Exploring Virtual Librarianship: Second Life Library 2.0

ABSTRACT

In April 2006, Alliance Library System and Online Programming for All Libraries partnered to start the Second Life Library 2.0 in the online world Second Life and in August 2006 purchased an island on the Teen grid of Teen Second Life. Second Life is a virtual world, a descendant of multiplayer online games. Educational institutions have recently been drawn into Second Life's robust economy and vibrant cultural life. The Second Life Library 2.0 works with librarians from around the world and with other educational partners such as TechSoup, WorldBridges, and the New Media Consortium. Second Life Library 2.0 provides “traditional” library services such as ready reference, book discussions, and search assistance, but, at heart, it explores what it means to be a virtual library in a virtual world.     

Communicating with Faculty,Staff, and Students Using Library Blogs: Results from a Survey of Academic Health Sciences Libraries

This study investigated use and management of blogs in academic health sciences libraries. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected with a questionnaire distributed to bloggers and administrators representing 22 libraries self-identified as using blogs to publish library newsletters. Perceived barriers to use of blogs included lack of patron awareness and technical issues. Blogs were viewed as easy to use by librarians and blogs are used to promote licensed resources. Blogs do not replace other interactions with librarians, but in the future, could be used to develop a community, provide tools for learning, and increase visibility of the library.     

Accessing Egypt: making myths and producing web sites in cyber-Cairo

From an anthropological viewpoint, “accessibility” is not so much a technological and design project as it is a cultural construction, a cognitive schema through which graphic designers and technologists imagine audiences and create appropriate graphic designs that will be “accessible” to that audience. The ethnographer's task is the specification of key actors, institutions and discourses active in the making and remaking of accessibility in a given context. In this article, we examine how Egyptian Web producers at the turn of millennium (1999–2001) sought to design Web portals that would allow the “typical” Egyptian to easily access the World Wide Web. We argue, first, that Egyptian Web producers are deeply influenced by national and international discourses that frame IT as a national mission for socioeconomic development. Second, we found that in the absence of clear definitions of the Web audience, Web producers imagined a “typical” Egyptian that contradicted their own experiences of users of the Web. Finally, we found that Egyptian Web producers largely borrowed pre-existing models, using design elements to “inflect” their sites with an Egyptian motif. However, the conceptual models of access and related design strategies created by Egyptian Web producers were out of touch with Egyptian social realities, contributing to a collapse of most Web portal projects.     

基于Web2.0的情景应用程序的构建研究

在企业软件应用中,开发生命周期短、面向业务的情景应用程序需求大量增加。随着新一代互联网Web 2.0的普及,推动了基于Web 2.0的情景应用程序的发展。本文提出基于Web 2.0的情景应用程序体系结构,并阐述如何创建一个实例。     

Web 2.0在网络课程中的应用

Web 2.0技术的飞速发展为解决目前网络课程中存在的问题带来了新的思路,在介绍Web 2.0的内涵及特点的基础上,阐述了目前网络课程存在的问题,并以RSS订阅在网络课程中的实现为例展现了Web 2.0在网络课程进行应用的技术优势。     

泛在学习——学习者自由探索的新方式

泛在学习代表了一种新的学习服务理念,使学习无处不在。泛在学习的学习理论从外在环境刺激向内在潜能的激发转变,注重学习者的个性发展和学习共同体的作用。文章介绍了目前普遍关注的泛在学习的内涵,支撑泛在学习的技术和理念,以及自由探索的形式;分析研究了泛在学习未来的发展前景。     

基于Web2.0的协作学习平台的应用研究

随着信息技术的迅猛发展,基于Web2.0技术实现的协作学习平台作为网络环境下的重要教学模式,不但保证了教学效果,更培养了学习者的能力。本文阐述了Web2.0技术在协作学习中的应用,并提出了一种基于Web2.0协作学习平台的设计方案。     

A new view of fuzzy hypernear-rings

In this survey article, we first introduce the concept of quasi-coincidence of a fuzzy interval value with an interval valued fuzzy set. This concept is a generalized concept of quasi-coincidence of a fuzzy point within a fuzzy set. By using this new idea, we consider the interval valued (∈,∈∨q)-fuzzy sub-hypernear-rings (hyperideals) of a hypernear-ring, and hence, a generalization of a fuzzy sub-near-ring (ideal) is given. Some related properties of fuzzy hypernear-rings are described. Finally, we consider the concept of implication-based interval valued fuzzy sub-hypernear-rings (hyperideals) in a hypernear-ring, in particular, the implication operators in Lukasiewicz system of continuous-valued logic are discussed.     

State feedback control of continuous-time T-S fuzzy systems via switched fuzzy controllers

This paper studies the problem of state feedback control of continuous-time T-S fuzzy systems. Switched fuzzy controllers are exploited in the control design, which are switched based on the values of membership functions, and the control scheme is an extension of the parallel distributed compensation (PDC) scheme. Sufficient conditions for designing switched state feedback controllers are obtained with meeting an H_∞ norm bound requirement and quadratic D stability constraints. It is shown that the new control design method provides less conservative results than the corresponding ones via the parallel distributed compensation (PDC) scheme. A numerical example is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Quantifying requirements volatility effects

In an organization operating in the bancassurance sector we identified a low-risk IT subportfolio of 84 IT projects comprising together 16,500 function points, each project varying in size and duration, for which we were able to quantify its requirements volatility. This representative portfolio stems from a much larger portfolio of IT projects. We calculated the volatility from the function point countings that were available to us. These figures were aggregated into a requirements volatility benchmark. We found that maximum requirements volatility rates depend on size and duration, which refutes currently known industrial averages. For instance, a monthly growth rate of 5% is considered a critical failure factor, but in our low-risk portfolio we found more than 21% of successful projects with a volatility larger than 5%. We proposed a mathematical model taking size and duration into account that provides a maximum healthy volatility rate that is more in line with the reality of low-risk IT portfolios. Based on the model, we proposed a tolerance factor expressing the maximal volatility tolerance for a project or portfolio. For a low-risk portfolio its empirically found tolerance is apparently acceptable, and values exceeding this tolerance are used to trigger IT decision makers. We derived two volatility ratios from this model, the π-ratio and the ρ-ratio. These ratios express how close the volatility of a project has approached the danger zone when requirements volatility reaches a critical failure rate. The volatility data of a governmental IT portfolio were juxtaposed to our bancassurance benchmark, immediately exposing a problematic project, which was corroborated by its actual failure. When function points are less common, e.g. in the embedded industry, we used daily source code size measures and illustrated how to govern the volatility of a software product line of a hardware manufacturer. With the three real-world portfolios we illustrated that our results serve the purpose of an early warning system for projects that are bound to fail due to excessive volatility. Moreover, we developed essential requirements volatility metrics that belong on an IT governance dashboard and presented such a volatility dashboard.