Jeremy Paley, Julia Cottrill, Katherine Errecart, Aimee White, Carrie Schaden, Tyler Schrag, Robert Douglas, Beeta Tahmassebi, Rachel Crocker and David Streatfield
The purpose of this paper is to describe the evolution of a common approach to impact assessment across the Global Libraries (GL) portfolio of grants. It presents an overview of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe the evolution of a common approach to impact assessment across the Global Libraries (GL) portfolio of grants. It presents an overview of two systems, the Performance Metrics (PMs) and the Common Impact Measurement System (CIMS). By providing a standard set of definitions and methods for use across countries, these systems enable grantees to collect data that can be compared and aggregated for the purpose of collective learning, improvement, accountability, and advocacy.
Design/methodology/approach
The PMs offer a standard methodology to collect library project performance management data, whereas the CIMS is a standard survey of public library users. The paper describes how the PM and CIMS data are being visualized and used, with examples of findings and lessons learned.
Findings
The paper cites examples of the type of PM and CIMS data available, with a focus on employment, gender, and case studies from Botswana and Indonesia. These highlights illustrate how libraries’ user demographics differ from other types of public internet access venues and how libraries can contribute to strong employment and growth.
Research limitations/implications
The measurement systems rely on different partners collecting data for the same metrics across different countries; while each grantee adheres to a standard methodology, small procedural, and methodological differences are inevitable. Future research could focus on conducting similar studies elsewhere, outside the cohort of countries in the GL portfolio of grants.
Practical implications
The paper offers insights and lessons for library agencies or institutions interested in implementing a common measurement system. Recognizing that few library projects have the resources to track a comprehensive set of indicators, a case study is presented about how smaller initiatives can adapt these systems to their needs.
Social implications
The indicators described in this paper enable public libraries to shift their focus from services provided to the outcomes they help individuals and communities realize, potentially increasing the potency of their programming and advocacy.
Originality/value
Common measurement systems are not new, but their application in the public library field is novel, as is the Data Atlas, a platform grantees use to compare results across metrics, track progress, and conduct advocacy.
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Festus E. Obiakor, Jeffrey P. Bakken and Jessica Graves
Changes are occuring at a startling fillip in our society and our world. One of the changes is the need to revamp how persons with disabilities are treated and educated. In the…
Abstract
Changes are occuring at a startling fillip in our society and our world. One of the changes is the need to revamp how persons with disabilities are treated and educated. In the United States of America, laws have been pulmulgated to reduce the plight of learners with disabilties. As a result, myriad intervention strategies have been instituted to identify, assess, label, place, and educate these learners. However, some interventions continue to be very traditional. To go beyond tradition and adequately maximize the fullest potential of learners with disabilties, we must value the “specialness” of special education as a powerful intervention program, listen to new voices with new ideas, and debunk deficit thinking that are prejudicial, especially in helping people with disabilities to survive in our competitive society. Interestingly, the chapters in this book have exposed the different intervention options for learners with disabilities. Clearly, without innovative interventions for these learners, special education will be a failure.
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Pablo Zoghbi Manrique de Lara, Domingo Verano Tacoronte and Jyh‐Ming Ting Ding
This study aims to test the extent to which current coercive control strategies receive research support in controlling deviant workplace Internet behavior, also called…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to test the extent to which current coercive control strategies receive research support in controlling deviant workplace Internet behavior, also called cyberloafing. Consequently, it examines the relationship between cyberloafing and three classic coercive variables: perceived organizational control (POC), fear of formal punishment (FFP) and physical leadership proximity (LPP) as sensed by the employee. The model tested suggests that perceptions of leader physical proximity (LPP) antecede both the organizational amount of control (POC) and FFP and these both ones, in turn, affect cyberloafing. Additionally, the model suggests that POC increases FFP.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from 147 (19.4 percent) of the 758 non‐teaching staff at a Spanish public university. Accessibility of individual e‐mail accounts was similar for all employees. E‐mails asking for collaboration were sent in two phases. A questionnaire was posted on the university intranet and could be accessed by clicking on a link in the e‐mails.
Findings
Structural equation modeling results show that LPP is a significant positively associated antecedent of POC and FFP. Moreover, POC, in turn, decreases cyberloafing, while FFP increases it.
Research limitations/implications
The researched employees have job conditions inherent to the peculiarities of the public sector which may limit the ability to extrapolate the findings in the private sector. The fear construct was assessed by a self‐supplied scale, and thus the presence of shades of other similar emotions could not be discounted. Findings provide a more understandable mechanism of the influence of supervisor proximity on cyberloafing.
Practical implications
These findings contribute to an understanding of the ways in which organizations can control cyberloafing and provide reservations about the intimidator strategy efficiency. Supervisor proximity through the employee's control senses appear as an effective strategy.
Originality/value
The study of the joint interaction of the cited coercive variables against cyberloafing is unprecedented.
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Education is both a human right and an indispensable means of achieving other rights. Provision of education for irregular status migrant children tests the commitment of nation…
Abstract
Education is both a human right and an indispensable means of achieving other rights. Provision of education for irregular status migrant children tests the commitment of nation states to this basic right even as states curb irregular immigration. In the US, the right to go to school was guaranteed to irregular migrant children, by the case of Plyler v. Doe in 1982. This article argues that the right enshrined in that decision faces considerable risk of being eroded in the current political context. The article presents a detailed critical analysis of the rationale in the case, with a full consideration of the shaky constitutional framework on which the decision was based. It also examines the direct legal challenges to the right to education since Plyler, and the potential impact of new political and legal changes in contemporary times.
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It is common knowledge that people like to associate with those who behave, look, speak, and act like themselves. Anyone who does not fall in that norm is traditionally perceived…
Abstract
It is common knowledge that people like to associate with those who behave, look, speak, and act like themselves. Anyone who does not fall in that norm is traditionally perceived, treated, and educated differently (James, 1958; Obiakor, 2008, 2009). Clearly, students with exceptionalities have been discriminated against, ostracized, labeled, and called demeaning names (e.g., stupid, imbecile, and little dummies). Today, it has become increasingly clear that differences are a part of life. Advocates of students with exceptionalities have pressed for ways to positively respond to their needs in quantifiable ways (Obiakor, Harris, & Beachum, in press). In the United States, it is impossible to divorce the education of these students from the Civil Rights Movement and the subsequent events that followed. To a great extent, the education of these students has been historically influenced by social developments and court decisions in the 1950s and 1960s. For example, the landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) case was a civil rights case that declared separate education as unequal education and unconstitutional (Obiakor, 2009). This was significant because it had the goal of ending racial segregation in schools. Logically, this opened doors of advocacy for students with exceptionalities. The ruling of this case became a catalyst that prompted parents and professionals to lobby for equitable education for their students.
Pablo Zoghbi‐Manrique‐de‐Lara and Arístides Olivares‐Mesa
Despite the use in companies of policy and control mechanisms to tackle cyberloafing, these practices are still popular among employees. The purpose of this paper is to suggest…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite the use in companies of policy and control mechanisms to tackle cyberloafing, these practices are still popular among employees. The purpose of this paper is to suggest that control systems alone are unable to deter cyberloafing because they are eventually perceived as a sort of “ineffectual dog that may bark a lot, but ultimately does not bite.” Instead, control systems are only expected to deter cyberloafing if employees view them as leading to punitive consequences.
Design/methodology/approach
First, given the easy visibility of cyberloafing activities, the paper proposes a design for control systems that not only includes perceptions of organizational control (monitoring), but also perceptions of the supervisor's physical proximity (proximity). Data are collected from university administration and services personnel, whose main working tool is the computer. They all have internet access and individual e‐mail, a stable physical location at work, and a supervisor. Multiple hierarchical regressions are used to test whether in reality proximity and monitoring are unable to decrease cyberloafing unless they interact together with employees' fear of formal punishment (punishment).
Findings
Only by interacting together and with punishment are proximity and monitoring able to deter cyber loafers from engaging in cyberloafing.
Research limitations/implications
The study could suffer from mono‐method/source bias, and the university that supplied the sample has certain job conditions similar to those of the public sector, thus raising concerns about the generalizability of the results.
Practical implications
The results suggest that organizational managers should not only ensure that control systems are able to discover incidents and identify the perpetrators, but they should also follow them up with punitive consequences. Only if control systems are implemented together with punishment are they effective in eliciting perceived certainty among cyber loafers of being caught and sanctioned, and hence in “bringing them back on the right track.”
Originality/value
Despite the extensive use of control systems to deter cyberloafing, there are no previous empirical studies that have examined and supported the negative interacting effects of proximity, monitoring, and punishment on cyberloafing.
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In the 1990s, North American archivists and records managers shifted some of their concern with electronic records and record keeping systems to conducting research about the…
Abstract
In the 1990s, North American archivists and records managers shifted some of their concern with electronic records and record keeping systems to conducting research about the nature of these records and systems. This essay describes one of the major research projects at the University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences, supported with funding from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. Specifically, the essay focuses on the project's four main products: recordkeeping functional requirements, production rules to support the requirements, metadata specifications for record keeping, and the warrant reflecting the professional and societal endorsement of the concept of the recordkeeping functional requirements.