Papers by Abrizah Abdullah
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Explores science and social science early career researchers’ (ECRs) perceptions and experiences ... more Explores science and social science early career researchers’ (ECRs) perceptions and experiences of peer review, seeking also to identify their views of any pandemic-associated changes that have taken place. Data are drawn from the Harbingers-2 project, which investigated the impact of the pandemic on scholarly communications. Peer review, one of the activities covered, is singled out as it proved to be the activity of greatest concern to ECRs. Findings are obtained from interviews, which covered around 167 ECRs from China, France, Malaysia, Poland, Russia, Spain, UK and US, supplemented by an international survey that took the data out to a bigger and wider audience for confirmation and generalisation. Results obtained are enhanced by comparisons with pre-pandemic evidence yielded by Harbingers-1, the forerunner of the present study, and anchored in an extensive review of the literature. Main findings are: 1) most ECRs were experienced in peer review, both as reviewers and authors,...
IASL Annual Conference Proceedings
This paper describes the development of a web-based school library management system for secondar... more This paper describes the development of a web-based school library management system for secondary schools in Malaysia (WBSSLMS), which aims to provide an effective and efficient way of acquiring, cataloguing, searching, retrieving, downloading and maintaining of library materials. The systems operates in a consortium where secondary school libraries can participate as members to share information resources and still maintain separate library databases. Information gathered from various literature, onsite visits to school libraries, brainstorming sessions with teacher-librarians and observation on the present systems used, have helped produce ideas in designing and implementing the systems. WBSSLMS consists of seven main modules and each is basically targeted to three types of users; i.e. students, teacher-librarians and systems administrators. Any computer, regardless of its operating system, could access any of the modules as long it had Internet access and a browser. The modules ...
IASL Annual Conference Proceedings, 2021
Teacher-librarians need specific competencies, knowledge, and skills in order to perform their ro... more Teacher-librarians need specific competencies, knowledge, and skills in order to perform their roles effectively. Very few guidelines and standards exist, however, in developing countries for these competencies. The primary goal of this study was to determine the competencies needed by teacher-librarians in Malaysian secondary schools to effectively perform their roles. The study employed a survey methodology using a population of professionals directly involved in the field of teacher-librarianship: teacher-librarians, library educators, and supervisors. The findings present a Malaysian perspective on the roles and competencies for teacher-librarians and will also be useful in working towards an international framework of competencies.
IASL Annual Conference Proceedings, 2021
This paper describes the development of two experimental school library information systems for M... more This paper describes the development of two experimental school library information systems for Malaysian schools. The results of a user study, conducted using different sets of questionnaire for both types of schools indicated that students in general, borrowed books from the library by browsing the shelves. Students seldom used the catalogue card for searching and only a small percentage reported that they were able to find the books successfully using the catalogue card. Based on the findings, a conceptual model of the prototype automated catalogue was developed - Virtual Library for use in primary schools, and ELIS for secondary schools. Both systems are divided into two main modules, the Administrator and the User module. User acceptance test showed that the majority of students found the systems user friendly. Students were also successful in the search tasks given. A high majority described the graphical user interface to be attractive and simple. This indicates the feasibili...
Artikel ini melaporkan mengenai kajian tingkah laku maklumat di kalangan pesalah juvana yang masi... more Artikel ini melaporkan mengenai kajian tingkah laku maklumat di kalangan pesalah juvana yang masih di dalam progress. Objektif khusus kajian ini adalah untuk mengenalpasti keperluan maklumat pesalah juvana, bagaimana keperluan maklumat ini berkembang antara mereka dan untuk mengenalpasti sama ada maklumat yang diperlukan dapat memenuhi kehendak mereka atau sebaliknya. Kaedah yang digunakan untuk mengumpul data adalah dengan menggunakan pendekatan kajian etnografi. Kajian ini memerlukan penyelidik mendekati responden, mencatatkan pengalaman peribadi berdasarkan pengalaman responden dan pemerhatian yang dilakukan pada responden. Kajian ini melibatkan lima sekolah integriti di Malaysia.
Malaysian Journal of Library & Information Science, 2015
The paper provides the results of the first phase of the research project Trust and Authority in ... more The paper provides the results of the first phase of the research project Trust and Authority in Scholarly Communications: The Periphery of World Scholarship in the Digital Era conducted in Malaysia. The objective of the study is to examine the changing behaviours and attitudes of academic researchers in today’s scholarly digital environment, with respect to how they determine authority and trustworthiness in the sources they use, cite, and publish in. This phase utilised focus groups to address the research objective. Five focus groups were held during the period of December 2013 to April 2014 in three universities in Kuala Lumpur. In all a total of 48 researchers attended the focus groups, comprising 21 scientists and 27 social scientists. Findings indicate that peer-reviewed journals are still the central to the authors, however they seem to have more freedom in relation to journals they read and cite, compared to publish. Overall, authors view that scholarly resources that are c...
COREDEV (Collaborative Resource Development) is a proposed digital library for historical resourc... more COREDEV (Collaborative Resource Development) is a proposed digital library for historical resources that supports the development of digital content collaboratively. A prototype biographical portal that could handle information on Malaysian personalities was chosen as the domain for the test-bed. The biographical portal incorporates five main basic features: (a) uploading, indexing, searching and retrieval modules supports the creation, capturing and sharing of historical data from distributed sites and user groups (This environment helps produce the desired outcome in terms of ICT literate teachers and students and provide the experience of creating or publishing in digital libraries); (b) supporting multi-format digital resources (text, images, audio and video clips); (c) providing a facility for searching the contents of the digital libraries from simple keyword searches, specific occurrences of words in specific fields and a combination of terms using Boolean operators; (d) prov...
The study presents comparative qualitative findings from a longitudinal exploration of the impact... more The study presents comparative qualitative findings from a longitudinal exploration of the impact of the pandemic on early career researchers (ECRs) from the sciences and social sciences. Using qualitative methodologies, it focuses on the increasing demands of remote teaching made on ECRs and the potentially negative effects these had on their research. The study also sheds light on ECRs’ country-specific teaching commitments and the extent to which these play a role in their assessment. Data comes from the first of three rounds of in-depth interviews, conducted with 177 ECRs from China, France, Malaysia, Poland, Russia, Spain, UK and US. The main findings, which are set against the published literature, were: a) over half ECRs teach and most of them are assessed on their teaching; b) there are significant differences between countries, with, for instance, French researchers hardly teaching and nearly all Polish researchers doing so; c) around a quarter of ECRs felt research was hin...
Malaysian Journal of Library & Information Science, 2018
The research investigates the perceived roles and practices of teacher librarians in developing a... more The research investigates the perceived roles and practices of teacher librarians in developing an Information Literate School Community (ILSC). The study employs a survey method, which was based on a set of an ILSC benchmarks developed by . A web-based questionnaire was e-mailed to 148 teacher librarians from Malaysian secondary schools in which their School Resource Centers (SRCs) received 4 and 5 stars rating for the year 2015 SRCs evaluation. The result showed that the teacher librarians rated 11 roles as being important, however they acknowledged that they have successful (very much) in executing only one task in their practice that is they "ensure that teachers are efficient library users". Teacher librarians evaluated the information services as very important and at the same time, they thoroughly practiced their roles as the stakeholder in terms of delivering and providing information services to the school community. The finding also revealed that the integration of ICT was recorded as having the highest mean gap between perceived roles and practices. This indicated that although teacher librarians had placed integrating ICT as an important role, there was still a lack of practice. Furthermore, this study has attempted to bridge the apparent divide in the practices of information literacy and the perception of the role in developing an ILSC.
Learned Publishing, 2020
This article describes an international study informed by a 3‐year‐long qualitative longitudinal ... more This article describes an international study informed by a 3‐year‐long qualitative longitudinal project, which sought to discover the scholarly communication attitudes and behaviour of early career researchers (ECRs). Using a combination of small‐scale interviews and a larger‐scale survey, ECRs were questioned on their searching and reading behaviour, publishing practices, open data, and their use of social media. Questionnaire invitations were sent out via publisher lists, social media networks, university research networks, and specialist ECR membership organizations. One‐thousand and six‐hundred responses were received, with many coming from China, Russia, and Poland. Results showed that ECRs are adopting millennial‐facing tools/platforms, with Google, Google Scholar, social media, and smartphones becoming embedded in their scholarly activities. Open data sharing obtains widespread support but somewhat less practice. There are some differences in attitudes and behaviour accordin...
Learned Publishing, 2019
This article reports on the findings of an international online survey of early career researcher... more This article reports on the findings of an international online survey of early career researchers (ECRs) with regard to their authorship and peer review, attitudes, and practices, which sought to discover how the new wave of researchers were utilizing these key aspects of the scholarly communications system. A questionnaire was developed on the back of a 3‐year longitudinal, qualitative study and was distributed through publisher lists, social media networks, university networks, and specialist ECR membership organizations. Identical English, Polish, Russian, Chinese, Spanish, and French versions of the questionnaire were used. Results from 1,600 respondents demonstrated that 82.7% had co‐authored a paper, and most had performed a variety of authorship tasks. Almost half the respondents reported being subject to various authorship policies, although a quarter said they were not aware of any such policies. Almost all Chinese ECRs reported being subject to authorship policies, but on...
Revue française des sciences de l’information et de la communication, 2018
L’article presente les resultats d’un projet de recherche de trois annees qui s’interesse aux pra... more L’article presente les resultats d’un projet de recherche de trois annees qui s’interesse aux pratiques et strategies de publication des « jeunes chercheurs », une categorie demographique clairement identifiee par les acteurs du marche. Les resultats presentes ici sont issues des entretiens menes aupres d’un panel de 116 jeunes chercheurs, issus de 7 pays (Chine, Espagne, Etats-Unis, France, Malaisie, Pologne, Royaume-Uni), et ce pendant les deux premieres annees du projet. L’article expose dans quelle mesure les jeunes chercheurs s’emparent des outils, plateformes et innovations numeriques positionnes sur des objectifs de Libre Acces, de Science Ouverte pour diffuser leurs resultats de recherche. En comparant les resultats des deux premieres annees du projet, l’article degage les evolutions strategiques identifiees.
Quality Assurance in Asia-Pacific Universities, 2017
Quality Assurance (QA) has become a buzzword in higher education since the 1990s as reflected by ... more Quality Assurance (QA) has become a buzzword in higher education since the 1990s as reflected by the emergence of numerous terms such as quality control, quality management, monitoring, enhancement and culture. This phenomenon saw the emergence and adoption of various QA standards or requirements as well as the development and implementation of quality systems based on the various models of Quality Management System deemed suitable by the higher education institutions. These systems are either for the macro-institutional based or even implemented for specific functions of the institution—teaching and learning, research or services. National governments and higher education institutions developed and implemented various quality standards and requirements, put in place quality management mechanisms and systems to be quality certified by external agencies or accreditation bodies. Over time the external QA mechanism was increasingly complemented and in certain cases replaced by an internal QA mechanism. Such an activity usually happens when quality has become a culture embedded within the organization. This chapter examines the concept of QA and quality culture, their relationships and the evolution of the quality endeavor in a Malaysian public research-intensive university—the University of Malaya. The approach taken is based on the involvement of the authors in the QA development, implementation and management in the university as well as insights obtained through the role as internal and external quality assessors both at the national and the regional level.
The International Journal of Knowledge, Culture, and Change Management: Annual Review, 2008
... Dr. Abrizah Abdullah University of Malaya, Malaysia, MALAYSIA Joy Lynn Wheeler Joy Wheeler ha... more ... Dr. Abrizah Abdullah University of Malaya, Malaysia, MALAYSIA Joy Lynn Wheeler Joy Wheeler has worked at the NTU Library in the Library Technology Systems Division for the past 2 years. She splits her time as a subject librarian for the Art Design & Media Library. ...
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2003
... 492 AN Zainab, A. Abrizah, and NB Anuar ... Subsequent phase of this digital library project ... more ... 492 AN Zainab, A. Abrizah, and NB Anuar ... Subsequent phase of this digital library project will further investigate the requirements of users by applying the survey instruments to a wider sample groups; expanding contents; incorporating a digital library history lessons, teaching ...
This paper reports on the 2010 survey of Asian institutional repositories, highlighting the curre... more This paper reports on the 2010 survey of Asian institutional repositories, highlighting the current state of the repositories and describing their characteristics in terms of types, contents, disciplines, language, technical and operational issues, and policy. It also identifies the web performance of Asian institutional repositories as reflected through global visibility and impact of the repositories; as well as the performance of the Asian top-ranked universities in the archiving and sharing their research output through institutional repositories. Data obtained from the Open Directory of Open Access Repository (OpenDOAR) and the Ranking Web of World Repositories (RWWR) were used to analyse the current state and global visibility respectively. Findings indicate that the total number of institutional repositories in Asia is 191 with Japan as the biggest contributor (38%), followed by India (19%) and Taiwan 22 (11%). Out of the 191 Asian institutional repositories identified in this study, 48 (about 23%) are listed in the Top 400 RWWR. This suggests that only 12% (48 out of 400) Asian institutional repositories are visible and incorporate good practices in their web publication as extracted from the quantitative webometrics indicators used by the ranking. Out of these 48 institutions, 29 are among the Asian Top 200 universities. However, only 14 of these 29 universities were ranked top 100 in the RWWR. The paper concludes that if the web performance of a research institution is below the expected position according to their academic excellence, university authorities should reconsider their web policy, promoting substantial increases of the volume and quality of their intellectual output / research publications through institutional repositories
The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 2014
A persona represents a group of target users that share common behavioural characteristics. The p... more A persona represents a group of target users that share common behavioural characteristics. The personas method, an approach to systems design, has been receiving significant attention from practitioners. However, only anecdotal evidence currently exists for the effectiveness of personas and there have been criticisms about its validity as a scientific approach to research. This paper attempts to demonstrate how incorporating personas may lead to better understand the information needs of humanities scholars. Humanities scholars in an advanced ICT environment in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan are sampled as a case. Previous studies show that the humanities scholars have a significant negative relation with ICT use; they are using it less than scientists and social scientists, and they demonstrate a significantly higher use of library facilities than other academics. There is also a lack of up-to-date international research on the humanities scholars' information needs that takes into account recent rapid increases in the availability of ICT infrastructure, especially the Internet. As such, the objective of this study is to understand the information needs of humanities scholars and the effect of the electronic environment on their information seeking behaviour using personas. This study is conducted within a conceptual framework based on an integration of existing models of information-seeking behaviour, along with additional new elements representing the information context environment, such as languages, decision to seek and format of information resources. The four personas that were uncovered in this study may be able to effectively communicate the actual information needs of the humanities scholars through the personal narrative, name, and face, which continuously will remind the academic library of what their users really want and need from their services. This study also lays the foundation for future research by identifying variables of interest, and building construct validity through the themes of information needs that emerged.
The Electronic Library, 2013
PurposeA significant amount of digital repository research and development activity is taking pla... more PurposeA significant amount of digital repository research and development activity is taking place worldwide, which calls for the investigation of issues identified as critical to the development, management and sustainability of these repositories. The purpose of this paper is to establish a comprehensive set of critical success factors (CSFs) that would enable successful digital libraries implementation.Design/methodology/approachThe design of this study is exploratory in nature due to lack of previous research about CSFs in digital library projects. The paper builds the research framework to find CSFs for digital libraries initiatives by collecting possible factors from literature on CSFs of information systems; and feedback from ten experts who have had experience in digital library research and development as well as implementation, through e‐mail interviews. Six dimensions in the enterprise architecture framework (namely motivation, resource, people, process, location and tim...
The Electronic Library, 2008
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the needs of digital library stakeholders and how ... more PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the needs of digital library stakeholders and how a collaborative digital library might be designed to meet these needs. The collaborative digital library has been conceived to support secondary school students' information needs in conducting school‐based projects.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses the Zachman Framework for Enterprise Architecture as the approach to investigate the user requirements and define the digital library organization, resources, processes, technology and information flows In applying the Zachman Framework and to holistically control the study, the case study approach and multiple data collection techniques were adopted.FindingsInformation obtained from these data gathering techniques helps to populate the requirements of the top three layers (18 cells) in the Zachman Framework to ascertain the design details of the digital library's scope, business and system model. The framework requires the ab...
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Papers by Abrizah Abdullah