Browsing by Subject "access"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    Born-digital agricultural resources: archives and issues
    (International Association of Agricultural Information Specialists (IAALD), 2007) Eells, Linda L.
    Agricultural researchers and public users world-wide have ever-increasing access to a plethora of online resources, including "grey literature" not published in commercial or society publications. In the United States, most of the agricultural grey literature is contributed by land grant university Agricultural Experiment Station (AES) and associated Cooperative Extension Service (CES) units. Their publications and resources are often created in a digital format and presented online even when a parallel distribution option is maintained for a print or hard-copy version. While increasing the amount of free online agricultural information is critically important, many issues must be addressed to ensure that users can both easily locate and retain long-term access to this information. It is also imperative to create a user-friendly process that enables researchers, extension agents, and farmers to more easily contribute valuable digital agricultural content to online venues, while at the same time centralizing access points to enable faster, easier access by all users. Most importantly, literature being born-digital1 today must be described and archived in a manner that preserves access for searchers ten, fifty, or one hundred years from now, enabling them to learn from today's lessons rather than repeat them.
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    Collaboration Across Borders, or Piiride-ülene Koostöö: Estonians and Americans Working Together Towards Accessible Archival Collections
    (Journal of Library Administration, 2019) Engseth, Ellen; Ramler, Gristel
    A collaborative project to improve global description and thus discovery of library material is shared and analyzed after a decade of activity. The Immigration History Research Center Archives and the National Archives of Estonia work together to arrange and describe archival collections, utilizing the assets of the two different institutions. This project recognizes that the unique research material located in Minnesota holds importance to patrons in many countries, are a result of cultural and informational migration, and that access to this multilingual source material relies on robust description. The article provides the project’s context, and describes its administration.
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    Integration of Emerging Learning Technologies in Secondary Schools : A Burkina Faso Case Study
    (2017-01) Zongo, Romaric
    The purpose of this dissertation was to document the perspectives and attitudes of secondary education teachers and administrators about the perceived benefits and challenges of integrating new Emerging Learning Technologies (ELTs) in the classroom. Education has become one of the biggest challenges in the African nation of Burkina Faso where teachers are routinely confronted with material shortages, lack of curriculum, lack of equipment, and lack of opportunity for self-conducted learning. To overcome these challenges, educators are using Emerging Learning Technologies (ELTs) to help improve the quality of teaching and to increase student access to these learning opportunities. This study examined three core questions that specifically focused is on the ways in which ELTs are perceived as different from previously used technologies in Burkina Faso (i.e., radio and television). 1. What are the perspectives of secondary level educators and administrators regarding the use of ELTs in Burkina Faso? 2. In the local educational contexts of cities and rural areas, how do educators and administrators experience the use of ELTs in education? 3. What are the benefits and challenges of using ELTs for educational purposes in Burkina Faso? Study findings indicated that the pedagogical use of ELTs in secondary education was not contributing to teaching and learning in secondary schools at this time. Analysis of the collected data found that the added value of the use of ELTs in education depended mainly on their daily adaption by students, teachers, and administrative staff. However, the use of ELTs in secondary education in Burkina Faso is infrequent and not widely embraced by school administrators and teachers. Future adoption of ELTs may someday impact educational outcomes but it will take more than top-down political directives to achieve this outcome.
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    Longer Table Lending: Strategizing Under Uncertainty
    (2019-05-10) Burkstaller, Julia; Hiscock, Larry; Hoang, Tram
    Payday lending services are used by people who do not have access to mainstream, short-term, personal loans in times of financial need. However, predatory terms such as interest rates as high as 1000% and astronomical fees often leave people more financially unstable and unable to pay off their loans, thus leading to an endless cycle of compounding debt. While the federal government has not played a large role in regulating payday lenders, states and cities across the United States have taken action to reverse their negative impacts. Fifteen states have prohibited extremely high cost payday lending, and over 160 cities have passed local ordinances to control or limit the number of payday lending institutions in their communities. Outside of the policy realm, nonprofit organizations and religious institutions have attempted to meet the financial needs of community members in order to prevent the usage of predatory payday loans. In 2017, an estimated 330,000 Minnesotans took out payday loans to address short-term financial needs. Mount Olive Lutheran Church saw a need for a 0% interest, micro-lending program in their community in South Minneapolis, and started the Longer Table Lending (LTL) program. LTL’s implementation and kick-off has faced much delay due to issues obtaining an Automated Clearing House (ACH) service and countless internal decisions about operational options. With so many uncertainties, this problem required a scenario planning approach. By defining predetermined elements and uncertainties, we analyzed the factors influencing LTL and produced three future scenarios for LTL to choose from. Our approach also included a cost-benefit analysis of the LTL program so that the scenarios could be paired with a quantitative analysis of cost. We provided LTL with this cost-benefit analysis spreadsheet tool to utilize in future decision-making processes. The cost-benefit analysis rendered a large benefit-cost ratio, but the costs and benefits are modest estimates.
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    MapHappy: A User-Centered Interface to Library Map Collections Via a Google Maps “Mashup”
    (Journal of Map And Geography Libraries, 2009-07-01) Johnston, Lisa R; Jensen, Kristi L.
    Providing users with the best possible access to the unique cartographic materials found in libraries has been a constant challenge formap librarians. In a Web 2.0 world, existing mapping APIs make it possible to extend the library OPAC past the text-based search and enable users to locate maps using a familiar interface, such as Google Maps. This article describes how librarians at the University of Minnesota developed MapHappy, a “mashup” of their existing map MARC records into a geospatial Web application providing unique access to the print maps in their collections. As expected, this project raised many questions and produced a new set of challenges and opportunities; two such problems, the issue of missing or faulty map coordinates and aligning the interface design with user expectations, are discussed. And while still in beta, a variety of future plans are considered for further development and improvement of MapHappy. This project demonstrates that the representation of library records in a geospatial format provides a more intuitive and streamlined method of identifying maps and makes accessible a wide range of data previously meaningless or invisible to users.
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    Quality of Life: Assessment for Transportation Performance Indicators Focus Group Report
    (University of Minnesota Tourism Center, 2011) Schroeder, Sierra L.; Gustafson, Kent; Schneider, Ingrid E.
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    Young Women and Online Health Information: A Study of Credibility, Access, and Usability
    (2015-03) Kinlin, Samantha
    Seeking health information online is a common practice in society today, especially among young people and women. Due to the increasing prevalence of this practice, I have reviewed current research on issues of credibility and access in online women’s health information to establish how credibility is conveyed online, and how improving access to online resources could decrease the number of barriers between individuals and health information in general (particularly for those individuals who might not have ready access to health care providers). I then selected a list of current health information websites designed for women and analyzed them according to well-known usability guidelines to determine how well these websites are designed for their audience and which design aspects could improve perceived credibility of or increase access to these sources of information.