Negotiating the role of sources: Educators' conceptions of credibility in participatory media

Thousands of examining eyes: credibility, authority and validity in biodiversity citizen science data production

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to contribute with knowledge about how valid research data in biodiversity citizen science are produced through information practices and how notions of credibility and authority emerge from these practices.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected through an empirical, interview-based study of the information practices of 15 participants active in the vicinity of the Swedish biodiversity citizen science information system Artportalen. Interview transcripts were analysed abductively and qualitatively through a coding scheme by working back and forth between theory and data. Values of credibility, authority and validity of research data were unfolded through a practice-oriented perspective to library and information studies by utilising the theoretical lens of boundary objects.

Findings

Notions of credibility, authority and validity emerge through participant activities of transforming species observations to data, supplementing reports with objects of trust, augmenting identification through authority outreach and assessing credibility via peer monitoring. Credibility, authority and validity of research data are shown to be co-constructed in a distributed fashion by the participants and the information system.

Originality/value

The article extends knowledge about information practices in emerging, heterogeneous scholarly settings by focussing on the complex co-construction of credibility, authority and validity in relation to data production.

The unbearable lightness of participating? Revisiting the discourses of “participation” in archival literature

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to investigate how archivists, records managers and scholarly literature in the field(s) analyse how “participation” is discussed in the context of archives and records management, and to explore practical and theoretical implications of the disclosed discursive practices.

Design/methodology/approach

– The analysis is based on a discourse analysis of a body of archival literature and a sample of posts collected from the archival and records management blogosphere.

Findings

– The analysis shows that instead of discussing one notion of participation, the archival science literature is referring to nine different and partly conflicting types of participation from three broad perspectives: management, empowerment and technology. The discourses have also conflicting ideas of the role of engagement and enthusiasm, and of that what do the different stakeholder communities see as real options.

Research limitations/implications

– The analysed material consists of a limited sample of mainly English language texts that may not capture all the nuances of how participation is discussed in the archival literature.

Practical implications

– A better understanding of how different claims of the benefits and threats endorsing “participation” in archives helps to develop effective and less contradictory forms of collaboration between different stakeholders.

Originality/value

– In spite of the popularity of the notion of “participation”, there little, especially critical, research on how participation is conceptualised by archives professionals and researchers.

To assess and be assessed

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to explore how students construct narratives of themselves as information seekers in a school context where their descriptions of their information activities are assessed and graded.

Design/methodology/approach

– Blog posts on credibility judgements written by 28 students at a Swedish upper secondary school were analysed through a bottom-up coding process based in the sociocultural concept of narratives of selves.

Findings

– Two tensions in the students’ accounts are identified. The first tension is that between the description of the individual, independent student and the description of the good group member. The second tension is between describing oneself as an independent information seeker and at the same time as someone who seeks information in ways that are sanctioned within the school setting.

Research limitations/implications

– The study focuses on a specific social practice and on situated activities, but also illustrates some aspects of information activities that pertain to educational contexts in general. It explores how social norms related to credibility judgements are expressed and negotiated in discursive interaction.

Practical implications

– The study highlights that when information activities become objects of assessment, careful consideration of what aspects are meant to be assessed is necessary.

Originality/value

– The study is based on the idea of information activities as socially and discursively shaped, and it illustrates some of the consequences when information activities become objects of teaching, learning, and grading.

Teachers’ views of information literacy practices in secondary education: A qualitative study in the Greek educational setting

The aim of the paper is to explore the perceptions of secondary education teachers in Greece about their students’ information literacy skills and to investigate whether teachers have incorporated some form of information literacy instruction into their teaching to help students familiarize themselves with the research process. Qualitative methods of data collection and analysis were used, as the study sought to illuminate individuals’ opinions and understanding of the meanings and values of information literacy, not quantification of responses. The primary method of data collection was semi-structured interviews. The transcripts were analysed thematically using the Atlas.ti software package. The study revealed that information literacy skills are developed in the school context chiefly by the assignment of school work or research projects. Almost all teachers were very critical of students’ information skills, but they were not fully aware of how to teach information skills, and the most common way of teaching information literacy was giving advice about specific sources. They appreciated the need to prepare information literate students but they reported various problems in their effort to apply research-based teaching. The paper provides an empirically based, enhanced understanding of students’ information literacy competencies from the teachers’ point of view. It also raises the issues of the content, structure and organization of information literacy experiences offered in the context of secondary education, from the teachers’ perspective.

“Library users come to a library to find books”

Purpose

– Considering the perceived significance of librarians and information experts as professional information seekers and information seeking educators and of the institutional setting of information work, very little is known about the information practices of librarians and information professionals, their contexts and implications for libraries and their users. The aim of this study is to explore the information interactions of library professionals within and in relation to the context of the setting of the library.

Design/methodology/approach

– The analysis is based on a qualitative case study of a large North European city library. Material was collected using information seeking diaries, interviews and ethnographic observation in the library space.

Findings

– The information practices of librarians are contextual to the setting of the library within which the meeting of the assumptions of library users, of the use of that particular system plays a significant role. The systemic interplay of librarians, library users and other parts of the system constrains the breadth of the available information at libraries, but at the same time, keeping to a particular set of shared norms and practices of library use also facilitates the use of the system.

Research limitations/implications

– The generalisability of the findings is limited by the fact that they are based on an individual case study.

Practical implications

– The systemic nature of library and its reproduction in a process of structuration underlines the need to develop information services in libraries from a holistic perspective that takes into account the practical implications of the shared norms and assumptions of how a library should work.

Originality/value

– There is little earlier research on the information practices of library and information professionals, particularly with specific reference to its implications for libraries and their users.