| 1. |
- Ahlryd, Sara
(författare)
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På gränsen till en ny värld : studenters informationspraktiker på väg mot arbetslivet
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- With the increasing academisation of vocational educations the need for higher education to prove to students the relevance of theoretical domain knowledge to professional experience is growing. One way of doing so is to provide students with opportunities for professional training during the course of their studies. The aim of this thesis is to explore the ways in which professional training help students to connect education with working life. The study is carried out through a practice theoretical lens on students’ information practices. It also entails exploring how their information activities contribute to their socialization within workplace communities and to their construction of professional identities. Through qualitative semi-structured interviews, the empirically driven analysis shows that students’ appropriation of information practices during professional training support learning, socialization into a workplace as well as identification with their future professional roles. Students’ information practices can be viewed as significant tools in the process of transition between education and profession where they function as facilitators for learning and participation in workplace activities.
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| 2. |
- Björk, Lars
(författare)
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How reproductive is a reproduction? : Digital transmission of text-based documents
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Heritage institutions today increasingly rely on digital formats for access, use and re-useof their collections. Books and other text-based documents, previously accessed on locationin libraries are now transferred into digital format and managed, distributed, andengaged as binary encoded representations.The thesis addresses the relation between the source document and its reproduction, asconditioned by the digitisation process. This process can be described as based on twosequences of conversion; from analogue to digital format during the procedure of capture,and back to analogue as the digital resource is represented. In a study of the digitisationprocess it might therefore be tempting to place a focus on the technical aspects. However,the thesis demonstrates that underpinning the digitisation process we find assumptionsand ideals concerning the actual defining features of documents and also of their capacityto be informative. An analysis of the digitisation process, has consequently to considerboth the technical parameters in place during the conversion as well as the theoreticalassumptions that have guided its design and operation.Based on two empirical studies – an analysis of the components in the digitisation processand an interview study with researchers who rely on digital resources – this thesisseeks to outline a conceptual framework that structures the relation between the sourcedocument and its reproduction, as conditioned by the digitisation process. Boundary objecttheory provides a theoretical underpinning and is supported by two concepts thatare developed in the critical analysis of document and information theory: modes of representation(referring to the ways in which the source document is represented as a digitalresource) and informative configuration (referring to the ways in which the users engagewith the digital resource, given a specific interest).The thesis contributes to the theoretical development within the fields in Library & InformationScience that are concerned with document and information theory, but also inareas such as knowledge organisation and the application of digital technology within theheritage sector at large. The thesis also indicates some of the possibilities and limitationsof boundary object theory as applied to the study of documents in digitisation processes.
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| 3. |
- Eklund, Johan
(författare)
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With or without context : Automatic text categorization using semantic kernels
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this thesis text categorization is investigated in four dimensions of analysis: theoretically as well as empirically, and as a manual as well as a machine-based process. In the first four chapters we look at the theoretical foundation of subject classification of text documents, with a certain focus on classification as a procedure for organizing documents in libraries. A working hypothesis used in the theoretical analysis is that classification of documents is a process that involves translations between statements in different languages, both natural and artificial. We further investigate the close relationships between structures in classification languages and the order relations and topological structures that arise from classification.A classification algorithm that gets a special focus in the subsequent chapters is the support vector machine (SVM), which in its original formulation is a binary classifier in linear vector spaces, but has been extended to handle classification problems for which the categories are not linearly separable. To this end the algorithm utilizes a category of functions called kernels, which induce feature spaces by means of high-dimensional and often non-linear maps. For the empirical part of this study we investigate the classification performance of semantic kernels generated by different measures of semantic similarity. One category of such measures is based on the latent semantic analysis and the random indexing methods, which generates term vectors by using co-occurrence data from text collections. Another semantic measure used in this study is pointwise mutual information. In addition to the empirical study of semantic kernels we also investigate the performance of a term weighting scheme called divergence from randomness, that has hitherto received little attention within the area of automatic text categorization.The result of the empirical part of this study shows that the semantic kernels generally outperform the “standard” (non-semantic) linear kernel, especially for small training sets. A conclusion that can be drawn with respect to the investigated datasets is therefore that semantic information in the kernel in general improves its classification performance, and that the difference between the standard kernel and the semantic kernels is particularly large for small training sets. Another clear trend in the result is that the divergence from randomness weighting scheme yields a classification performance surpassing that of the common tf-idf weighting scheme.
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| 4. |
- Forsgren, Emma
(författare)
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Enterprise Social Media in Project-based Knowledge Work : A contextualized view through the lens of activity theory
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Project-based knowledge work is characterised by decentralised and dynamic team-based structures, different from the traditional, bureaucratic organisation. Arguably, this flexible and collaborative work setting could benefit from enterprise social media, which helps facilitate how people connect, collaborate and share information across organisational boundaries.This thesis applies the theoretical lens of activity theory to explore the adoption, use and integration of enterprise social media in project-based knowledge work. Moreover, it develops a rich sociocultural understanding of how these platforms are situated in work activities. In particular, the focus lies on information sharing and the potential to connect different types of work, roles and responsibilities.Through a qualitative research design, this thesis contributes towards understanding the subtle interplay between enterprise social media, employees’ information sharing and their situated work activities. Key findings reveal that enterprise social media created long-term strategic benefits, such as a shared knowledge base, situation awareness, horizon scanning, as well as making project-based knowledge work more intertwined. Furthermore, support was also found for a grassroots approach for adoption, as employees were personally invested and more likely to find meaningful use in their activities, through exploration, innovation and trial and error.This thesis also identifies contradictions that relate to the role of enterprise social media for information sharing. It became evident that different platforms could co-exist in functional arrangements, with a specific place and purpose in the wider ecology. However, contradictions emerge in terms of overlaps between technolo-gies, asymmetry in usage and the appearance of different information sharing practices and dependencies.This work presents new theoretical insights into how enterprise social media are used for information sharing in work activities, bringing attention to what people are aiming to achieve, and highlighting how sociocultural elements can have an influence.
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| 5. |
- Gunnarsson Lorentzen, David
(författare)
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Following Tweets Around : Informetric methodology for the Twittersphere
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of this thesis is to critically discuss methods to collect and analyse data related to the interaction and content on the social platform Twitter. The thesis contains examples of how networked communication can be studied on Twitter, based on the affordances of the platform considering interaction with interfaces and other users. The foundational problem is that social science Twitter research has been based on easily accessible data without introducing or discussing criteria for collecting appropriate samples for a given research task.The thesis builds on one literature review and four studies of political Twitter communication. The analyses are based on a view of the Twitter platform as a non-neutral filtering gatekeeper. On the one hand, Twitter treats content and users asymmetrically, by emphasising the popular. On the other hand, Twitter determines what data are available and how data can be accessed through the API (application programming interface). How Twitter provides access to the data in turn affects the analyses the researcher does. The central problem of the thesis is that researchers do not know what relevant data are not collected. Data collection based on keywords, hashtags or users creates data sets that contain fragments of conversations. To solve the problem, a new method was developed. By combining the hashtag and user-based methods, replies to collected tweets were stored, regardless if they contained a tracked hashtag or not.The four studies this thesis builds on show a complexity of collecting and analysing Twitter data. A key finding is that conversations beyond the hashtag can be quite extensive. As a consequence of this, communication networks based on hashtagged replies were found to be potentially very different from networks based on replies from a more complete data set, where non-hashtagged replies are also included. A network based on hashtagged communication is thus misleading compared to a complete communication network.Apart from that it is not entirely trivial to identify the parameters to define what should be studied; tests of the API showed that complete data sets cannot be obtained. Therefore, it is important to reflect on both the data collected and the data excluded, not only as a result of the sampling criteria but also what is not given access to. It is also important to be clear about the affordances for interaction that exist when the study is made, both in the user interface but also what API allows and permits.This research contributes with knowledge about how Twitter is used in the context being studied, but the main contribution is methodological. With the method developed, collection of more complete data sets is enabled, as is analysis of the conversations that take place on the platform. This results in more accurate measurements of the activity. Based on the results of this thesis, there are reasons to suspect that previous studies could differ in terms of results such as communication network size and shape, as well as the type of users that emerges as prominent in the material, compared to if replies that do not contain the studied hashtag had been collected.
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| 6. |
- Hicks, Alison
(författare)
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The theory of mitigating risk : Information literacy and language-learning in transition
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This qualitative study explores the information literacy practices of students who were learning a language overseas as part of their undergraduate degree. Constructivist grounded theory and situational analysis were used to examine the information activities of 26 English-speakers from Australia, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. Students were learning one of eight languages in 14 different American, Asian and European countries for a period of between four and 12 months overseas. Semi-structured interviews and photoelicitation method were used to give each participant the opportunity to present an explanatory narrative of their time overseas and to explicate nuanced and contextual information that is hard to verbalise. The study is informed by a theoretical framework that includes practice theory and transitions theory. The theory of mitigating risk emerges from the study’s analysis and provides a rich explanation of how an engagement with information supports language-student transition to new and culturally unfamiliar information environments. The theory illustrates how academic, physical and financial stress that is produced through participation within a new setting catalyses the enactment of information literacy practices that subsequently mediate student transition from acting like a language-learner to becoming a language-learner during their time overseas. From an educational perspective, the theory of mitigating risk broadens understanding about the shape that information literacy takes within transition to a new intercultural context while setting the scene for the design of educational interventions that recognise the fluid and generative possibilities of this period. From a broader social perspective, the theory of mitigating risk contributes to research that explores how businesses and communities can respond to and prepare for increasingly flexible global movement.
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| 7. |
- Lindberg, Jenny
(författare)
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Att bli bibliotekarie : Informationssökning och yrkesidentiteter hos B&I-studenter och nyanställda högskolebibliotekarier
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this thesis is to deepen the knowledge on information seeking among Swedish library and information science (LIS) students and newly employed academic librarians, as well as on how information seeking is attributed meaning in the shaping of professional identities. The aim also includes understanding and problematising the relationship between educational and professional practice. The thesis reports on two empirical studies. The first set of empirical material was produced in five focus groups with 25 participating students (2005-2006). The second set off material was produced through 17 individual, semi-structured interviews with academic librarians (2007). The material was analysed from a sociocultural perspective, focusing on the tools, activities, relations and cognitive authorities of study-related and work-related information seeking. An overall analysis of the material was also undertaken, drawing on the discursive negotiation of professional objects and key narratives.The main results show the complexity of LIS students’ and novice librarians’ approaches to information seeking. As students’ information seeking is situated in the practice of higher education, they need to focus on the use and production of academic texts, and on framing the concept of information seeking analytically. At the same time many students are strongly oriented towards the professional practice of library work, striving to develop a technical expertise enabling them to meet the presumed expectations of library users. These sometimes colliding interests are illustrated by students’ accounts of uncertainty before working life, sometimes expressed as “a gap between theory and practice”. Most new-coming librarians are also focused on the information needs of the library users. Some participants express that library managers encourage individual information monitoring, on a voluntary basis, of for example LIS research, but the organisational incentives for such activities are scarce. However, Journal clubs function as infrastructures for collective learning and information sharing, related to the pedagogical aspects of library work. A common trait of the two groups is the normative and somewhat sceptical attitude towards easily accessible tools for information seeking such as Google.In the analysis four professional identities are identified: an academically oriented, a technically oriented, a communicatively oriented, and a conservatively oriented identity. All four are present in both educational and work practices. Regarding the relationship between the two practices, the results show that academically and communicatively oriented participants often experience themselves as able to re-contextualise their information seeking capabilities when entering working life, while the technically and conservatively oriented participants tend to understand the transition as one of discontinuity.
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| 8. |
- Lindh, Maria
(författare)
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Cloudy talks : Exploring accounts about cloud computing
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this thesis is to discuss the character, purpose, and use of the language surrounding new technology, specifically cloud computing. The thesis is situated within library and information science. Its theoretical basis and argumentation builds upon notions articulated by Berger and Luckmann (1966), known as “the social construction of reality”, and upon conceptual metaphor theory developed by Lakoff and Johnson (2003). The thesis discusses the consequences of how cloud computing is explained and legitimised by various actors, such as cloud providers, computer scientists, IT professionals, business leaders, and strategic staff in organisations that had implemented cloud services. It builds on four articles that are based on diverse empirical materials and methods.A starting point is that IT has been talked about as neutral and unobtrusive. Instead, the results of this thesis show that accounts about IT hide its complexity both regarding its implementation and use. Talk about computing as a utility from the 1950s and forward was surprisingly precise in predictions concerning future IT. However, rather than accepting such accounts as communicating clear insights, it can be argued that this use of language led to the legitimation and institutionalisation of certain normative ways to talk about IT. The utility metaphor could, therefore, be seen as a powerful persuasive device, guiding changes in policies and investments. In today’s promulgation of cloud technologies by Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, the four internet giants sometimes referred to as GAFA, it is possible to distinguish the extension of the utility metaphor into images of power, choice, and a transformed life, while complexity issues are considerably downplayed.Societies, organisations, and individuals all over the world are now, more than ever before, connected to the internet through various cloud technologies. Scrutinised in the thesis are accounts about Google Apps for Education (GAFE), a suite of cloud-based apps increasingly introduced in schools in Sweden and all over the globe. These cloud services are described as free and able to fulfil various user needs. This persuasive promulgation, together with various rhetorical strategies in their privacy policies, disguises the circumstance that Google exploits user information for its own business purposes by creating algorithmic identities of users based on individual web behaviour. With customers’ utilisation, cloud providers such as Google can act powerfully from a distance. As they develop remote control through their widespread cloud technology, they can affect individuals, businesses, and society at large. In this and other ways, IT will continue to reshape communication, the way people relate to each other, and to themselves.
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| 9. |
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| 10. |
- Söderholm, Jonas, 1978-
(författare)
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Borrowing and lending tools : The materiality of x-lending libraries
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Libraries lend an expanding array of items: bikes, clothes, seeds, and tools, to name a few. In correspondence with this development, the library as concept is increasingly connected with current sharing trends. At the same time, the library is expected to still be about books, literature, and reading, to deal in information and documents. The library is regarded as a well-established and predictable institution of integrity. These intriguing dynamics of responsiveness and stability provide the inspiration for this work.The thesis presents a case study of tool lending libraries. The aim is to explore what is introduced here as x-lending libraries: the idea of libraries based on the types of materials borrowed and lent. Findings show that patrons, staff, and managers experience their tool lending library as immediately and locally relevant to their community, rather than related to long-term global concerns. In their experience, the tool lending library is also decidedly different from other libraries. Seemingly, what is borrowed and lent is important to understanding the role different libraries play in their communities. In other words, material matters.The work concludes with proposing a theoretical concept for how different values involved in library borrowing and lending can be understood, again in the community context.
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