Search results

The purpose of this paper is to find out whether the students of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (FHSS) in Osijek, Croatia, interact online with any sort of e-democracy or e-government information.

This paper presents the findings of a pilot-study conducted among the undergraduate and graduate students of the FHSS in Osijek. The research was conducted in May 2015 on a sample of 246 students. The research was carried out by means of an online and paper survey and reached 59.91 per cent of the population of students enrolled in the first year of undergraduate and graduate studies.

Students in our sample spend a lot of time online. They are relatively active online when it comes to finding information connected with their academic responsibilities (e.g. 77.2 per cent of the students of the sample have gone online for finding information about exams, scholarships, etc.), but rarely engage in democratic processes within the academic community (only 11.8 per cent have contacted their student representative on the University Student Board). They are even less interested in democratic processes within the local community (8.1 per cent have contacted their local authority representatives regarding an administrative or communal matter).

This is the first research of FHSS students’ perceptions and views regarding their engagement and their information behavior regarding e-democracy and e-government processes and one of the very few such researches in Croatia.

The purpose of this paper is to present the exploratory study whose aim was to investigate the information needs and information-seeking behavior of post-secondary students related to the European Union (EU) in Croatia.

A total of 504 students enrolled in post-secondary education across country took part in this study. Data were collected through an online survey during a 60-day period preceding the Croatia’s full membership in the EU.

The findings revealed the high need for information about the EU among the student population. The respondents required European information in a wide range of thematic areas and the majority of them did not feel well informed about the EU in general. Students responding required the European information both for personal reasons and for educational purposes. The majority of respondents required the EU information in order to better understand the EU in general and they faced a number of challenges when accessing it.

Limitations inherent to the method used and the limited number of respondents. Future research should include a wider array of respondents (older citizens, professionals, etc.) so as to obtain a broad a picture as possible of information needs and seeking behavior related to EU.

The study offers valuable insight into the types of EU information needed by citizens (post-secondary students) in an acceding country. The survey results are expected to be of interest to European administration charged with the development of effective communication policies, national authorities in EU candidate and acceding countries, and information professionals in general.

This is the first study of EU information needs and seeking behavior in an acceding country.

The purpose of this paper is to report on research that examined the relationship between, and collaboration of, Croatian archives, libraries and museums.

Online survey and unstructured interviews with archivists from across Croatia were used to investigate collaborative activities in Croatian archives.

Archivists see libraries and museums as their natural partners and believe that collaboration facilitates their mission and leads to better service to patrons. However, they all believe that there is room for more intensive inter‐institutional partnerships. Apart from numerous benefits, they also indicated a number of challenges they face in collaborative activities.

A larger sample for qualitative methodology would greatly serve to clarify and expand upon the findings.

The results of this survey are useful to cultural heritage professionals in planning and organisation of collaborative projects. Also, government and authorised institutions can learn about what kind of support archives would need to embark on a more intensive collaboration.

To the author's knowledge, this is the first work that looks in detail into collaborative activities of archives. As far as the authors are aware, similar investigations have been carried out regarding library and museum collaboration only.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss research articles from authors who have just left school.

This is an opinion piece.

Bad research should not be accepted just to help young professionals get published, but the best can be offered opportunities like this special issue with explicit invitations to publish their research via a peer‐review process.

This paper identifies the potential of young professionals and peer‐reviewed journals.

The purpose of the paper is to analyse three Scandinavian iSchools in Denmark, Norway and Sweden with regard to their intentions of becoming iSchools and curriculum content in relation to these intentions. By doing so, a picture will be given of the international expansion of the iSchool concept in terms of organisational symbolism and practical educational content. In order to underline the approaches of the Scandinavian schools, comparisons are made to three American iSchools.

The study is framed through theory on organisational symbolism and the intentions of the iSchool movement as formulated in its vision statements. Empirically, the study consists of two parts: close readings of three documents outlining the considerations of three Scandinavian LIS schools before applying for the iSchool status, and statistical analysis of 427 syllabi from master level courses at three Scandinavian and three American iSchools.

All three Scandinavian schools, analysed, have recently become iSchools, and though some differences are visible, it is hard to distinguish anything in their syllabi as carriers of what can be described as an iSchool identity. In considering iSchool identity, it instead benefits on a symbolic level that are most prominent, such as branding, social visibility and the possible attraction of new student groups. The traditionally strong relation to national library sectors are emphasised as important to maintain, specifically in Norway and Sweden.

The study is done on iSchools in Denmark, Norway and Sweden with empirical comparison to three American schools. These comparisons face the challenge of meeting the educational system and programme structure of each individual country. Despite this, findings prove possible to use as ground for conclusions, although empirical generalisations concerning, for instance, other countries must be made with caution.

This study highlights the practical challenges met in international expansion of the iSchool movement, both on a practical and symbolic level. Both the iSchool Caucus and individual schools considering becoming iSchools may use these findings as a point of reference in development and decision making.

This is an original piece of research from which the results may contribute to the international development of the iSchool movement, and extend the theoretical understanding of the iSchool movement as an educational and organisational construct.