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This white paper is a collaborative endeavor of many individuals, including members of the American Association of Law Libraries and its Digital Access to Legal Information Committee (DALIC), formerly the Electronic Legal Information Access & Citation (ELIAC) Committee. First, Justice Yvonne Kauger introduces the topic by identifying the groundbreaking steps taken by the Oklahoma Supreme Court. Law librarians Carol Billings and Kathy Carlson next provide a detailed and comprehensive history of citation reform and the American Association of Law Libraries' leadership and involvement in the issue. They also summarize the citation reform steps taken in selected jurisdictions. Finally, John Cannan, current DALIC member, provides a look to the future, identifying reasons to advance needed citation reform now. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this chapter, the authors compare the costs of online student ratings of instruction with those of paper-based systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on the availability of the Annual Call for Papers web site of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Annual Meeting from November 7-12, 2004 in Austin, Texas.

Northwestern University's experience sheds light on some of the common (mis)perceptions about online student evaluations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the retraction of a scientific paper that was published in an August 31, 2009 online issue of the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)," before the data could be analyzed by the researcher Laura Bierut. Bierut's data had been deposited into the U.S. National Institutes of Health's (NIH) genomic database called dbGaP and was part of Beirut and colleagues addiction research known as SAGE (Study of Addiction: Genetics and Environment).

Aimed at streamlining the grants process, Grants.gov is a new central listing of available awards from all 26 federal agencies that dole out money for research and other programs. The site will eventually allow one to download an application and submit the completed package online, using free software.

The article reviews several creative web sites for the classroom including the SunWise Toolkit from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) located at www.epa.gov/sunwise/toolkit.html, Incompetech: Customizable Online Graph Paper located at http:/incompetech.com/graphpaper/ and Where's my Water.

The article offers information on a website located at Academia.edu for academics in the U.S. to share research papers.

This paper looks at a project that served to make Executive Fire Officer Applied Research Project papers as well as fire and emergency services-related periodical literature discoverable in the WorldCat search engine, the world's largest database of library materials. It examines why these resources are important to the fire community and explains the desirability of making them more readily visible to a wider audience. Integrating citations to the EFOP papers and periodical literature into WorldCat also led to other new developments at the US Fire Administration's library such as the implementation of the WorldCat Local search which affords users a wide variety of highly important research tools and enhancements including a more seamless and immediate means to search across the fire and emergency services domain of periodical literature and more. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Provides an overview of paper industry-related features that can be accessed in February 2004 by clicking "Online Exclusives" on "Solutions!" link of www.tappi.org. Installation of an ultrafiltration plant at Stora Nymolla AB of Sweden; Hearing loss prevention regulation of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The article offers information on the awards to be presented by the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) on their annual meeting in the U.S. in 2008. Inlcuded are NCME Award for Career Contributions to Educational Measurement, Jason Millman Promising Measurement Scholar Award Description and Application Procedure and Bradley Hanson Award for Contributions to Educational Measurement. Key information about the description of the award, nomination and application procedure is further presented. A website and email address were also provided for additional information.

Reports on the tax policy implications of global electronic commerce in the United States (US). Intentions of the US Treasury Department's paper, `Selected Tax Policy Implications of Global E-Commerce'; Suggestions of the Treasury paper on US domestic law; Details on the character and sources of income; Coverage of the Internet Tax Freedom Act, 1998.

At present, Japanese researchers conducting social surveys encounter several difficulties such as restricted access to official registers and a decrease in current response rates. These researchers may expect these difficulties to be solved by the survey techniques or methods developed outside Japan, such as computer-assisted interviews (CAI) and Internet surveys. It is unclear whether the numerous technical differences between survey methodologies developed in Japan and elsewhere imply the backward-ness of Japan or cultural differences. This paper discusses the potential of various recent survey methods, focusing on the culture and paradigms in Japan and the UnitedStates. First, this paper presents an overview of survey techniques, such as computer-assisted personal interviewing, Internet surveys, and mixed modes. Second, it points out the fact that the existence of the registers and different survey concepts might have created the different survey paradigms. In addition, reference is made to the linguisticdifferences between the US and Japan. The results indicate that survey research is more dispersed in Japan than in the US and that survey research adapted to the uniqueness of Japanese culture is not accumulated sufficiently, although such an accumulation is required. Finally, it is stated that not only surveys, but also the concept of methodology, is not very popular in Japan. Furthermore, the development of survey research in the US is likely to be related to pragmatism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the contemporary political environment of polarized claims about disputed realities, the online fact-check industry was born. These enterprises have received awards and praise but also accusations of bias and error, bringing their methods and conclusions into question. This paper examines the comparative epistemology of the three major fact-check sites: do they examine the same questions and reach the same conclusions? A content analysis of the published fact-checks addressing three disputed realties - the existence of climate change, the influence of racism, and the consequences of the national debt - suggests substantial differences in the questions asked and the answers offered, limiting the usefulness of fact-checking for citizens trying to decide which version of disputed realities to believe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study compares U.S. and Russian news organizations’ responses to today’s disruptive environment intensified by the development of digital online technologies and global economic crisis. Findings show U.S. journalists attempt to maintain legitimacy within ‘professional’ and ‘digital network’ orders by either decoupling their digital network efforts from traditional, core operations or by assimilating digital practices within traditional journalistic practices. For Russian journalists, the dominant conflicting orders are the ‘state’ institutional order and a weak ‘professional’ order; and accord with a ‘digital network’ order is most evident outside of traditional news organizations. Overall, in both countries, a lack of response to online audiences by media outlets is common, but differing institutional environments help explain differing reasons for these responses. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper addresses a fundamental empirical question using data collected in a northeastern US city: does deliberation occur in online forums? While face-to-face deliberation is well documented, there are few empirical studies that address its online counterpart. Deliberation is supposed to foster an educative, rational, open and inclusive dialogue that leads to legitimate policy outcomes. In this paper, the authors develop and operationalize a measure of deliberation in order to investigate the extent to which it is manifested online. In particular, the authors study five regionally defined web forums hosted by the primary newspaper of a mid-sized northeastern US city. Drawing a two-week sample of posts from these forums, the authors then examine them for indicators of deliberation. Firstly, this paper addresses research about if and how the internet affects social life, including traditional notions of deliberation. Next, the authors argue that sociological studies of democratic participation require conceptualization of lived deliberation, and outline a Symbolic Interactionist approach to studying online, deliberative interaction in order to do so. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of this work for future theory and empirical investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose — This paper aims to provide an overview of the published literature and current use of social software by libraries primarily in the UK and USA. Design/methodology/approach — The paper's approach is a literature review and desk research. Findings — Libraries are experimenting considerably in this area and many Web 2.0 applications have been developed by libraries and librarians over the past few years. These tools offer the potential to enhance library services. Research limitations/implications — The area is one of rapid change, so the findings will date quickly. Practical implications — An overview of which technologies are being used most widely and might offer the most potential for library staff considering experimenting in this area. Originality/value of paper — Web 2.0 is an area with which many library staff need to become familiar quickly. This paper provides a useful overview of the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the recent and ongoing information revolution gradually turns traditional library materials into electronic formats, many agricultural resources have become available online. This selective Webliography covers the major online resources for studying and conducting research in agricultural economics and related fields and includes associations and organizations, databases and articles, dictionaries, directories and search engines, government agencies, industry outlooks, market information, statistics, working papers, news, prices, and miscellaneous resources. Web sites were selected based on the quality of the information and their importance to researchers in the various areas of agricultural economics. Most of the sources are free, with many of them being produced by U.S. government agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are online student ratings the “wave of the future”? This chapter introduces numerous advantages and challenges of adopting an online system for student evaluation of teaching; in it, the authors preview the research of the other authors of this volume and suggest areas that universities can investigate when determining the desirability of initiating an online ratings system for student evaluation of instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study compares mean ratings, inter-rater reliabilities, and the factor structure of items for online and paper student-rating forms from the University of Washington's Instructional Assessment System. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this chapter, the author examines important issues related to online reporting of student survey results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increase in digitized content available, new presidential research avails itself to more quantitative analysis. More digitized resources from government agencies and private and university repositories allow presidential scholars access to a broader universe of content. Data for analysis include digitized documents, oral histories, and data sets. Presidential scholars and researchers have the option to collaborate with programmers, computer scientists, and graduate students to become acquainted with current repositories and experiment with new technologies such as text mining and the R programming language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An interview with Bob Sacks, a columnist and lecturer to the media and marketing industries in the U.S. is presented. When asked about El-Cid as one of his lecture topics in his Web site, he refers it as an electronically coordinated information distribution. He describes that electronic magazines are improving every day and they have something else that no other Web page can emulate. He suggests the need of publishers to know that their franchise is nothing more than words and ideas.

Constantly changing nature of social network sites creates the need for continuous process of online benchmarking for identifying practices used by other parties. Facebook as the most used SNS still plays an increasingly important role as a marketing channel for destination marketing organizations (DMO). This paper explores basic characteristics of the official DMO Facebook Pages in order to quantify and present those characteristics in a regional context on the case of two travel markets (EU countries and U.S. states). The results show inconsistent practices in the EU and the USA. When comparing those two markets most similarities in practices are present in general usage of Facebook Pages, while indicative differences are recorded in terms of Page popularity, some posts' characteristics and most evidently in users' engagement. Understanding the Facebook usage practice under the regional spotlight can help DMOs and other service providers to evaluate their activities and if necessary to harmonize it to regional usage practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite both scholarly and popular claims that citizen journalism (CJ) represents a growing democratizing force in the journalistic field, recent scholarship in the area has noted the decline of the organizational population of CJ. In this paper, we investigate how individual characteristics of sites and the dynamics of larger organizational population affect a CJ site’s risk of experiencing a mortality. Drawing on the largest sample to date of US-based English-language CJ sites, this study examines the risk of site mortality through an event history framework. Findings indicate that the strongest predictor of a site’s mortality is the age of the site, consistent with organizational population theory’s ‘liability of newness.’ We also find that for-profit and community-based sites have lower rates of site mortality, indicating that adopting legitimate conventions of journalism may serve as a protective buffer to site death. The results offer mixed evidence on whether CJ has become more professionalized via attrition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]