zeinab sedighi; Alireza Isfandyari-Moghaddam; Atefeh Zarei
Abstract
Background and Objectives: In a digital library what provides interaction between user and library is user interface. Tedd and Hartley (1999) declared, “User interface is a bridge which relates the users with storage and retrieval systems”. Good user interface should be used to establish ...
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Background and Objectives: In a digital library what provides interaction between user and library is user interface. Tedd and Hartley (1999) declared, “User interface is a bridge which relates the users with storage and retrieval systems”. Good user interface should be used to establish effective interaction between users and digital libraries to help them to use and access desired information resources effectively. A user interface allows the users to obtain ‘what they need, in a desired way and in a user friendly manner’ (ibid). It should be prepared and designed according to the information needs of their user community (in this case, blind and visually impaired). Since blind and visually impaired have specific behaviors and cognitive characteristics, so interfaces should be designed carefully and enriched with the capabilities so that these users will be able to use them with ease and comfort. Blind and visually impaired, like the other users, need to interact with interfaces for access to information resources in a digital environment.
Therefore, it would be very important to present a set of criteria for user interfaces in Blind and visually impaired digital libraries. Therefore, this study intends to investigate and determine the most important criteria blind and visually impaired digital libraries user interface from the experts’ point of view about these criteria and recommend a sample set of criteria for digital Libraries providers' services to the blind and visually impaired user interfaces. This is the basic question that the research tries to answer is: What are the important of evaluation criteria in digital Libraries providers' services to the blind and visually impaired user interface from experts’ point of view Librarians Attitude at blind digital libraries in Iran?
Methodology: The present study used survey as the methodology which is done in two sections. In first section through the reviewing the related scientific texts and resources, the researchers prepared a checklist consisting of 13 criteria (Different formats of library resources, Ability of organizing the screen, Study services of retrieved resources from the library, Error messages alert, Options for customizing the texts, Language User Interface, Interaction and feedback facilities, Links, Help services and tips, Search facilities, Visual symbols and images, user control, Screen capabilities) and 109 components. The results were evaluated according to these 13 criteria in response to research questions. In the second section of this Research, a two-step Delphi method was used. For this purpose, final checklist was emailed to a 10 librarian's attitude at blind digital libraries in Iran to gather their opinion about the importance of each criterion. SPSS and Excel software are used to analyses data. Finally, median score was performed as an evaluation device for acceptance or rejection of a criterion. Those criteria which obtained medium score higher than 3(60 percent), were accepted as an element to be included in the proposed criteria for digital Libraries providers' services to the blind and visually impaired user interface.
Findings: This survey sought Librarians attitude at blind digital libraries point of view and selected set of criteria is proposed for the digital Libraries providers' services to the blind and visually impaired user interface. The findings of the survey are presented in the following section. Importance of each criterion from the Librarians attitude at blind digital libraries point of view: Experts were asked of their opinion about the degree of importance of each criterion. The results of their response are showed in Table1.
As the Table 1 shows, it was found that among the criteria, the respondents gave the highest rating to «Different formats of library resources» (mean Medium-Score = 4.99) and the lowest to «Screen capabilities» (mean Medium-Score = 4.44). Two other criteria i.e. «Ability of organizing the screen» and «Study services of retrieved resources from the library» reached the second and third levels, respectively. Although the difference among of criteria's were low and according to the Delphi panel using them in the design of digital Libraries providers' services to the blind and visually impaired user interface offered. Also, Friedman test was used to determine the priority indicators. The zero assumption does not differentiate between the importance of existing criteria for use in the user interface of digital libraries providing services to blind and visually impaired users. The results of the Friedman test indicate the obtained sig is .000 and less than 0.05. This indicate that the zero assumption is rejected and there is a research hypothesis that there is a significant difference between the most important criteria for assessing the user interface of digital libraries providing services to visually impaired and blind people. As a result, it can be said that the importance of each user interface criteria is not the same for evaluation and the custodians and designers of digital Libraries providers' services to the blind and visually impaired user interface can be considered conception, planning and implementation of user interface features according to the budget, time and needs of their users.
Discussion: The aim of this research is to consider and determine the most important criteria of user interface of Digital Libraries providers' services to the blind and visually impaired from the point of view of librarian’s attitude at blind digital libraries. Although various studies have discussed how to provide services to users with visual impairment and interaction with libraries, but it is necessary to provide criteria for interaction between the library and the blind and visually impaired users in the point of view of librarian’s attitude at blind digital libraries (because they interact directly with visually impaired users). These can be used to design, evaluate, and improve the user interface of the digital Libraries providers' services to the blind and visually impaired user interface. From the librarian’s attitude at blind digital libraries point of view, the «Different formats of library resources» (mean Medium-Score = 4.99) and «Screen capabilities» (mean Medium-Score = 4.44) criteria reached the highest and lowest scores, respectively. Blind and visually impaired users have problems in the use of common resources. Therefore, it is necessary to provide other formats of resources such as illustrative books, audio resources and etc. for these users. Obtaining the first rank in librarians' point of view can also be confirmed by the importance of resources for users of digital libraries provider`s services to the blind and visually impaired. A screen capability reached thirteenth level and is located bottom of the rating table. It is general features of database and web pages and gets the thirteenth place of the Delphi panel as well. Finally, it can be said that environment information exchange systems user interface such as digital libraries is so complicated and its goal is to provide remote services for users. Since blind and visually impaired users have specific behaviors and cognitive characteristics, and the deleted of the human interface in digital libraries, so interfaces should be designed carefully and enriched with the capabilities so that blind and visually impaired users will be able to use them with ease and comfort. All of the criteria in this study will be applicable to the digital Libraries providers' services to the blind and visually impaired user interface. On the other hand, it could be used as a tool for the determination of capabilities of digital Libraries providers' services to the blind and visually impaired user interface from librarians, experts and their user's opinion. The results of this study can be considered as a beginning effort for developing standard criteria for blind and visually impaired libraries in order to increase the quality and quantity of their user interfaces.
Alireza Isfandyarimoghaddam; Mehdi Alipour-Hafezi
Abstract
Background and Objectives: Cloud computing technology is one of the emerging technologies that is going to transform managing and using information in the web and other information basis. This technology will change information managers’ approach in sharing information in data warehouses. Through ...
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Background and Objectives: Cloud computing technology is one of the emerging technologies that is going to transform managing and using information in the web and other information basis. This technology will change information managers’ approach in sharing information in data warehouses. Through using this technology in academic libraries, especially in digital academic libraries, we can save users’ time, and also help them to access their resources in short time in anywhere and every time. In a word, academic libraries, by using this technology, can make use of other library digital materials in the remote manner and without any ownership, so this is the mean of access to the resources by everyone in every time and every place. By using this kind of useful technology in the important and high level kind of Library and Information Science center (Academic Libraries), we can reach to the new kind of Library, names "Cloud Library". Cloud library is the library that is different from other traditional libraries, in goal and also applications, and even in kind of librarians. In this regard the main purpose of this study is to identify the current status of applying cloud computing technology in digital academic library researches in order to extract research gaps, and to represent their applied research methods. Methodology: Systematic review has developed as a specific methodology for searching for, appraising and synthesizing findings of primary studies, and has rapidly become a cornerstone of the evidence-based practice and policy movement. And also systematic review methodology can be distinguished from narrative reviews of the literature through its emphasis on transparent, structured and comprehensive approaches to searching the literature and its requirement for formal synthesis of research findings. Also this method, based on the steps that introduced by Kitchenham and Charters, is used to do this study. In fact researchers in this study traversed three main steps entitled survey design, literature review, and writing survey report. Factually, 9 distinctive works had done to do this study. In this regard, researchers tried to identify related resources and deeply studied them after filtering unrelated resources. Reading titles, abstracts and in a few cases reading introduction and conclusions helped us to extract some irrelevant resources that were retrieved in the search stage. Afterwards the remained studied resources were clustered in 3 clusters entitled cloud computing technology acceptance and security, problems and challenges, application of cloud computing in academic libraries. Findings: The findings showed that in total, 28 works, including 10 internal and 18 external works in the field of cloud computing and digital library have been published so far. Of these 28, the largest percentage of research is on the impact of cloud computing on library management and services, with 32%. Factors affecting cloud computing acceptance are at 28%, and the three areas are "Security, Problems and Challenges of Cloud Computing", "Cloud Computing in Academic Libraries", and "Cloud Libraries", with 11% each. Lower (third). Finally, the lower-level (fourth) domain of "cloud computing in digital libraries" has received 7% of research attention. Finally, the area of "cloud computing in academic digital libraries", which also represents the current research gap, is at the bottom of the list with no research (zero percent). Other findings of the study can be attributed to the research methodology which indicates that most of the research in the field of cloud computing has been done in digital and academic libraries with a quantitative approach of 25 cases and a survey method of 11 cases out of 25; Few studies have been conducted in 3 cases using a qualitative approach or a hybrid approach. Discussion: Research in the field of cloud computing in academic digital libraries has shown that the field is still young and needs to be intentioned by the researchers interested in this field. On the other hand, the research methodology showed that using quantitative approach and using survey method in the studies of the researchers showed that this research method has the most importance in research. Finally, the research gap, namely, "Cloud computing in academic digital libraries" has not been interested by researchers, so it is hoped that this project will be a good start to pursue the present research field and eliminate the barriers to using cloud computing technology in academic digital libraries.
