. Karamustafaoğlu, Ruben Miranda","doi":"10.3233/EFI-200442","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3233/EFI-200442","url":null,"abstract":"This study analyzes the journal impact factor and related bibliometric indicators in Education and Educational Research (E&ER) category, highlighting the main differences among journal quartiles, using Web of Science (Social Sciences Citation Index, SSCI) as the data source. High impact journals (Q1) publish only slightly more papers than expected, which is different to other areas. The papers published in Q1 journal have greater average citations and lower uncitedness rates compared to other quartiles, although the differences among quartiles are lower than in other areas. The impact factor is only weakly negative correlated (r=-0.184) with the journal self-citation but strongly correlated with the citedness of the median journal paper (r= 0.864). Although this strong correlation exists, the impact factor is still far to be the perfect indicator for expected citations of a paper due to the high skewness of the citations distribution. This skewness was moderately correlated with the citations received by the most cited paper of the journal (r= 0.649) and the number of papers published by the journal (r= 0.484), but no important differences by journal quartiles were observed. In the period 2013–2018, the average journal impact factor in the E&ER has increased largely from 0.908 to 1.638, which is justified by the field growth but also by the increase in international collaboration and the share of papers published in open access. Despite their inherent limitations, the use of impact factors and related indicators is a starting point for introducing the use of bibliometric tools for objective and consistent assessment of researcher.","PeriodicalId":84661,"journal":{"name":"Environmental education and information","volume":"43 1","pages":"315-336"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83778445","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ranking of universities regarding their web-based activities plays a pivotal role in promoting scientific advancement since it motivates the open access accessibility to scientific results. In this study, a new ranking system based on the website quality factors and traffic evaluation was proposed. Since top-ranked universities are usually considered as the standard models for lower ranked ones, the focus of this study was on top-ranked universities. The proposed ranking was compared with well-known Webometrics ranking system. The website traffic and quality assessment were acquired for websites of top-ranked world universities and the correlation between these indices and the Webometrics ranking was evaluated. The summation of the weighted value of obtained measures according to an optimal weight vector obtained by a genetic algorithm framework was used for ranking purposes. The results showed that the website total traffic size was correlated with Webometrics rank (R≈-0.6, p< 0.01). Also, using the weighted value of website quality and traffic measures, the proposed ranking system could predict Webometrics ranking by the accuracy of up to 69%. Even though the method was proposed for universities, it could be applied for ranking other types of centers or companies, provided that the suitable cost function for the genetics algorithm framework was defined.
{"title":"A complementary webometric ranking system based on the website quality and traffic measures: A study focusing on top-ranked world universities","authors":"Sajjad Farashi, S. Bashirian","doi":"10.3233/EFI-200422","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3233/EFI-200422","url":null,"abstract":"Ranking of universities regarding their web-based activities plays a pivotal role in promoting scientific advancement since it motivates the open access accessibility to scientific results. In this study, a new ranking system based on the website quality factors and traffic evaluation was proposed. Since top-ranked universities are usually considered as the standard models for lower ranked ones, the focus of this study was on top-ranked universities. The proposed ranking was compared with well-known Webometrics ranking system. The website traffic and quality assessment were acquired for websites of top-ranked world universities and the correlation between these indices and the Webometrics ranking was evaluated. The summation of the weighted value of obtained measures according to an optimal weight vector obtained by a genetic algorithm framework was used for ranking purposes. The results showed that the website total traffic size was correlated with Webometrics rank (R≈-0.6, p< 0.01). Also, using the weighted value of website quality and traffic measures, the proposed ranking system could predict Webometrics ranking by the accuracy of up to 69%. Even though the method was proposed for universities, it could be applied for ranking other types of centers or companies, provided that the suitable cost function for the genetics algorithm framework was defined.","PeriodicalId":84661,"journal":{"name":"Environmental education and information","volume":"12 1","pages":"337-354"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90429129","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Selected Papers from the 2019 Archival Education and Research Institute","authors":"Tonia Sutherland, J. Lowry","doi":"10.3233/EFI-210004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3233/EFI-210004","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":84661,"journal":{"name":"Environmental education and information","volume":"1 1","pages":"1-2"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90810386","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Educators and archivists in Africa have repeatedly raised the need for redeveloping university curricula to reflect local and global best practice. An African education curriculum case study by the InterPARES project (2013–2018) that covered 38 countries out of 54 revealed the existence of few available archival training programmes in the continent. Literature further reveals that where educational programmes are available, the curriculum is mostly Eurocentric and thereby addresses archival issues from a Western perspective. As a result, the infinite problems facing archivists on the continent such as resources, skills, technology, infrastructure, advocacy, holdings, collaboration, displaced archives and many more (the list is endless) are not fully engaged. The archival programmes at the institution of higher learning appear not to address grand societal challenges such as unaccountability, poor governance, service delivery, as well as the low usage of archives repositories in the continent. In South Africa, there has been a call to use African epistemologies such as Ubuntu, a philosophy that provides an African overview of societal relations or the Batho Pele, principles adopted by the post-apartheid South African government to guide and direct its public service and address imbalances of the apartheid regime. This study utilised the Africanisation pillar of Sibanda (2016)’s model to analyse the infusion of curriculum transformation into the ten modules for archives and records management in an open distance e-learning (ODeL) environment. In this regard, the content of ten archives and records management modules for a bachelor’s degree in an ODeL environment is analysed to explore the transformation of archival curriculum. Only one university in South Africa offers a fully-fledged bachelor’s degree with a major in archives and records management. The study established that an attempt was made to transform the archival curriculum at study material development and module delivery level. This resulted in a missed opportunity to transform archival curriculum in the development of the new bachelor’s degree being implemented in 2017. The study concludes by arguing that failure to decolonise the archival curriculum will result in archivists being highly unlikely to contribute to solutions to societal problems that are difficult to solve confronting South Africa using local solutions. It is recommended that transformation of the curriculum should start at a programme level rather than module level.
{"title":"Africanisation of the South African archival curriculum: A preliminary study of undergraduate courses in an open distance e-learning environment","authors":"M. Ngoepe, Nampombe Mnkeni-Saurombe","doi":"10.3233/EFI-190358","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3233/EFI-190358","url":null,"abstract":"Educators and archivists in Africa have repeatedly raised the need for redeveloping university curricula to reflect local and global best practice. An African education curriculum case study by the InterPARES project (2013–2018) that covered 38 countries out of 54 revealed the existence of few available archival training programmes in the continent. Literature further reveals that where educational programmes are available, the curriculum is mostly Eurocentric and thereby addresses archival issues from a Western perspective. As a result, the infinite problems facing archivists on the continent such as resources, skills, technology, infrastructure, advocacy, holdings, collaboration, displaced archives and many more (the list is endless) are not fully engaged. The archival programmes at the institution of higher learning appear not to address grand societal challenges such as unaccountability, poor governance, service delivery, as well as the low usage of archives repositories in the continent. In South Africa, there has been a call to use African epistemologies such as Ubuntu, a philosophy that provides an African overview of societal relations or the Batho Pele, principles adopted by the post-apartheid South African government to guide and direct its public service and address imbalances of the apartheid regime. This study utilised the Africanisation pillar of Sibanda (2016)’s model to analyse the infusion of curriculum transformation into the ten modules for archives and records management in an open distance e-learning (ODeL) environment. In this regard, the content of ten archives and records management modules for a bachelor’s degree in an ODeL environment is analysed to explore the transformation of archival curriculum. Only one university in South Africa offers a fully-fledged bachelor’s degree with a major in archives and records management. The study established that an attempt was made to transform the archival curriculum at study material development and module delivery level. This resulted in a missed opportunity to transform archival curriculum in the development of the new bachelor’s degree being implemented in 2017. The study concludes by arguing that failure to decolonise the archival curriculum will result in archivists being highly unlikely to contribute to solutions to societal problems that are difficult to solve confronting South Africa using local solutions. It is recommended that transformation of the curriculum should start at a programme level rather than module level.","PeriodicalId":84661,"journal":{"name":"Environmental education and information","volume":"26 1","pages":"53-68"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87955010","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}