9:00am - 9:15amID: 166
/ PS-19: 1
Short Papers
Confirmation 1: I/we acknowledge that all session authors/presenters have read and agreed to the ASIS&T Annual Meeting PoliciesTopics: Information Behavior (information behavior; information-seeking behavior; information needs and use; information practices)Keywords: Care, information practices, casualization, precarity, information marginalization, academic staff, faculty
“You Need to Step Back When You're Contract Faculty”: Information Practices and Care in Casual Academic Work
Rebekah Willson1, Owen Stewart-Robertson1, Heidi Julien2, Lisa Given3
1McGill University, Canada; 2University at Buffalo, SUNY, USA; 3RMIT University, Australia
This study uses the concepts of information practices and care as theoretical lenses to explore the information practices of casual academic staff, who experience complex information contexts. Semi-structured online interviews followed by thematic qualitative data analysis revealed that, while these academics care deeply about their contributions to student learning, they experience a lack of institutional support and care. This experience leads to individualized information practices, and dependence on an uncertain and unreliable information landscape, characterized by information marginalization, information precarity, and information vulnerability. Exposing the informational challenges experienced by this large subpopulation of academic laborers can support efforts to improve their information environments and support their work. The study also contributes to contemporary theoretical understandings of information vulnerability within academic contexts.
9:15am - 9:30amID: 384
/ PS-19: 2
Short Papers
Confirmation 1: I/we acknowledge that all session authors/presenters have read and agreed to the ASIS&T Annual Meeting PoliciesTopics: Information Science Education; Information; Learning (curriculum design; instructional resources and methods; educational program planning & technologies; e-learning; m-learning; learning analytics; knowledge co-construction, searching as learning)Keywords: Professor Watchlist, social justice education, academic freedom
Social Justice and Indoctrination: Views of Faculty Accused of Bias
Shannon Oltmann, Meghan Dowell
University of Kentucky, USA
This study explores the discourse surrounding ideological bias in American higher education, particularly focusing on perceptions of bias against conservative viewpoints as documented by Professor Watchlist. Through interviews with individuals included on the watchlist, this research investigates the existence and nature of political bias on college campuses. The findings reveal a nuanced understanding among respondents, with many disputing the notion of systemic bias against conservative students, while also acknowledging potential bias against conservative ideas. The study highlights the complexities between academic freedom, ideological diversity, and perceptions of bias. The results contribute to ongoing debates about the role of political ideology in academia and its implications for classroom dynamics.
9:30am - 10:00amID: 422
/ PS-19: 3
Long Papers
Confirmation 1: I/we acknowledge that all session authors/presenters have read and agreed to the ASIS&T Annual Meeting PoliciesTopics: Privacy; Ethics; and Regulation (information ethics; AI ethics; open access; Information security; information privacy; information policy; legislation and regulation; international information issues)Keywords: Personal information; information protection; freedom of information; faculty of medicine; medical learners
Personal Information of Medical Learners in Canada: A Review of Policies and Expectations
Jay Kelly Park, Nicholas Feng
University of British Columbia, Canada
This paper explores whether the Canadian medical universities’ policies on personal information to protect and provide access meet the expectations of their learners. An overview of the current legislation is presented in the order of federal, provincial/territorial, and university level. This is followed by a process of reviewing a paper published by the Canadian Federation of Medical Students and conducting thematic analysis on pertinent court judgements to understand Canadian medical learners’ expectations of personal information handling practices. Through this process, we develop a list of nominal variables that represents learner expectations. For analysis, we conduct descriptive research to review medical universities’ policies and utilize a matrix to cross-check the policies against the list of variables. The resulting matrix presents a visualization that highlights areas where the policies and medical learners’ expectations converge and diverge. Our findings indicate that most universities acknowledge the importance of responsibly handling personal information but did not touch on certain variables, such as oversight of third-party data stewards and information transfer processes within the medical education community. Insights from our findings may contribute to the development of policies and participation from professional regulatory authorities.
10:00am - 10:30amID: 451
/ PS-19: 4
Long Papers
Confirmation 1: I/we acknowledge that all session authors/presenters have read and agreed to the ASIS&T Annual Meeting PoliciesTopics: Archives; Data Curation; and Preservation (archives; records; cultural heritage materials; data curation; digital libraries; digital humanities)Keywords: linked data; data curation; scientific data; social scientific data; primary sources
Primary Sources as Linked Data: Exploring Motives Across the Sciences and Social Sciences
Diana Marsh, Katrina Fenlon, Amanda Sorensen, Nikki Wise
University of Maryland, USA
While long recognized in the humanities, there is growing recognition in the sciences and social sciences that primary sources—as diverse as manuscripts, photographs, cultural belongings, and specimens—hold vast data about scientific and human knowledge for use in scholarship, community research, and global knowledge. Yet, data embedded in these sources are largely disconnected from the systems of discovery, access, and structured data that support reuse and insights across globally dispersed repositories. In this paper, we share select findings of a systematic review to explore the use of primary sources, and the data embedded in them, via linked data across the sciences and social sciences. Our results confirm the use of a variety of primary source data across diverse disciplines, particularly those requiring longitudinal studies and data integration from diverse repositories and contexts. We highlight how linked data are understood to: connect collections to communities; support highly granular credit, attribution, and assessment of impact; and interrelate diverse sources of knowledge. While these results suggest the value of linked data for the specific research needs of anthropology, the effectiveness of linked data in achieving these objectives and the suitability of this approach for a diversity of institutions and communities need further study.
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