Bibliographical data analysis with Zotero and nVivo
Bibliographic Analysis for Graduate Students, EDAD 518, Fri/Sat, May 15/16, 2020
This session will not be about qualitative research (QR) only, but rather about a modern 21st century approach toward the analysis of your literature review in Chapter 2.
However, the computational approach toward qualitative research is not much different than computational approach for your quantitative research; you need to be versed in each of them, thus familiarity with nVivo for qualitative research and with SPSS for quantitative research should be pursued by any doctoral student.
Once you complete the overview of the resources above, please make sure you have Zotero working on your computer; we will be reviewing the Zotero features before we move to nVivo.
Familiarity with Zotero is a prerequisite for successful work with nVivo, so please if you are already working with Zotero, try to expand your knowledge using the materials above.
Please use this link to install nVivo on your computer. Even if we were not in a quarantine and you would have been able to use the licensed nVivo software on campus, for convenience (working on your dissertation from home), most probably, you would have used the shareware. Shareware is fully functional on your computer for 14 days, so calculate the time you will be using it and mind the date of installation and your consequent work.
For the purpose of this workshop, please install nVivo on your computer early morning on Saturday, May 16, so we can work together on nVivo during the day and you can continue using the software for the next two weeks.
Please familiarize yourself with the two articles assigned in the EDAD 815 D2L course content “Practice Research Articles“ :
Brosky, D. (2011). Micropolitics in the School: Teacher Leaders’ Use of Political Skill and Influence Tactics. International Journal of Educational Leadership Preparation, 6(1). https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ972880
Tooms, A. K., Kretovics, M. A., & Smialek, C. A. (2007). Principals’ perceptions of politics. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 10(1), 89–100. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603120600950901
It is very important to be familiar with the articles when we start working with nVivo.
whereas the snapshots are replaced with snapshots from nVivol, version 12, which we will be using in our course and for our dissertations.
Concept of bibliographic data
Bibliographic Data is an organized collection of references to publish in literature that includes journals, magazine articles, newspaper articles, conference proceedings, reports, government and legal publications. The bibliographical data is important for writing the literature review of a research. This data is usually saved and organized in databases like Mendeley or Endnote. Nvivo provides the option to import bibliographical data from these databases directly. One can import End Note library or Mendeley library into Nvivo. Similar to interview transcripts, one can represent and analyze bibliographical data using Nvivo. To start with bibliographical data representation, this article previews the processing of literature review in Nvivo.
Importing bibliographical data
Bibliographic Data is imported using Mendeley, Endnote and other such databases or applications that are supported with Nvivo. Bibliographical data here refers to material in the form of articles, journals or conference proceedings. Common factors among all of these data are the author’s name and year of publication. Therefore, Nvivo helps to import and arrange these data with their titles as author’s name and year of publication. The process of importing bibliographical data is presented in the figures below.
select the appropriate data from external folder
Coding strategies for literature review
Coding is a process of identifying important parts or patterns in the sources and organizing them in theme node. Sources in case of literature review include material in the form of PDF. That means literature review in Nvivo requires grouping of information from PDF files in the forms of theme nodes. Nodes directly do not create content for literature review, they present ideas simply to help in framing a literature review. Nodes can be created on the basis of theme of the study, results of the study, major findings of the study or any other important information of the study. After creating nodes, code the information of each of the articles into its respective codes.
Nvivo allows coding the articles for preparing a literature review. Articles have tremendous amount of text and information in the forms of graphs, more importantly, articles are in the format of PDF. Since Nvivo does not allow editing PDF files, apply manual coding in case of literature review. There are two strategies of coding articles in Nvivo.
Code the text of PDF files into a new Node.
Code the text of PDF file into an existing Node. The procedure of manual coding in literature review is similar to interview transcripts.
The Case Nodes of articles are created as per the author name or year of the publication.
For example: Create a case node with the name of that author and attach all articles in case of multiple articles of same Author in a row with different information. For instance in figure below, five articles of same author’s name, i.e., Mr. Toppings have been selected together to group in a case Node. Prepare case nodes like this then effortlessly search information based on different author’s opinion for writing empirical review in the literature.
Nvivo questions for literature review
Apart from the coding on themes, evidences, authors or opinions in different articles, run different queries based on the aim of the study. Nvivo contains different types of search tools that helps to find information in and across different articles. With the purpose of literature review, this article presents a brief overview of word frequency search, text search, and coding query in Nvivo.
Word frequency
Word frequency in Nvivo allows searching for different words in the articles. In case of literature review, use word frequency to search for a word. This will help to find what different author has stated about the word in the article. Run word frequency on all types of sources and limit the number of words which are not useful to write the literature.
For example, run the command of word frequency with the limit of 100 most frequent words . This will help in assessing if any of these words remotely provide any new information for the literature (figure below).
and
and
Text search
Text search is more elaborative tool then word frequency search in Nvivo. It allows Nvivo to search for a particular phrase or expression in the articles. Also, Nvivo gives the opportunity to make a node out of text search if a particular word, phrase or expression is found useful for literature.
For example: conduct a text search query to find a word “Scaffolding” in the articles. In this case Nvivo will provide all the words, phrases and expression slightly related to this word across all the articles (Figure 8 & 9). The difference between test search and word frequency lies in generating texts, sentences and phrases in the latter related to the queried word.
Coding query
Apart from text search and word frequency search Nvivo also provides the option of coding query. Coding query helps in literature review to know the intersection between two Nodes. As mentioned previously, nodes contains the information from the articles. Furthermore it is also possible that two nodes contain similar set of information. Therefore, coding query helps to condense this information in the form of two way table which represents the intersection between selected nodes.
For example, in below figure, researcher have search the intersection between three nodes namely, academics, psychological and social on the basis of three attributes namely qantitative, qualitative and mixed research. This coding theory is performed to know which of the selected themes nodes have all types of attributes. Like, Coding Matrix in figure below shows that academic have all three types of attributes that is research (quantitative, qualitative and mixed). Where psychological has only two types of attributes research (quantitative and mixed).
In this way, Coding query helps researchers to generate intersection between two or more theme nodes. This also simplifies the pattern of qualitative data to write literature.
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Please do not hesitate to contact me with questions, suggestions before, during or after our workshop and about ANY questions and suggestions you may have about your Chapter 2 and, particularly about your literature review:
Intro to NVivo – January 31 10:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
440 Blegen Hall
NVivo is a qualitative data management, coding and markup tool, that facilitates powerful querying and exploration of source materials for both mixed methods and qualitative analysis. It integrates well with tools that assist in data collection and can handle a wide variety of source materials. This workshop introduces the basic functions of NVivo, with no prior experience necessary. The session is held in a computer lab with the software already installed. Register.
Bedi, S., & Walde, C. (2017). Transforming Roles: Canadian Academic Librarians Embedded in Faculty Research Projects. College & Research Libraries, 78(3), undefined-undefined. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.78.3.314
As collections become increasingly patron-driven, and libraries share evolving service models, traditional duties such as cataloguing, reference, and collection development are not necessarily core duties of all academic librarians.1
Unlike our American colleagues, many Canadian academic librarians are not required to do research for tenure and promotion; however, there is an expectation among many that they do research, not only for professional development, but to contribute to the profession.
using qualitative inquiry methods to capture the experiences and learning of Canadian academic librarians embedded in collaborative research projects with faculty members.
The term or label “embedded librarian” has been around for some time now and is often used to define librarians who work “outside” the traditional walls of the library. Shumaker,14 who dates the use of the term to the 1970s, defines embedded librarianship as “a distinctive innovation that moves the librarians out of libraries [and] emphasizes the importance of forming a strong working relationship between the librarian and a group or team of people who need the librarian’s information expertise.”15
This model of embedded librarianship has been active on campuses and is most prevalent within professional disciplines like medicine and law. In these models, the embedded librarian facilitates student learning, extending the traditional librarian role of information-literacy instruction to becoming an active participant in the planning, development, and delivery of course-specific or discipline-specific curriculum. The key feature of embedded librarianship is the collaboration that exists between the librarian and the faculty member(s).17
However, with the emergence of the librarian as researcher… More often than not, librarians have had more of a role in the literature-search process with faculty research projects as well as advising on appropriate places for publication.
guiding research question became “In what ways have Canadian academic librarians become embedded in faculty research projects, and how have their roles been transformed by their experience as researchers?”
Rubin and Rubin20 support this claim, noting that qualitative inquiry is a way to learn about the thoughts and feelings of others. Creswell confirms this, stating:
Qualitative research is best suited to address a research problem in which you do not know the variable and need to explore. The literature might yield little information about the phenomenon of study, and you need to learn more from participants through exploration. [Thus] a central phenomenon is the key concept, idea, or process studied in qualitative research.21
eight participants
As Janke and Rush point out, librarians are no longer peripheral in academic research but are now full members of investigative teams.30 But, as our research findings have highlighted, they are making this transition as a result of prior relationships with faculty brought about through traditional liaison work involving collection development, acquisitions, and information-literacy instruction. As our data demonstrates, the extent to which our participants were engaged within all aspects of the research process supports our starting belief that librarians have a vital and important contribution to make in redefining the role of the librarian in higher education.
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Carlson, J., & Kneale, R. (2017). Embedded librarianship in the research context: Navigating new waters. College & Research Libraries News, 72(3), 167–170. https://doi.org/10.5860/crln.72.3.8530
Embedded librarianship takes a librarian out of the context of the traditional
library and places him or her in an “on-site” setting or situation that enables close coordination and collaboration with researchers or teaching faculty
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Summey, T. P., & Kane, C. A. (2017). Going Where They Are: Intentionally Embedding Librarians in Courses and Measuring the Impact on Student Learning. Journal of Library and Information Services in Distance Learning, 11(1–2), 158–174.
Wu, L., & Thornton, J. (2017). Experience, Challenges, and Opportunities of Being Fully Embedded in a User Group. Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 36(2), 138–149.
Ungerer, L. M. (2016). Digital Curation as a Core Competency in Current Learning and Literacy: A Higher Education Perspective. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 17(5). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v17i5.2566
Dunaway (2011) suggests that learning landscapes in a digital age are networked, social, and technological. Since people commonly create and share information by collecting, filtering, and customizing digital content, educators should provide students opportunities to master these skills (Mills, 2013). In enhancing critical thinking, we have to investigate pedagogical models that consider students’ digital realities (Mihailidis & Cohen, 2013). November (as cited in Sharma & Deschaine, 2016), however warns that although the Web fulfils a pivotal role in societal media, students often are not guided on how to critically deal with the information that they access on the Web. Sharma and Deschaine (2016) further point out the potential for personalizing teaching and incorporating authentic material when educators themselves digitally curate resources by means of Web 2.0 tools.
p. 24. Communities of practice. Lave and Wenger’s (as cited in Weller, 2011) concept of situated learning and Wenger’s (as cited in Weller, 2011) idea of communities of practice highlight the importance of apprenticeship and the social role in learning.
criteria to publish a paper
Originality: Does the paper contain new and significant information adequate to justify publication?
Relationship to Literature: Does the paper demonstrate an adequate understanding of the relevant literature in the field and cite an appropriate range of literature sources? Is any significant work ignored?
Methodology: Is the paper’s argument built on an appropriate base of theory, concepts, or other ideas? Has the research or equivalent intellectual work on which the paper is based been well designed? Are the methods employed appropriate?
Results: Are results presented clearly and analyzed appropriately? Do the conclusions adequately tie together the other elements of the paper?
Implications for research, practice and/or society: Does the paper identify clearly any implications for research, practice and/or society? Does the paper bridge the gap between theory and practice? How can the research be used in practice (economic and commercial impact), in teaching, to influence public policy, in research (contributing to the body of knowledge)? What is the impact upon society (influencing public attitudes, affecting quality of life)? Are these implications consistent with the findings and conclusions of the paper?
Quality of Communication: Does the paper clearly express its case, measured against the technical language of the field and the expected knowledge of the journal’s readership? Has attention been paid to the clarity of expression and readability, such as sentence structure, jargon use, acronyms, etc.
Stanton, K. V., & Liew, C. L. (2011). Open Access Theses in Institutional Repositories: An Exploratory Study of the Perceptions of Doctoral Students. Information Research: An International Electronic Journal, 16(4),
We examine doctoral students’ awareness of and attitudes to open access forms of publication. Levels of awareness of open access and the concept of institutional repositories, publishing behaviour and perceptions of benefits and risks of open access publishing were explored. Method: Qualitative and quantitative data were collected through interviews with eight doctoral students enrolled in a range of disciplines in a New Zealand university and a self-completion Web survey of 251 students. Analysis: Interview data were analysed thematically, then evaluated against a theoretical framework. The interview data were then used to inform the design of the survey tool. Survey responses were analysed as a single set, then by disciple using SurveyMonkey’s online toolkit and Excel. Results: While awareness of open access and repository archiving is still low, the majority of interview and survey respondents were found to be supportive of the concept of open access. The perceived benefits of enhanced exposure and potential for sharing outweigh the perceived risks. The majority of respondents were supportive of an existing mandatory thesis submission policy. Conclusions: Low levels of awareness of the university repository remains an issue, and could be addressed by further investigating the effectiveness of different communication channels for promotion.
PLEASE NOTE:
the researchers use the qualitative approach: by interviewing participants and analyzing their responses thematically, they build the survey.
Then then administer the survey (the quantitative approach)
How do you intend to use a mixed method? Please share
Metaphors: A Problem Statement is like… metaphor — a novel or poetic linguistic expression where one or more words for a concept are used outside normal conventional meaning to express a similar concept. Aristotle l The DNA of the research l A snapshot of the research l The foundation of the research l The Heart of the research l A “taste” of the research l A blueprint for the study
digital object identifier (DOI) is a unique alphanumeric string assigned by a registration agency (the International DOI Foundation) to identify content and provide a persistent link to its location on the Internet. The publisher assigns a DOI when your article is published and made available electronically.
Why do we need it?
2010 Changes to APA for Electronic Materials Digital object identifier (DOI). DOI available. If a DOI is available you no longer include a URL. Example: Author, A. A. (date). Title of article. Title of Journal, volume(number), page numbers. doi: xx.xxxxxxx
Accodring to Sugimoto et al (2016), the Use of social media platforms for by researchers is high — ranging from 75 to 80% in large -scale surveys (Rowlands et al., 2011; Tenopir et al., 2013; Van Eperen & Marincola, 2011) .
There is one more reason, and, as much as you want to dwell on the fact that you are practitioners and research is not the most important part of your job, to a great degree, you may be judged also by the scientific output of your office and/or institution.
In that sense, both social media and altimetrics might suddenly become extremely important to understand and apply.
Shortly altmetrics (alternative metrics) measure the impact your scientific output has on the community. Your teachers and you present, publish and create work, which might not be presented and published, but may be widely reflected through, e.g. social media, and thus, having impact on the community.
How such impact is measured, if measured at all, can greatly influence the money flow to your institution
For EVEN MORE information, read the entire article:
Sugimoto, C. R., Work, S., Larivière, V., & Haustein, S. (2016). Scholarly use of social media and altmetrics: a review of the literature. Retrieved from https://arxiv.org/abs/1608.08112
Thelwall, M., & Wilson, P. (2016). Mendeley readership altmetrics for medical articles: An analysis of 45 fields. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 67(8), 1962–1972. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.23501
Todd Tetzlaff is using Mendeley and he might be the only one to benefit … 🙂
Here is some food for thought from the article above:
Doctoral students and junior researchers are the largest reader group in Mendeley ( Haustein & Larivière, 2014; Jeng et al., 2015; Zahedi, Costas, & Wouters, 2014a) .
Studies have also provided evidence of high rate s of blogging among certain subpopulations: for example, approximately one -third of German university staff (Pscheida et al., 2013) and one fifth of UK doctoral students use blogs (Carpenter et al., 2012) .
Social data sharing platforms provide an infrastructure to share various types of scholarly objects —including datasets, software code, figures, presentation slides and videos —and for users to interact with these objects (e.g., comment on, favorite, like , and reuse ). Platforms such as Figshare and SlideShare disseminate scholars’ various types of research outputs such as datasets, figures, infographics, documents, videos, posters , or presentation slides (Enis, 2013) and displays views, likes, and shares by other users (Mas -Bleda et al., 2014) .
Frequently mentioned social platforms in scholarly communication research include research -specific tools such as Mendeley, Zotero, CiteULike, BibSonomy, and Connotea (now defunct) as well as general tools such as Delicious and Digg (Hammond, Hannay, Lund, & Scott, 2005; Hull, Pettifer, & Kell, 2008; Priem & Hemminger, 2010; Reher & Haustein, 2010) .
qualitative research
“The focus group interviews were analysed based on the principles of interpretative phenomenology”
if you are not podcast fans, I understand. The link above is a pain in the behind to make work, if you are not familiar with using podcast.
Here is an easier way to find it:
1. open your cell phone and go find the podcast icon, which is pre-installed, but you might have not ever used it [yet].
2. In the app, use the search option and type “stuff you should know”
3. the podcast will pop up. scroll and find “How the scientific method works,” and/or search for it if you can.
Once you can play it on the phone, you have to find time to listen to it.
I listen to podcast when i have to do unpleasant chores such as: 1. walking to work 2. washing the dishes 3. flying long hours (very rarely). 4. Driving in the car.
There are bunch of other situations, when you may be strapped and instead of filling disgruntled and stressed, you can deliver the mental [junk] food for your brain.
Earbuds help me: 1. forget the unpleasant task, 2. Utilize time 3. Learn cool stuff
Here are podcasts, I am subscribed for, besides “stuff you should know”:
TED Radio Hour
TED Talks Education
NPR Fresh Air
BBC History
and bunch others, which, if i don’t go a listen for an year, i go and erase and if i peruse through the top chart and something picks my interest, I try.
If I did not manage to convince to podcast, totally fine; do not feel obligated.
However, this podcast, you can listen to on your computer, if you don’t want to download on your phone.
It is one hour show by two geeks, who are trying to make funny (and they do) a dry matter such as quantitative vs qualitative, which you want to internalize:
1. Sometimes at minute 12, they talk about inductive versus deductive to introduce you to qualitative versus quantitative. It is good to listen to their musings, since your dissertation is going through inductive and deductive process, and understanding it, can help you control better your dissertation writing.
2. Scientific method. Hypothesis etc (around min 17).
While this is not a Ph.D., but Ed.D. and we do not delve into the philosophy of science and dissertation etc. the more you know about this process, the better control you have over your dissertation.
3. Methods and how you prove (Chapter 3) is discussed around min 35
4. dependent and independent variables and how do you do your research in general (min ~45)
Shortly, listen and please do share your thoughts below. You do not have to be kind to this source offering. Actually, be as critical as possible, so you can help me decide, if I should offer it to the next cohort and thank you in advance for your feedback.
Applications for the 2018 Institute will be accepted between December 1, 2017 and January 27, 2018. Scholars accepted to the program will be notified in early March 2018.
Title:
Learning to Harness Big Data in an Academic Library
Abstract (200)
Research on Big Data per se, as well as on the importance and organization of the process of Big Data collection and analysis, is well underway. The complexity of the process comprising “Big Data,” however, deprives organizations of ubiquitous “blue print.” The planning, structuring, administration and execution of the process of adopting Big Data in an organization, being that a corporate one or an educational one, remains an elusive one. No less elusive is the adoption of the Big Data practices among libraries themselves. Seeking the commonalities and differences in the adoption of Big Data practices among libraries may be a suitable start to help libraries transition to the adoption of Big Data and restructuring organizational and daily activities based on Big Data decisions. Introduction to the problem. Limitations
The redefinition of humanities scholarship has received major attention in higher education. The advent of digital humanities challenges aspects of academic librarianship. Data literacy is a critical need for digital humanities in academia. The March 2016 Library Juice Academy Webinar led by John Russel exemplifies the efforts to help librarians become versed in obtaining programming skills, and respectively, handling data. Those are first steps on a rather long path of building a robust infrastructure to collect, analyze, and interpret data intelligently, so it can be utilized to restructure daily and strategic activities. Since the phenomenon of Big Data is young, there is a lack of blueprints on the organization of such infrastructure. A collection and sharing of best practices is an efficient approach to establishing a feasible plan for setting a library infrastructure for collection, analysis, and implementation of Big Data.
Limitations. This research can only organize the results from the responses of librarians and research into how libraries present themselves to the world in this arena. It may be able to make some rudimentary recommendations. However, based on each library’s specific goals and tasks, further research and work will be needed.
Big Data is becoming an omnipresent term. It is widespread among different disciplines in academia (De Mauro, Greco, & Grimaldi, 2016). This leads to “inconsistency in meanings and necessity for formal definitions” (De Mauro et al, 2016, p. 122). Similarly, to De Mauro et al (2016), Hashem, Yaqoob, Anuar, Mokhtar, Gani and Ullah Khan (2015) seek standardization of definitions. The main connected “themes” of this phenomenon must be identified and the connections to Library Science must be sought. A prerequisite for a comprehensive definition is the identification of Big Data methods. Bughin, Chui, Manyika (2011), Chen et al. (2012) and De Mauro et al (2015) single out the methods to complete the process of building a comprehensive definition.
In conjunction with identifying the methods, volume, velocity, and variety, as defined by Laney (2001), are the three properties of Big Data accepted across the literature. Daniel (2015) defines three stages in big data: collection, analysis, and visualization. According to Daniel, (2015), Big Data in higher education “connotes the interpretation of a wide range of administrative and operational data” (p. 910) and according to Hilbert (2013), as cited in Daniel (2015), Big Data “delivers a cost-effective prospect to improve decision making” (p. 911).
The importance of understanding the process of Big Data analytics is well understood in academic libraries. An example of such “administrative and operational” use for cost-effective improvement of decision making are the Finch & Flenner (2016) and Eaton (2017) case studies of the use of data visualization to assess an academic library collection and restructure the acquisition process. Sugimoto, Ding & Thelwall (2012) call for the discussion of Big Data for libraries. According to the 2017 NMC Horizon Report “Big Data has become a major focus of academic and research libraries due to the rapid evolution of data mining technologies and the proliferation of data sources like mobile devices and social media” (Adams, Becker, et al., 2017, p. 38).
Power (2014) elaborates on the complexity of Big Data in regard to decision-making and offers ideas for organizations on building a system to deal with Big Data. As explained by Boyd and Crawford (2012) and cited in De Mauro et al (2016), there is a danger of a new digital divide among organizations with different access and ability to process data. Moreover, Big Data impacts current organizational entities in their ability to reconsider their structure and organization. The complexity of institutions’ performance under the impact of Big Data is further complicated by the change of human behavior, because, arguably, Big Data affects human behavior itself (Schroeder, 2014).
De Mauro et al (2015) touch on the impact of Dig Data on libraries. The reorganization of academic libraries considering Big Data and the handling of Big Data by libraries is in a close conjunction with the reorganization of the entire campus and the handling of Big Data by the educational institution. In additional to the disruption posed by the Big Data phenomenon, higher education is facing global changes of economic, technological, social, and educational character. Daniel (2015) uses a chart to illustrate the complexity of these global trends. Parallel to the Big Data developments in America and Asia, the European Union is offering access to an EU open data portal (https://data.europa.eu/euodp/home ). Moreover, the Association of European Research Libraries expects under the H2020 program to increase “the digitization of cultural heritage, digital preservation, research data sharing, open access policies and the interoperability of research infrastructures” (Reilly, 2013).
The challenges posed by Big Data to human and social behavior (Schroeder, 2014) are no less significant to the impact of Big Data on learning. Cohen, Dolan, Dunlap, Hellerstein, & Welton (2009) propose a road map for “more conservative organizations” (p. 1492) to overcome their reservations and/or inability to handle Big Data and adopt a practical approach to the complexity of Big Data. Two Chinese researchers assert deep learning as the “set of machine learning techniques that learn multiple levels of representation in deep architectures (Chen & Lin, 2014, p. 515). Deep learning requires “new ways of thinking and transformative solutions (Chen & Lin, 2014, p. 523). Another pair of researchers from China present a broad overview of the various societal, business and administrative applications of Big Data, including a detailed account and definitions of the processes and tools accompanying Big Data analytics. The American counterparts of these Chinese researchers are of the same opinion when it comes to “think about the core principles and concepts that underline the techniques, and also the systematic thinking” (Provost and Fawcett, 2013, p. 58). De Mauro, Greco, and Grimaldi (2016), similarly to Provost and Fawcett (2013) draw attention to the urgent necessity to train new types of specialists to work with such data. As early as 2012, Davenport and Patil (2012), as cited in Mauro et al (2016), envisioned hybrid specialists able to manage both technological knowledge and academic research. Similarly, Provost and Fawcett (2013) mention the efforts of “academic institutions scrambling to put together programs to train data scientists” (p. 51). Further, Asomoah, Sharda, Zadeh & Kalgotra (2017) share a specific plan on the design and delivery of a big data analytics course. At the same time, librarians working with data acknowledge the shortcomings in the profession, since librarians “are practitioners first and generally do not view usability as a primary job responsibility, usually lack the depth of research skills needed to carry out a fully valid” data-based research (Emanuel, 2013, p. 207).
Borgman (2015) devotes an entire book to data and scholarly research and goes beyond the already well-established facts regarding the importance of Big Data, the implications of Big Data and the technical, societal, and educational impact and complications posed by Big Data. Borgman elucidates the importance of knowledge infrastructure and the necessity to understand the importance and complexity of building such infrastructure, in order to be able to take advantage of Big Data. In a similar fashion, a team of Chinese scholars draws attention to the complexity of data mining and Big Data and the necessity to approach the issue in an organized fashion (Wu, Xhu, Wu, Ding, 2014).
Bruns (2013) shifts the conversation from the “macro” architecture of Big Data, as focused by Borgman (2015) and Wu et al (2014) and ponders over the influx and unprecedented opportunities for humanities in academia with the advent of Big Data. Does the seemingly ubiquitous omnipresence of Big Data mean for humanities a “railroading” into “scientificity”? How will research and publishing change with the advent of Big Data across academic disciplines?
Reyes (2015) shares her “skinny” approach to Big Data in education. She presents a comprehensive structure for educational institutions to shift “traditional” analytics to “learner-centered” analytics (p. 75) and identifies the participants in the Big Data process in the organization. The model is applicable for library use.
Being a new and unchartered territory, Big Data and Big Data analytics can pose ethical issues. Willis (2013) focusses on Big Data application in education, namely the ethical questions for higher education administrators and the expectations of Big Data analytics to predict students’ success. Daries, Reich, Waldo, Young, and Whittinghill (2014) discuss rather similar issues regarding the balance between data and student privacy regulations. The privacy issues accompanying data are also discussed by Tene and Polonetsky, (2013).
Privacy issues are habitually connected to security and surveillance issues. Andrejevic and Gates (2014) point out in a decision making “generated by data mining, the focus is not on particular individuals but on aggregate outcomes” (p. 195). Van Dijck (2014) goes into further details regarding the perils posed by metadata and data to the society, in particular to the privacy of citizens. Bail (2014) addresses the same issue regarding the impact of Big Data on societal issues, but underlines the leading roles of cultural sociologists and their theories for the correct application of Big Data.
Library organizations have been traditional proponents of core democratic values such as protection of privacy and elucidation of related ethical questions (Miltenoff & Hauptman, 2005). In recent books about Big Data and libraries, ethical issues are important part of the discussion (Weiss, 2018). Library blogs also discuss these issues (Harper & Oltmann, 2017). An academic library’s role is to educate its patrons about those values. Sugimoto et al (2012) reflect on the need for discussion about Big Data in Library and Information Science. They clearly draw attention to the library “tradition of organizing, managing, retrieving, collecting, describing, and preserving information” (p.1) as well as library and information science being “a historically interdisciplinary and collaborative field, absorbing the knowledge of multiple domains and bringing the tools, techniques, and theories” (p. 1). Sugimoto et al (2012) sought a wide discussion among the library profession regarding the implications of Big Data on the profession, no differently from the activities in other fields (e.g., Wixom, Ariyachandra, Douglas, Goul, Gupta, Iyer, Kulkami, Mooney, Phillips-Wren, Turetken, 2014). A current Andrew Mellon Foundation grant for Visualizing Digital Scholarship in Libraries seeks an opportunity to view “both macro and micro perspectives, multi-user collaboration and real-time data interaction, and a limitless number of visualization possibilities – critical capabilities for rapidly understanding today’s large data sets (Hwangbo, 2014).
The importance of the library with its traditional roles, as described by Sugimoto et al (2012) may continue, considering the Big Data platform proposed by Wu, Wu, Khabsa, Williams, Chen, Huang, Tuarob, Choudhury, Ororbia, Mitra, & Giles (2014). Such platforms will continue to emerge and be improved, with librarians as the ultimate drivers of such platforms and as the mediators between the patrons and the data generated by such platforms.
Every library needs to find its place in the large organization and in society in regard to this very new and very powerful phenomenon called Big Data. Libraries might not have the trained staff to become a leader in the process of organizing and building the complex mechanism of this new knowledge architecture, but librarians must educate and train themselves to be worthy participants in this new establishment.
Method
The study will be cleared by the SCSU IRB.
The survey will collect responses from library population and it readiness to use and use of Big Data. Send survey URL to (academic?) libraries around the world.
Data will be processed through SPSS. Open ended results will be processed manually. The preliminary research design presupposes a mixed method approach.
The study will include the use of closed-ended survey response questions and open-ended questions. The first part of the study (close ended, quantitative questions) will be completed online through online survey. Participants will be asked to complete the survey using a link they receive through e-mail.
Mixed methods research was defined by Johnson and Onwuegbuzie (2004) as “the class of research where the researcher mixes or combines quantitative and qualitative research techniques, methods, approaches, concepts, or language into a single study” (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004 , p. 17). Quantitative and qualitative methods can be combined, if used to complement each other because the methods can measure different aspects of the research questions (Sale, Lohfeld, & Brazil, 2002).
Sampling design
Online survey of 10-15 question, with 3-5 demographic and the rest regarding the use of tools.
1-2 open-ended questions at the end of the survey to probe for follow-up mixed method approach (an opportunity for qualitative study)
data analysis techniques: survey results will be exported to SPSS and analyzed accordingly. The final survey design will determine the appropriate statistical approach.
Project Schedule
Complete literature review and identify areas of interest – two months
Prepare and test instrument (survey) – month
IRB and other details – month
Generate a list of potential libraries to distribute survey – month
Contact libraries. Follow up and contact again, if necessary (low turnaround) – month
Collect, analyze data – two months
Write out data findings – month
Complete manuscript – month
Proofreading and other details – month
Significance of the work
While it has been widely acknowledged that Big Data (and its handling) is changing higher education (https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=big+data) as well as academic libraries (https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2016/03/29/analytics-in-education/), it remains nebulous how Big Data is handled in the academic library and, respectively, how it is related to the handling of Big Data on campus. Moreover, the visualization of Big Data between units on campus remains in progress, along with any policymaking based on the analysis of such data (hence the need for comprehensive visualization).
This research will aim to gain an understanding on: a. how librarians are handling Big Data; b. how are they relating their Big Data output to the campus output of Big Data and c. how librarians in particular and campus administration in general are tuning their practices based on the analysis.
Based on the survey returns (if there is a statistically significant return), this research might consider juxtaposing the practices from academic libraries, to practices from special libraries (especially corporate libraries), public and school libraries.
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Document analysis is a systematic procedure for reviewing or evaluating documents—both printed and electronic (computer-based and Internet-transmitted) material. Like other analytical methods in qualitative research, document analysis requires that data be examined and interpreted in order to elicit meaning, gain understanding, and develop empirical knowledge(Corbin&Strauss,2008;seealsoRapley,2007).
Document analysis is often used in combination with other qualitative research methods as a means of triangulation—‘the combination of methodologies in the study of the same phenomenon’ (Denzin, 1970, p. 291)
The qualitative researcher is expected to draw upon multiple (at least two) sources of evidence; that is, to seek convergence and corroboration through the use of different data sources and methods. Apart from documents, such sources include interviews, participant or non-participant observation, and physical artifacts (Yin,1994).By triangulating data, the researcher attempts to provide ‘a confluence of evidence that breeds credibility’ (Eisner, 1991, p. 110). By examining information collected through different methods, the researcher can corroborate findings across data sets and thus reduce the impact of potential biases that can exist in a single study. According to Patton (1990), triangulation helps the researcher guard against the accusation that a study’s findings are simply an artifact of a single method, a single source, or a single investigator’s bias. Mixed-method studies (which combine quantitative and qualitative research techniques)sometimes include document analysis. Here is an example: In their large-scale, three-year evaluation of regional educational service agencies (RESAs), Rossman and Wilson (1985) combined quantitative and qualitative methods—surveys (to collect quantitative data) and open ended, semi structured interviews with reviews of documents (as the primary sources of qualitative data). The document reviews were designed to identify the agencies that played a role in supporting school improvement programs.
Document Analysis
Document analysis is a form of qualitative research in which documents are interpreted by the researcher to give voice and meaning around an assessment topic. Analyzing documents incorporates coding content into themes similar to how focus group or interview transcripts are analyzed. A rubric can also be used to grade or score a document. There are three primary types of documents:
• Public Records: The official, ongoing records of an organization’s activities. Examples include student transcripts, mission statements, annual reports, policy manuals, student handbooks, strategic plans, and syllabi.
• Personal Documents: First-person accounts of an individual’s actions, experiences, and beliefs. Examples include calendars, e-mails, scrapbooks, blogs, Facebook posts, duty logs, incident reports, reflections/journals, and newspapers.
• Physical Evidence: Physical objects found within the study setting (often called artifacts). Examples include flyers, posters, agendas, handbooks, and training materials.
As with all research, how you collect and analyse the data should depend on what you want to find out. Since you haven’t told us that, it is difficult to give you any precise advice. However, one really important matter in using documents as sources, whatever the overall aim of your research, is that data from documents are very different from data from speech events such as interviews, or overheard conversations.So the first analytic question you need to ask with regard to documents is ‘how are these data shaped by documentary production ?’ Something which differentiates nearly all data from documents from speech data is that those who compose documents know what comes at the end while still able to alter the beginning; which gives far more opportunity for consideration of how the recepient of the utterances will view the provider; ie for more artful self-presentation. Apart from this however, analysing the way documentary practice shapes your data will depend on what these documents are: for example your question might turn out to be ‘How are news stories produced ?’ – if you are using news reports, or ‘What does this bureaucracy consider relevant information (and what not relevant and what unmentionable) ? if you are using completed proformas or internal reports from some organisation.
An analysis technique is just like a hardware tool. It depends where and with what you are working to choose the right one. For a nail you should use a hammer, and there are lots of types of hammers to choose, depending on the type of nail.
So, in order to tell you the bettet technique, it is important to know the objectives you intend to reach and the theoretical framework you are using. Perhaps, after that, We could tell you if you should use content analysis, discourse or grounded theory (which type of it as, like the hammer, there are several types of GTs).
The conference welcomes proposals for papers and interactive presentations about research or teaching approaches using digital methods. For the first time in 2017, Digitorium also seeks to provide training opportunities for scholars of all levels keen to learn new digital techniques to advance their work, whether by learning a new digital mapping tool, discovering simple ways of visualizing research findings, using computers to conduct large-scale qualitative research, or experimenting with big data approaches at your desktop. There will be a stream of hands-on workshops running throughout the conference enabling participants both to share their own work, and also to expand their portfolio.
Digitorium 2017 will take place from Thursday 2nd to Saturday 4th March, and again, our primary focus is on digital methods, as this has provided fertile ground for interdisciplinary conversations to grow. There will be “tracks” through the conference based on: methods; early modern studies; American studies; and digital pedagogy. We welcome presentations on any topics engaging digital methods for scholarly purposes, whether for research, teaching, or community projects.
In 2017, the conference is expanding once more to offer not only multiple plenary sessions, panels, papers, and roundtables, but also a concerted series of workshops offering training for delegates in a variety of Digital Humanities techniques for research and teaching, from mapping to text encoding, digital data analysis, and more, to support enhanced professional development opportunities at the conference for faculty, staff, and graduate students.
This year, we are proud to present two plenary sessions and our first-ever plenary hackathon! Professor Scott Gwara (Univ. of South Carolina) will be presenting on MS-Link, a database that he created reunifying scattered manuscripts into full digital codices. Additionally, joint principal investigators of the Isabella D’Este Archive (IDEA) Project, Professor Anne MacNeil (Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and Professor Deanna Shemek (Univ. of California Santa Cruz) will be presenting their work on a digital archive uniting music, letters, and ceramics, and will lead our first live hackathon, engaging participants in the new virtual reality component of their project.
There will once again be a discounted “group rate” for registration to enable participants to bring their team with them, as collaboration is such a hallmark in digital scholarship, and it would be great to be able to hear about projects from multiple different perspectives from the people working together on them. There are also discounted rates available for graduate student presenters, and UA faculty. I do not mean to impose, but if this is an event which would be of interest to colleagues and collaborators, I would be enormously grateful if you might be able to circulate our CFP or a link to our website with them, we really want to let as many people as possible know about the conference to ensure it will be a real success.
Here is a link to the website which includes the full-length CFP:
Methods provide the focus for our conference, both in a pragmatic sense in terms of the use of different techniques to achieve particular DH projects, but also the ways in which sharing digital methods can create new links between disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. The idea powering Digitorium is to build on the community which has emerged in the course of the previous two years’ events in order to create a space for conversations to take place between scholars, graduate students, and practitioners from many different disciplines about their shared methods and techniques which unite them in their digital work.
