FIMS Library and Information Science Publications

Review of Canadian University Fair Dealing Policies

Lisa Di Valentino — Fri, 17 May 2013 06:25:43 PDT

The past three years have seen a number of changes in the area of copyright law, particularly in the area of education. As a result, Canadian universities have had to make policy decisions to account for these changes and the resulting expansion of fair dealing rights. The content and consistency of the resulting policies may have a significant effect on the future interpretation of fair dealing rights. In this paper I analyze the current state of fair dealing policies and supporting information found on university web sites. I conclude that an ideal fair dealing policy is open ended and flexible, and incorporates mention of the significant elements of copyright legislation, court decisions, and other areas of law, in a way that is accessible to its intended audience of faculty and instructors.

The View From Here: User-Centered Perspectives on Social Network Privacy

Jacquelyn A. Burkell et al. — Thu, 09 May 2013 08:35:35 PDT

A great deal of personal information is released in online social network profiles, and this information is increasingly being sought as evidence in criminal, administrative and civil legal proceedings. Determination of the admissibility of social network profile information rests in part on the issue of subjective expectations of privacy: to what extent do online social network participants expect privacy in their social network profiles? This question is examined through a combination of interviews and focus groups. The results suggest that Facebook as a whole is characterized as a space where participants construct and display a produced version of the self to a large and indeterminate social network. The common perspective is that information posted on social network profiles is selected for social broadcast, and further dissemination (beyond the online social network to which information is disclosed) is therefore both acceptable and to be expected. Although they would prefer profile access to be restricted to a broadly defined social network of friends and acquaintances, online social network participants do not in general expect to control the audience for their profiles, and they therefore typically include only information that ‘everyone’ can know in their online profiles. They thus require and exercise control over the content that is associated with their online profiles, and actions that undermine this control run contrary to privacy expectations.

Objections to the Proposed Access Copyright Post-Secondary Tariff and its Progeny Licenses: A Working Paper

Samuel Trosow et al. — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 18:31:16 PDT

On March 31, 2010, Access Copyright applied to the Copyright Board to certify a tariff that would govern the relationship between the organization and the members of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) and the Association of Community Colleges of Canada (ACCC). Previously, the relationship had been governed by a series of license agreements between the organizations which had been periodically renewed. But Access Copyright chose not to seek renewal of the licenses, and applied to the Board to certify a general tariff that would cover all post-secondary institutions for the period of 2011 through 2013.

Access Copyright was not merely trying to carry forward the terms of previous licensing agreements in the form of a Board certified tariff. Rather, they were seeking a tariff with a much higher rate, wider scope and broader application; one which would place new burdens on the institutions, their staff and students, and which would also jeopardize many of the rights of academic staff and students. This working paper reviews the terms of the Proposed Tariff and its progeny licenses and discusses several of the arguments that have been raised against them. The first general grouping is that many of the provisions are ambiguous, counterintuitive and are based on problematic definitions which attempt to extend the reach of the compensable activities beyond what is authorized by Canadian law. The second broad issue is the lack of value in the Proposed Tariff itself. The third general grouping deals with the audit, reporting, monitoring and survey (ARMS) provisions in the Proposed Tariff and the progeny licenses. With respect to the Proposed Tariff, we argue that several of its terms are also ultra vires the Copyright Act and would not have survived scrutiny had they been fully litigated.

While recent developments have cast a new light on these issues, many of the concerns raised in this report about the Proposed Tariff remain unresolved. Despite strong arguments to the contrary, and their previous opposition to the Proposed Tariff at the Board; AUCC, ACCC and several institutions still felt that a license with Access Copyright was needed. In January 2012, Access Copyright announced they had reached licensing agreements with the University of Toronto and the University of Western Ontario, the terms of which were substantially similar to the proposed tariff. Following the “lead” of UWO and the University of Toronto, AUCC and ACCC have since announced a similar agreement with Access Copyright, resulting in a “Model License,” and they have since dropped their opposition to the Proposed Tariff at the Copyright Board. In this report, we refer to the UWO and University of Toronto agreements and the AUCC/ACCC model licenses as the “progeny” of the Proposed Tariff because despite some differences, they are substantially similar in many respects.

To date, some institutions have accepted the Model License, others have rejected it, and many others had not yet announced their intentions as of the end of July 2012.

This paper is divided into five sections. Following this introduction, section 2 will address some of the definitional problems in the Proposed Tariff and progeny licenses in more detail. First and foremost are the definitions of “copy” and “course collection” which increase the scope of the statutory reproduction right and create other burdens. These overbroad definitions are foundational problems with the tariff/licenses which not only exceed the scope of owners' statutory rights, but will have the potential to substantially impede the delivery of course materials, adversely impact faculty and student privacy rights, and ultimately threaten academic freedom. The other problematic definition involves the “Secure Network,” along with various limitations that flow from this definition.

The third part of this report will ask the question: What value would institutions obtain under the Proposed Tariff and its progeny licences? A review of section 3 of the Proposed Tariff and its progeny indicates that the scope of the permissions does not add very much to what is already permitted under fair dealing and other limitations and exceptions in the Copyright Act. In addition, the scope of Access Copyright's repertoire is ambiguous, and the value of the indemnification clause in the progeny licenses is very limited.

The fourth section will turn to the audit, reporting, monitoring, and survey (ARMS) provisions in the Proposed Tariff. We argue that these measures are overbroad and ultra vires the Copyright Act. They should be substantially scaled back if not entirely eliminated from any eventual tariff order. And while these ARMS provisions have been cast in modified terms in the progeny licenses, these corresponding provisions remain highly problematic.

The last section will look at the implications of more recent developments (including the UWO and UofT licenses of January 30^th, the AUCC and ACCC Model License, and the withdraw of AUCC from objector status at the Board) for the tariff proceedings which are still pending at the Board. It will close with a summary of the recommendations made throughout this report. And while a full treatment of the implications of the passage of Bill C-11 in June and the Supreme Court's historic July pentalogy is beyond the scope of this report, they will also be considered throughout this report.

Therefore, the overall purpose of this report is to identify and address some of the key issues that have been raised from the outset about the Proposed Tariff dispute, as they remain largely unresolved. In addition to highlighting flaws with the Proposed Tariff and its progeny licenses, we will offer some suggestions for how an effective and fair tariff or license could be crafted. We are calling this report a Working Paper as it is very much still a work in progress given the fast pace of current developments and the still unsettled state of the issues. Many institutions have yet to announce whether they will accept or reject the model license agreement and the status of the tariff proceedings before the Copyright Board still needs to be addressed.

Technology Transfer and Innovation Policy at Canadian Universities: Opportunities and Social Costs

Samuel Trosow et al. — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 09:56:02 PDT

This report, supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Knowledge Synthesis Grant, critically examines the role of universities in transmitting knowledge in the forms of technology transfer mechanisms, intellectual property agreements and other knowledge diffusion policies. In reviewing and synthesizing the recent literature on the topic, we seek to provide some initial evidence-based policy recommendations in order to generally strengthen Canada‘s innovation ecosystem and more specifically to maximize the return on the nation‘s investment in higher education research and development.

Supporting Alternative Incentive Mechanisms for Digital Content: A Comparison of Canadian and US Policy

Michael B. McNally — Mon, 30 May 2011 14:22:22 PDT

This paper compares the Government of Canada’s copyright focused approach for encouraging the production of digital content with the U.S. Government’s adoption of a range of incentive systems for the production of content through a content analysis of government policy papers. The first part of the paper examines Canadian policy outlined in the Improving Canada’s Digital Advantage consultation paper and the proposed amendments to the Copyright Act (Bill C-32). The paper argues the government is overly reliant on copyright to encourage the production of creative digital content. Though Bill C-32 would expand the definition of fair dealing and create a user generated content exception, the effectiveness of these measures is severely limited by through the proposed protections for technological protection measures. The second part of the paper examines innovative alternatives to copyright that are being promoted by the U.S. government. The Obama Administration’s Open Government Directive not only provides citizens with access to government data, but also calls on federal departments to use prizes to encourage innovative uses of the data. The U.S. National Institutes of Health has taken a leading role in promoting open access publication of research funded with federal monies by requiring deposit of publications resulting from research in the open access repository PubMed Central. The paper concludes by positing that Canada’s digital economy strategy would be strengthened by providing greater federal support for alternatives to intellectual property such as open data and open access and lessening the focus on copyright as an incentive digital content production.

Mobilizing User-Generated Content For Canada’s Digital Advantage

Samuel E. Trosow et al. — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 11:43:05 PST

Executive Summary: The goal of the Mobilizing User-Generated Content for Canada’s Digital Content Advantage project is to define User-Generated Content (UGC) in its current state, identify successful models built for UGC, and anticipate barriers and policy infrastructure needed to sustain a model to leverage the further development of UGC to Canada's advantage. At the outset, we divided our research into three domains: creative content, small scale tools and collaborative user-generated content. User-generated creative content is becoming increasingly evident throughout the technological ecology through online platforms and online social networks where individuals develop, create and capture information and choose to distribute content through an online platform in a transformative manner. The Internet offers many tools and resources that simplify the various UGC processes and models. Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr and others provide functionality to upload content directly into the site itself, eliminating the need for formatting and conversion, and allowing almost instantaneous access to the content by the user’s social network. The successful sites have been able to integrate content creation, aggregation, distribution, and consumption into a single tool, further eroding some of the traditional dichotomies between content creators and end-users. Along with these larger scale resources, this study also treats small scale tools, which are tools, modifications, and applications that have been created by a user or group of users. There are three main categories of small scale tools. The first is game modifications, or add-ons, which are created by users/players in order to modify the game or assist in its play. The second is modifications, objects, or tools created for virtual worlds such as Second Life. Third, users create applications and tools for mobile devices, such as the iPhone or the Android system. The third domain considers UGC which is generated collaboratively. This category is comprised of wikis, open source software and creative content authored by a group rather than a sole individual. Several highly successful examples of collaborative UGC include Wikipedia, and open source projects such as the Linux operating system, Mozilla Firefox and the Apache platform. Major barriers to the production, distribution and aggregation of collaborative UGC are unduly restrictive intellectual property rights (including copyrights, licensing requirements and technological protection mechanisms). There are several crucial infrastructure and policies required to facilitate collaborative UGC. For example, in the area of copyright policy, a careful balance is needed to provide appropriate protection while still allowing downstream UGC creation. Other policy considerations include issues pertaining to technological protection mechanisms, privacy rights, consumer protection and competition. In terms of infrastructure, broadband internet access is the primary technological infrastructure required to promote collaborative UGC creation. There has recently been a proliferation of literature pertaining to all three of these domains, which are reviewed. Assessments are made about the most effective models and practices for each domain, as well as the barriers which impede further developments. This initial research is used as a basis for generating some tentative conclusions and recommendations for further research about the policy and technological infrastructures required to best mobilize and leverage user-generated content to create additional value in the digital economy internal and external to Canada. Policy recommendations based on this research focus on two principles: balancing the interest of both content owners and users, and creating an enabling environment in which UGC production, distribution, aggregation, and re-use can flourish.

Understanding the Role of Information Policy in LIS Education

Ajit Pyati — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 17:47:59 PDT

Emotion-Based Tags in Photographic Documents: The Interplay of Text, Image, and Social Influence / Les etiquettes basées sur des emotions dans les documents photographiques: L'interaction entre le texte, l'image et l'influence sociale

Diane M. Neal — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 16:39:19 PDT

This study investigated the communicative roles played by the text, image, and social interaction in high- and low-relevance ranked Flickr photographic documents with an emotion-based tag. Using discourse analysis, textual and visual themes regarding the conveyance of emotional meaning were identified. Non-parametric measures found statistically significant differences between most relevant and least relevant pictures, between the number of views and number of favourites within each emotion, and between pictures with different emotion-based tags.

Cette étude examine le rôle communicationnel joué par le texte, l'image et l'interaction sociale dans des documents photographiques de Flickr portant une étiquette basée sur des émotions et classés selon leur pertinence forte ou faible. l'aide de l'analyse du discours, il a été possible d'identifier des thèmes textuels et visuels susceptibles de transmettre une signification émotionnelle. Des mesures non-paramétriques ont révélé des différences statistiquement significatives entre les images de forte et de faible pertinence, entre le nombre de vues et le nombre de favoris pour chaque émotion, et entre les images portant des étiquettes émotionnelles différentes.

A New Model For Semantic Photograph Description Combining Basic Levels and User-assigned Descriptors

Hyuk-Jin Lee et al. — Wed, 26 May 2010 13:11:34 PDT

Few studies have been conducted to identify users’ desired semantic levels of image access when describing, searching, and retrieving photographs online. The basic level, or the level of abstraction most commonly used to describe an item, is a cognitive theory currently under consideration in image retrieval research. This study investigates potential basic levels of description for online photographs by testing the Hierarchy for Online Photograph Representation (HOPR) model, which is based on a need for a model that addresses users’ basic levels of photograph description and retrieval. We developed the HOPR model using the following three elements as guides: the most popular tags of all time on Flickr, the Pyramid model for visual content description by Jörgensen, Jaimes, Benitez, and Chang, and the nine classes of image content put forth by Burford, Briggs, and Eakins. In an exploratory test of the HOPR model, participants were asked to describe their first reaction to, and possible free-text indexing terms for, a small set of personal photographs. Content analysis of the data indicated a clear set of user preferences that are consistent with prior image description studies. Generally speaking, objects in the photograph, and events taking place in the photograph, were the most commonly used levels of description. The preliminary HOPR model shows promise for its intended utility, but further refinement is needed through additional research.

Informing Relationships: Small Talk, Informing and Relationship Building in Midwife-woman Interaction

Pamela J. McKenzie — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:22:13 PDT

Introduction: This article analyses small or relational talk as a setting for exploring socially- and temporally-situated practices that constitute informing in a particular context.

Method: Transcripts of forty clinic visits between Canadian midwives and childbearing women are analysed to show how relational talk is put together and what functions it performs. Analysis. Conversation analysis is used to show how speakers establish their entitlement to background knowledge and negotiate authority to speak on various topics.

Results: Speakers display and deploy evidence of their developing relationship in and through their talk together. They situate talk about themselves and one another in the context of the relationship to work it up as news and to frame questions so that they are understood to address new or previously known concerns. They take up previous talk as informative and use it to make claims about one another. Through making arrangements they establish a single encounter as a member of a series and orient themselves to the past and future of the relationship. They call on their previous interactions as informative to the business at hand and present themselves as informed about the relationship and about the other(s) in that relationship.

Conclusions: Small talk is a rich site for analysis. Considering an interaction as a situated member of a series rather than as an a-temporal snapshot allows for an analysis of the ways that the unfolding relationship itself becomes a resource for its members.

Informing Choice: The Organization of Institutional Interaction in Clinical Midwifery Care

Pamela J. McKenzie — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 18:20:48 PST

Researchers in LIS have called for the study of the social practices out of which informing is achieved. This article analyzes the informed choice discussion (ICD) between midwives and childbearing women as a form of institutional interaction that accomplishes informing. The ICD institutionally presumes a woman to have information needs that must be met before she can make a decision. Conversation analysis, a method commonly used to study practitioner–client interaction but little used in LIS, is employed to identify the unique “fingerprint” of the ICD. Analysis shows how participants develop a joint sense of the interactional tasks of informing and deciding. As an ideal, informed choice divides the cognitive labor: informing is midwife-led and deciding is client-led. In practice, however, informing and deciding are intertwined to such an extent that their resolution is neither automatic nor straightforward but must be negotiated. To be accepted as adequate, a decision must also be deemed adequately informed. Difficulties in negotiating transitions can result in one speaker treating a decision as resolved while another treats it as still open. Analyzing the fingerprints of institutional informing interactions can provide a starting point for analyzing the interactional accomplishment of informing in other settings.

Informing Evidence: Claimsmaking in Midwives' and Clients' Talk about Interventions

Pamela J. McKenzie et al. — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 18:18:07 PST

Communication for informed choice is particularly challenging in clinical settings such as direct-entry midwifery, where the care model embraces diverse therapies and forms of knowledge. We identified three discursive moves (explanation, invocation, and evaluation) that Ontario midwives and clients used in making claims about proposed interventions. The analysis was informed by an understanding of communication as an interactionally situated and socially constructed interpretive practice. Both midwives and women called on the authority of biomedical discourse, but they also turned to sources such as women’s wisdom to support their cases. The flexible use of these moves afforded participants considerable latitude in accepting or rejecting forms of evidence as authoritative. However, strategies designed to empower clients in making choices could unintentionally serve to enhance the authority of the care provider. Talk about interventions brings into view both the knowledge systems and the broader relations within which regulated midwifery practice operates.

Optimizing Search Strategies to Identify Randomized Controlled Trials in MEDLINE

Li Zhang et al. — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 21:47:09 PDT

Background: The Cochrane Highly Sensitive Search Strategy (HSSS), which contains three phases, is widely used to identify Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) in MEDLINE. Lefebvre and Clarke suggest that reviewers might consider using four revisions of the HSSS. The objective of this study is to validate these four revisions: combining the free text terms volunteer, crossover, versus, and the Medical Subject Heading CROSS-OVER STUDIES with the top two phases of the HSSS, respectively.

Methods: We replicated the subject search for 61 Cochrane reviews. The included studies of each review that were indexed in MEDLINE were pooled together by review and then combined with the subject search and each of the four proposed search strategies, the top two phases of the HSSS, and all three phases of the HSSS. These retrievals were used to calculate the sensitivity and precision of each of the six search strategies for each review.

Results: Across the 61 reviews, the search term versus combined with the top two phases of the HSSS was able to find 3 more included studies than the top two phases of the HSSS alone, or in combination with any of the other proposed search terms, but at the expense of missing 56 relevant articles that would be found if all three phases of the HSSS were used. The estimated time needed to finish a review is 1086 hours for all three phases of the HSSS, 823 hours for the strategy versus, 818 hours for the first two phases of the HSSS or any of the other three proposed strategies.

Conclusion: This study shows that compared to the first two phases of the HSSS, adding the term versus to the top two phases of the HSSS balances the sensitivity and precision in the reviews studied here to some extent but the differences are very small. It is well known that missing relevant studies may result in bias in systematic reviews. Reviewers need to weigh the trade-offs when selecting the search strategies for identifying RCTs in MEDLINE.

Are Clinicians Being Prepared to Care for Abused Women? A Survey of Health Professional Education in Ontario, Canada

C. Nadine Wathen et al. — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 20:06:30 PDT

Background: The current project undertook a province-wide survey and environmental scan of educational opportunities available to future health care providers on the topic of intimate partner violence (IPV) against women.

Methods: A team of experts identified university and college programs in Ontario, Canada as potential providers of IPV education to students in health care professions at the undergraduate and post-graduate levels. A telephone survey with contacts representing these programs was conducted between October 2005 and March 2006. The survey asked whether IPV-specific education was provided to learners, and if so, how and by whom.

Results: In total, 222 eligible programs in dentistry, medicine, nursing and other allied health professions were surveyed, and 95% (212/222) of programs responded. Of these, 57% reported offering some form of IPV-specific education, with undergraduate nursing (83%) and allied health (82%) programs having the highest rates. Fewer than half of undergraduate medical (43%) and dentistry (46%) programs offered IPV content. Postgraduate programs ranged from no IPV content provision (dentistry) to 41% offering content (nursing).

Conclusion: Significant variability exists across program areas regarding the methods for IPV education, its delivery and evaluation. The results of this project highlight that expectations for an active and consistent response by health care professionals to women experiencing the effects of violence may not match the realities of professional preparation.

Assessing the Quality of Reports of Randomized Trials in Pediatric Complementary and Alternative Medicine

David Moher et al. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:23:25 PDT

Objective: To evaluate the quality of reports of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in the pediatric population. We also examined whether there was a change in the quality of reporting over time.

Methods: We used a systematic sample of 251 reports of RCTs that used a CAM intervention. The quality of each report was assessed using the number of CONSORT checklist items included, the frequency of unclear allocation concealment, and a 5-point quality assessment instrument.

Results: Nearly half (40%) of the CONSORT checklist items were included in the reports, with an increase in the number of items included. The majority (81.3%) of RCTs reported unclear allocation concealment with no significant change over time. The quality of reports achieved approximately 40% of their maximum possible total score as assessed with the Jadad scale with no change over time. Information regarding adverse events was reported in less than one quarter of the RCTs (22%) and information regarding costs was mentioned in only a minority of reports (4%).

Conclusions: RCTs are an important tool for evidence based health care decisions. If these studies are to be relevant in the evaluation of CAM interventions it is important that they are conducted and reported with the highest possible standards. There is a need to redouble efforts to ensure that children and their families are participating in RCTs that are conducted and reported with minimal bias. Such studies will increase their usefulness to a board spectrum of interested stakeholders.

Randomized Controlled Trials in Pediatric Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Where Can They Be Found?

Margaret Sampson et al. — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 18:12:18 PDT

Background: The safety and effectiveness of CAM interventions are of great relevance to pediatric health care providers. The objective of this study is to identify sources of reported randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in the field of pediatric complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).

Methods: Reports of RCTs were identified by searching Medline and 12 additional bibliographic databases and by reviewing the reference lists of previously identified pediatric CAM systematic reviews.

Results: We identified 908 reports of RCTs that included children under 18 and investigated a CAM therapy. Since 1965, there has been a steady growth in the number of these trials that are being published. The four journals that published the most reported RCTs are The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Pediatrics, Journal of Pediatrics, and Lancet. Medline, CAB Health, and Embase were the best database sources for identifying these studies; they indexed 93.2%, 58.4% and 42.2 % respectively of the journals publishing reports of pediatric CAM RCTs.

Conclusions: Those working or interested in the field of pediatric CAM should routinely search Medline, CAB Health and Embase for literature in the field. The four core journals identified above should be included in their collection.

Public Library Revitalization in India: Hopes, Challenges, and New Visions

Ajit K. Pyati — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:54:57 PDT

With India's growing economy and status as an emerging world power, a new consciousness is developing in the country about the need to reinvest in public services. The National Knowledge Commission (NKC) is an advisory body constituted by the Prime Minister to provide recommendations for improving India's knowledge infrastructure. As part of this Commission, a set of recommendations has been developed to improve India's long neglected library system. This article explores the implications of these recommendations, with a specific focus on India's public library system and the social development gains that are often associated with public libraries. The potential of India's public libraries to serve as community information centres (CICs) is highlighted, as well as the challenges that lie ahead in implementing a new vision for public library revitalization. The article serves as an invitation for concerted action, reflection, and dialogue with regard to this important and pressing issue.

Re-Envisioning Libraries in the Information Society: A Critical Theory of Library Technology

Ajit Kumar Pyati — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:45:47 PDT

Libraries have been involved in technological transformation for several decades, and are now increasingly associated with discourses surrounding the development of a global information society. The information society, however, remains a contested terrain, with a major focus on connectivity to ICTs, and is often linked with technological determinist and technocratic agendas. The library profession and field do not adequately theorize technology in a way that offers a progressive alternative to this dominant information society vision.

In light of this context, this dissertation argues for the relevance of critical theory as a framework for guiding and analyzing library technology actions. This confluence of critical theory and library technology studies is named a “critical theory of library technology.” The framework is both a conceptual tool for re-envisioning the roles of libraries in relation to technology, as well as an analytical tool for exploring library technology decisions at various levels of impact.

The open source software movement in libraries serves as test case in the application of this framework as a mode of analysis. Prominent library open source projects are discussed, and an in-depth, qualitative case study of Simon Fraser University Library in Canada, a library developing open source software for electronic resource management and electronic journal publishing, is undertaken. Interviews and documentary research are the main sources of data.

Findings indicate that while the software projects are nominally open source, the co-developer communities remain limited. Best practices research will have to address areas related to the on-going community development and sustainability of these projects. However, in relation to the critical framework, the library emerges as a model of high investment in the technological skills of systems staff. The case presents a regional example of cooperation that is benefiting smaller client libraries in the regional consortia. Open source ideology, however, appears as just one of a variety of factors behind the deployment of these projects. In the case of the electronic journal publishing software project, an open source/open access ideological orientation is prominent, and the project presents a potentially new model for academic libraries in the support of electronic publishing services.

The Experiential Health Information Processing Model: Supporting Collaborative Web-based Patient Education

Laura A. O'Grady et al. — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:39:49 PDT

Background: First generation Internet technologies such as mailing lists or newsgroups afforded unprecedented levels of information exchange within a variety of interest groups, including those who seek health information. With emergence of the World Wide Web many communication applications were ported to web browsers. One of the driving factors in this phenomenon has been the exchange of experiential or anecdotal knowledge that patients share online, and there is emerging evidence that participation in these forums may be having an impact on people's health decision making. Theoretical frameworks supporting this form of information seeking and learning have yet to be proposed.

Results: In this article, we propose an adaptation of Kolb's experiential learning theory to begin to formulate an experiential health information processing model that may contribute to our understanding of online health information seeking behaviour in this context.

Conclusion: An experiential health information processing model is proposed that can be used as a research framework. Future research directions include investigating the utility of this model in the online health information seeking context, studying the impact of collaborating in these online environments on patient decision making and on health outcomes are provided.

Critical Theory and Information Studies: A Marcusean Infusion

Ajit K. Pyati — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 17:32:13 PST

In the field of library and information science, also known as information studies, critical theory is often not included in debates about the discipline’s theoretical foundations. This paper argues that the critical theory of Herbert Marcuse, in particular, has a significant contribution to make to the field of information studies. Marcuse’s focus, for instance, on ‘technical rationality’ as a tool of domination in modern capitalist society is a useful construct for understanding how discourses of information technology are being used to perpetuate modernist notions of information and capitalist logics of consumption. It is argued here that critical theory theory and critical theory of technology have a particular relevance and salience to the study of information, and that any discipline that claims to study the creation, use, classification, and access of information simply cannot ignore the larger socio-political critiques of modern, technological society that Marcuse proposes.