Retention Matters: Academic Libraries Leading the Way     

Silas M. Oliveira 《New Review of Academic Librarianship》2018,24(1):35-47

Academic libraries have always strived to be purposively involved in the university's mission attainment efforts. Today, the increase of retention levels is paramount, and, in many cases, it is at the center of higher education institution's strategic plans. For Andrews University, for example, the goal is to reach 80% in the next five years. In the United States, student retention efforts become even more critical due, in part, to declining enrollment numbers set off by soaring higher education costs. Academic librarians are aware of the library's role in the university's overall efforts to increase persistence rates and curtail attrition. Through a literature review, this article highlights how academic libraries are participating in this process. This study focuses on how academic libraries can be leaders in their Institutions by adopting a user-centered philosophy and services that will promote life-long learning, enhance students’ academic experience, and promote engagement, leading to retention.  相似文献   

On the same page: Improving the connection between public services units in academic libraries     

Elizabeth Marcus  Malti Turnbull 《College & Undergraduate Libraries》2018,25(2):101-109

Communication quality between public service units in academic libraries can make the difference between mediocre and exceptional service. If units do not communicate well, patrons may receive inaccurate information and experience short-term frustration, leading to long-term damage to the library's reputation. Poor communication creates adverse effects on employees through decreased productivity, negative work culture, and low morale. This article explores the importance of quality communication through a review of the literature and a case study at one academic library. The authors share practical communication improvement strategies for libraries of every size and fiscal ability.  相似文献   

Google Scholar and Web of Science: Examining gender differences in citation coverage across five scientific disciplines     

Jens Peter Andersen  Mathias Wullum Nielsen 《Journal of Informetrics》2018,12(3):950-959

Many studies demonstrate differences in the coverage of citing publications in Google Scholar (GS) and Web of Science (WoS). Here, we examine to what extent citation data from the two databases reflect the scholarly impact of women and men differently. Our conjecture is that WoS carries an indirect gender bias in its selection criteria for citation sources that GS avoids due to criteria that are more inclusive. Using a sample of 1250 U.S. researchers in Sociology, Political Science, Economics, Cardiology and Chemistry, we examine gender differences in the average citation coverage of the two databases. We also calculate database-specific h-indices for all authors in the sample. In repeated simulations of hiring scenarios, we use these indices to examine whether women's appointment rates increase if hiring decisions rely on data from GS in lieu of WoS. We find no systematic gender differences in the citation coverage of the two databases. Further, our results indicate marginal to non-existing effects of database selection on women's success-rates in the simulations. In line with the existing literature, we find the citation coverage in WoS to be largest in Cardiology and Chemistry and smallest in Political Science and Sociology. The concordance between author-based h-indices measured by GS and WoS is largest for Chemistry followed by Cardiology, Political Science, Sociology and Economics.  相似文献   

Research universities on the ResearchGate social networking site: An examination of institutional differences,research activity level,and social networks formed     

Weiwei Yan  Yin Zhang 《Journal of Informetrics》2018,12(1):385-400

As one of the largest active academic social networking sites, ResearchGate (RG) has been utilized by scholars to share publications, seek collaborators, communicate work in progress, and build scholarly reputation. This study collects data from RG users from 61 U.S. research universities at different research activity levels, as categorized by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, to examine the impact of institutional differences on RG reputational metrics. The results confirm that RG is a research-oriented academic social networking site that closely and realistically mirrors the research activity level of institutions. With an increase in the research activity level of a university, its affiliated RG users tend to have higher RG scores, more publications and citations, and more profile views and followers, while the average number of reads of their publications and followees tend to be lower and fluctuant. In addition, RG users primarily follow others from institutions of a higher research activity level, forming virtual social networks centered around esteemed institutions. The study suggests academic social networks can serve as indicators in evaluation of research activities among research institutions, and such sites can be helpful and credible for acquiring resources, keeping informed about research, and promoting academic influence.  相似文献   

Juggling competing activities: academic staff as doctoral candidates     

Jan Smith  Jennie Billot  Lynn Clouder  Virginia King 《高等教育研究与发展》2020,39(3):591-605

ABSTRACT

This article explores the experiences of a group of established academic staff in New Zealand and the UK, as they undertake a doctorate in their home institutions. Our interest is in how individuals negotiate this dual status from a cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) stance that explores how rules, tools, community and divisions of labour, and interacting activity systems, shape doctoral experiences. The focus in this article, having analysed their detailed narrative accounts, is on how academics experience three interdependent activity systems: those surrounding the thesis, the institutional context, and the home-life spheres. Issues related to time, workload and supervision issues, variability in collegial support and impact on personal priorities and time emerged. There is a range of particularities – from easy access to resources/supervisors to inflexible institutional regulations – applicable to this group of doctoral candidates. Negotiating life as an academic with concurrent doctoral candidature provides positive outcomes in terms of teaching, research confidence and general personal and professional development. However, a range of difficulties can also be encountered, particularly in relation to personal and professional relationships, and workload management.  相似文献   

Tinkering through transition: on ‘doctoring’ as an early-career academic in physical education and sport pedagogy     

Benjamin Williams  Erin Christensen  Joseph Occhino 《Sport, Education and Society》2017,22(1):73-86

This article addresses the notion of ‘making it’ as an early-career academic in physical education and sport pedagogy. In it, we draw on the tradition of material semiotics to reflect on our shared journeys from doctoral student to beginning scholar and beyond. By attuning ourselves to the relationality, materiality and precariousness of our experiences, we offer an answer to the question of what it takes to ‘make it’ as an early-career academic by advocating the practice of ‘making do’ or ‘doctoring.’ We develop this argument, first, by describing the narrative methods we used to conduct our inquiry and by explaining the material-semiotic ideas we used to explore the stories it generated. Then, we tell tales of our transitions from higher degree research student to early-career academic, focusing specifically on our ongoing, collective efforts to make do. In our discussion, we explore these narratives and attend to three features of our actions and activities as early-career academics; namely semiotic relationality, material heterogeneity and the precarious processes of heterogeneous engineering through which we sought to make a career in our field. We conclude by encouraging beginning scholars in physical education and sport pedagogy to become sensitive to these aspects of their own agency, and to experiment, experience and tinker together in ways that are attentive, inventive, caring and persistent.  相似文献   

Analysis of single comments left for bioRxiv preprints till September 2019     

Mario Mali ki  Joseph Costello  Juan Pablo Alperin  Lauren A. Maggio 《Biochemia medica : ?asopis Hrvatskoga dru?tva medicinskih biokemi?ara / HDMB》2021,31(2)

IntroductionWhile early commenting on studies is seen as one of the advantages of preprints, the type of such comments, and the people who post them, have not been systematically explored.Materials and methodsWe analysed comments posted between 21 May 2015 and 9 September 2019 for 1983 bioRxiv preprints that received only one comment on the bioRxiv website. The comment types were classified by three coders independently, with all differences resolved by consensus.ResultsOur analysis showed that 69% of comments were posted by non-authors (N = 1366), and 31% by the preprints’ authors themselves (N = 617). Twelve percent of non-author comments (N = 168) were full review reports traditionally found during journal review, while the rest most commonly contained praises (N = 577, 42%), suggestions (N = 399, 29%), or criticisms (N = 226, 17%). Authors’ comments most commonly contained publication status updates (N = 354, 57%), additional study information (N = 158, 26%), or solicited feedback for the preprints (N = 65, 11%).ConclusionsOur results indicate that comments posted for bioRxiv preprints may have potential benefits for both the public and the scholarly community. Further research is needed to measure the direct impact of these comments on comments made by journal peer reviewers, subsequent preprint versions or journal publications.  相似文献   

Co-developmental trajectories of psychological need satisfactions at school: Relations to mental health and academic functioning in Chinese elementary school students     

《Learning and Instruction》2021

This study explored the co-developmental trajectories of autonomy, competence and relatedness need satisfactions at school and their relations to mental health and academic functioning in Chinese elementary school students. An accelerated longitudinal design was used with a sample of three cohorts (grade 3, grade 4, and grade 5) (N = 1070, 45.8% female; M_age = 9.44, SD = 0.97) on four occasions at 6-month intervals. Parallel process latent class growth models revealed five heterogeneous patterns (i.e., Congruent-moderate; Congruent-high; Congruent-low; Congruent-decreasing; Low-autonomy, High-competence and relatedness), all of which significantly associated with time-varying mental health and academic functioning indicators. The findings highlight the importance of subgroup differences and possible cultural considerations in understanding the progression of psychological need satisfactions and the need for universal screening and dynamic monitoring of students’ psychological need satisfactions at school and implementing more sophisticated interventions tailored to the unique characteristics of the relevant subgroups to promote optimal mental health and learning.  相似文献   

Guideposts and Roadblocks to the Career-Long Scholarly Engagement of Physical Education Teacher Education Faculty     

Catherine P. Berei  Erica Pratt  Melissa Parker  Kevin Shephard  Tanjian Liang  Udon Nampai 《Research quarterly for exercise and sport》2017,88(4):455-467

Purpose: Scholarship is essential for the growth and development of the physical education field. Over time, scholarship expectations have changed, forcing faculty members to alter time spent for research, teaching, and service. Social-cognitive career theory (SCCT) presents a model for understanding performance and persistence in an occupational environment. The interconnected aspects of SCCT have different emphasis related to self-efficacy, outcome expectations, or personal goals pursuit. This study explored physical education teacher education (PETE) faculty members’ continuing engagement in scholarly activity through SCCT. Method: Data collection included interviews with 9 senior PETE faculty members who met the criteria for “productive scholars over time.” Curriculum vitae were collected to verify productivity. Results: Data analysis revealed guidepost themes that included collaborating, finding balance, defining a research process, and maintaining a strong work ethic. Roadblocks encountered included other obligations and lack of support for research. Conclusions: Participants demonstrated strong self-efficacy; held high, positive expectations for success; and set very specific, clear, and deliberate goals. Participant behavior was moderated by their personal attributes (capacity to build relationships, set goals, and maintain interest and passion) and was tempered by the environments in which they worked. Fostering similar behaviors has the potential to guide future and current PETE faculty members in creating supportive and encouraging atmospheres for sustained productivity. The lack of literature relating to this topic warrants the need for more research exploring the influential factors and benefits gained from sustained scholarly productivity over time for PETE faculty members.  相似文献   

Does working during higher education affect students’ academic progression?     

《Economics of Education Review》2014

This paper examines the effect of working during higher education on academic progression, in terms of number of credits acquired by first-year university students in Italy. We discuss different contrasting hypotheses on the role of employment during university on academic outcomes: the zero-sum perspective, the reconciliation thesis, the positive and the negative selection to work hypotheses. In the empirical part we analyze data from the Eurostudent survey, which collected data on a representative sample of university students who were enrolled in the academic year 2002/03, after the implementation of the ‘Bologna Process’. We use a negative binomial regression model considering work experience as an endogenous multinomial treatment. Results indicate that, conditional on observed covariates (socio-demographic variables, school-related and university-related variables), there is a positive self-selection into employment, especially for low-intensity work. Traditional multivariate regressions show a penalty in academic progression only for high-intensity workers, but once accounted for unobserved heterogeneity also the low-intensity work experience appears to negatively affect academic progression.  相似文献