Tipologia documental citada en tesis doctorals d'informàtica: bases empíriques per a la gestió equilibrada de col·leccions

Anàlisi de citacions en tesis doctorals d'informàtica de la Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), presentades entre 1996-1998, per determinar l'ús d'informació segons la tipologia i el suport documental. Com a punt de partida per al disseny del projecte desenvolupat, s'analitzen els fonaments del mètode emprat en vista d'una revisió de la bibliografia sobre desenvolupament de col·leccions i estudis d'usuaris. Les dades obtingudes entre els doctorands de la UPC són consistents amb les característiques apuntades en la bibliografia sobre els investigadors de l'àrea de ciències de la computació: una elevada obsolescència de la bibliografia professional, el control de la bibliografia mitjançant les citacions en les lectures efectuades, la prioritat per les fonts més pròximes i accessibles, la consulta de cercadors de recursos web, la visita a llocs web d'investigadors i institucions de solvència en el seu terreny, i el contacte amb els col·legues mitjançant la comunicació electrònica, configuren un ús per tipus de documents que fa prevaler els congressos i la literatura grisa en més gran mesura que en altres àrees cientificotècniques.

Tipología documental citada en tesis doctorales de informática: bases empíricas para la gestión equilibrada de colecciones

A partir del análisis de citas bibliográficas presentes en las tesis doctorales de informática de la Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya (UPC), leídas entre 1996-1998, se determina el uso de información según la tipología y el soporte documental. Los datos obtenidos son consistentes con las características apuntadas en la bibliografía sobre los investigadores del área de ciencias de la computación: una elevada obsolescencia de la bibliografía profesional, el control de la bibliografía mediante las citas en las lecturas efectuadas, la prioridad por las fuentes más próximas y accesibles, la consulta de buscadores de recursos web, la visita a sitios web de investigadores e instituciones de solvencia en su terreno, y el contacto con los colegas mediante la comunicación electrónica. Todo ello configura un uso por categorías documentales que prima los congresos y la literatura gris en mayor medida que otras áreas científico-técnicas.

De què vas, tio?

My study is based on an ethnography of two groups of young people from working-class neighbourhoods in Barcelona. I was interested in researching the impact of Catalan language policies on the identities of young people of Spanish-speaking immigrant families. I sought to go beyond the constraints of traditional structuralist approaches in Sociolinguistics in order to make my analysis relevant to people working for gender equality, the promotion of the Catalan language, or other social causes. I combine ideas from Bakhtin, Bourdieu, Fairclough, Foucault and Goffman to build a dialectical, historical, process-centred perspective that conceptualises practices in terms of social and political struggles.I analyse young people's peer-group activities in terms of their significance for the construction of gender identities. I propose a variety of forms of masculinity and femininity according to the various ways in which members organised their gender displays in face-to-face interaction.I also show how their use of argot and dialectal Spanish was part of the processes whereby members defined their relationships, constructed particular subject positions in interaction and struggled to legitimate their own values.I explore the meanings constructed through Catalan and Spanish by looking into the code-switching practices of my participants. I analysed their talk in terms of narratives that present particular sequential dramatisations of events for conversational audiences. These narratives follow the expressive intention of the author, and are populated with multiple voices of animated characters. I argue that, in the groups I studied, Catalan was generally not used to animate the voices that were central to the identities of the peer-group, and particularly to masculine identities.In order to contextualise these practices within the wider society, I also look into the processes of language choice in face-to-face encounters. I argue that existing conventions made it difficult for people to find opportunities to speak Catalan. I also pointed to the difficulties that my participants had to find employment, which were particularly acute amongst the more politically aware individuals. I conclude that these young working-class people had little possibilities of investing in more egalitarian forms of identity given their lack of resources and opportunities to develop their identities in other social spaces, such as the workplace.

Electronic thesis and dissertations conference, University of Pittsburgh, 10-12 de junio de 2009

El pasado mes de junio se celebró en Pittsburgh, EE.UU., el duodécimo simposio internacional sobre tesis electrónicas: Electronic Thesis and Dissertations Conference (ETD2009). Fue organizado por Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD). La mayoría de los ponentes explicaron las experiencias de su propia universidad. Además, hubo expertos invitados entre los cuales se pueden destacar Stevan Harnad (Univ. Southampton), Karla Hahn (Association of Research Libraries) y Deanna Marcum (Library of Congress). Estos simposios pretenden promover la adopción, creación, uso, difusión y preservación de las tesis electrónicas. De hecho, el éxito ha sido tal, que algunas universidades ya prescinden de la copia en papel para el depósito y preservación del documento. Un caso reciente es el de la University of Albany cuya nueva política, anunciada durante el simposio, consiste en que a partir de setiembre del 2009 ya no requiere el depósito de una copia impresa de las tesis aprobadas en aquella universidad.

Collaborations and alliances: social intelligence applied to academic libraries

This article analyzes the different forms of library cooperation and the different types of relations that can be established for collaboration among libraries.

Academic Institutions and the Olympic Movement

This paper was presented in the V Forum on Sport, Education and Culture Forum by the IOC undertaken in Beijing, in October, 2006. This aim of this paper is to explore the potential of the relations between the Olympic Movement and academic institutions, and in particular the role of universities.

Aprender investigando. Una experiencia formativa en el ámbito de la enfermería = Research teaching processes used as a methodological strategy in the education of healthcare professionals

Este trabajo tiene como propósito presentar y valorar, desde la perspectiva del alumnado participante, un proyecto de investigación-formación puesto en marcha durante el curso 2003-2004 en la elaboración del trabajo de tesina, fin de carrera, en la Escuela de Enfermería de Vitoria, dentro del programa de Licenciatura Europea de Enfermería. Constituye el punto de partida de un proyecto a largo plazo, iniciado con la intención de desarrollar principios teóricos y procedimientos prácticos que nos permitan sistematizar procesos formativos que, centrados en la investigación, articulen la teoría y la práctica e integren una perspectiva comunicativa y cooperativa.

The Digital Memory of Catalonia, Consortium of Academic Libraries of Catalonia

The Digital Memory of Catalonia, Consortium of Academic Libraries of Catalonia, contains open-access digitized collections of photographs, drawings, maps, posters, pamphlets, incunabula, ancient Catalan periodicals and many other items with a total of over two million documents related to Catalonia from 18 different institutions (universities, specialized libraries, institutes, archives, etc.).

What do academic libraries have to do with Open Educational Resources? Theme : Long term sustainability of open education projects first steps to start up

This paper will discuss the possible roles of academic libraries in promoting, supporting, and sustaining institutional Open Educational Resource initiatives. It will note areas in which libraries or librarians have skills and knowledge that intersect with some of the needs of academic staff and students as they use and release OERs. It will also present the results of a brief survey of the views of some OER initiatives on the current and potential role of academic libraries.

E-MOVE project : a case of successfulcooperation of European academic librariesof distance teaching universities

El Library and Learning Support Working Group (LLSWG) és una xarxa europea de professionals de biblioteca i de la informació i educadors dins de l'Associació Europea d'Universitats d'Ensenyament (EADTU). EADTU és l'organització que representa tant les universitats obertes i d'ensenyament a distància com els consorcis nacionals d'institucions d'ensenyament superior actius en els camps d'educació de distància i e-learning. El 2005 l'Associació Europea d'Universitats d'Ensenyament de Distància (EADTU) presentava a la Comissió Europea una proposta de projecte sobre Mobilitat Virtual anomenada E-MOVE. El projecte incloïa, entre d'altres, un paquet de treball referent a biblioteca i suport a l'aprenentatge al context de mobilitat virtual. Aquest fou desenvolupat pel LLSWG de l'EADTU.

Use and availability of scholarly journals in Catalan academic libraries

This paper presents the results of a survey of academics affiliated to the universities that are members of the Consortium of Academic Libraries of Catalonia (CBUC), and an analysis of the availability in the libraries of these universities, of the references cited in a sample of articles published by these academics. The results reflect the major importance that researchers assign to scholarly journals as the main source of scientific information. Most state that they use electronic journals either exclusively or in any case more than print journals, a preference that is higher among younger scholars. With regard to frequency of reading, four out of ten researchers state that they read journals virtually every day, while nine out of ten report that they do so at least once a week. Scholars claim that the obstacles they face when trying to download an article are related to the lack of subscriptions. However, the availability study showed that most of the articles cited in their publications are available at least at one of the CBUC libraries. Though most researchers keep a copy of the articles they consult, just over a third of them use some kind of reference management software.

The Coherence of the European Foreign Policy: A Real Barrier or an Academic Term?

The purpose of the present study is to break down, in a general and summarised way, the concept of the coherence of the European Foreign Policy, in order to analyse its meaning, its scope and its implications. This focus on coherence will be specifically dealt with upon the analysis of the impact of this phenomenon on single institutional framework, as defined by the Treaty on European Union.

Networks of PhD Students and Academic Performance: A Comparison across Countries

In this article we compare regression models obtained to predict PhD students’ academic performance in the universities of Girona (Spain) and Slovenia. Explanatory variables are characteristics of PhD student’s research group understood as an egocentered social network, background and attitudinal characteristics of the PhD students and some characteristics of the supervisors. Academic performance was measured by the weighted number of publications. Two web questionnaires were designed, one for PhD students and one for their supervisors and other research group members. Most of the variables were easily comparable across universities due to the careful translation procedure and pre-tests. When direct comparison was notpossible we created comparable indicators. We used a regression model in which the country was introduced as a dummy coded variable including all possible interaction effects. The optimal transformations of the main and interaction variables are discussed. Some differences between Slovenian and Girona universities emerge. Some variables like supervisor’s performance and motivation for autonomy prior to starting the PhD have the same positive effect on the PhD student’s performance in both countries. On the other hand, variables like too close supervision by the supervisor and having children have a negative influence in both countries. However, we find differences between countries when we observe the motivation for research prior to starting the PhD which increases performance in Slovenia but not in Girona. As regards network variables, frequency of supervisor advice increases performance in Slovenia and decreases it in Girona. The negative effect in Girona could be explained by the fact that additional contacts of the PhD student with his/her supervisor might indicate a higher workload in addition to or instead of a better advice about the dissertation. The number of external student’s advice relationships and social support mean contact intensity are not significant in Girona, but they have a negative effect in Slovenia. We might explain the negative effect of external advice relationships in Slovenia by saying that a lot of external advice may actually result from a lack of the more relevant internal advice

Performance in post-compulsory education: evidence from vocational and academic tracks

This paper investigates the factors in_uencing grade performance in two different high school tracks (academic and vocational), including the effect of the amount of work achieved while studying. The empirical strategy analyzes grade progression through the outcomes, passing, repeating and dropping out, conditioning on previous outcomes, and dealing with the endogeneity introduced by the working variable. The analysis is based on a unique Spanish data with information on schooling and labor histories. Findings show that working reduces performance in both tracks, mainly during the first year, although the ffects are less detri- mental in the vocational path. Additionally, good performance in compulsory education, at- tending a private high school, or having high-educated parents improve outcomes, particularly in academic high school.