Improving OpenURL Menus: User Testing of Revisions to SFX® Menus

Abstract

Twenty-one volunteers tested the usability of revisions to the Texas A&M University Libraries' SFX® OpenURL link resolver menus, including the addition of Ex Libris' new bXâ?¢ recommendation service and a plug-in which pulls additional information about the journal into the menu. The volunteers also evaluated the quality and desirability of the bX recommendations and discussed their preferences for help options and full-text format. Results of the usability testing are reported along with the resultant menu changes. This study will be of interest to librarians implementing or redesigning OpenURL menus as well as those interested in the user experience.     

Does Financial Satisfaction Vary Depending on the Funding Strategy Used to Pay for College?

This study sought to determine whether the levels of financial satisfaction reported by college undergraduates and graduates differ in relation to whether they funded their college education by working or borrowing or a combination of the two. Data for this study came from a survey sample of full-time freshmen that formed the basis of a longitudinal study conducted at a large public university. Funding sources examined were grouped into those who worked only, those who borrowed only, those who worked and borrowed, and those who used grants, scholarships, or other sources of money to fund their college education. Compared to those who had student loans, those who had financed college with grants, scholarships, or other money (usually from family and/or friends) were more likely to report greater financial satisfaction than those who had used student loans to pay for college. There was evidence that this was only true during college rather than after college. The results obtained suggest that merely possessing a student loan may not necessarily decrease the level of financial satisfaction as many suspect, especially considering other funding alternatives such as working during college. While there was no significant impact of these funding strategies on financial satisfaction either during or after college, there was evidence for possible thresholds at which overall student loan balances may begin to erode financial satisfaction. The results obtained suggest that student loans may not decrease the level of financial satisfaction as much as many have suspected when compared with working to pay for college, as long as the amount of the student loan is not excessive, and is not accompanied by other types of debt (which also reduced financial satisfaction).

     

Value managed relationships: The key to customer retention and profitability

The authors argue that customer satisfaction and retention are vital and can be improved by the technique which they call a Value Managed Relationship (VMR). A VMR is a collaborative, communicative partnership between suppliers and the supplier's customers, and it works by reducing system costs. Buchanan and Gillies point to examples in British industry where VMRs have been of great benefit.     

RECONSIDERING THE STIGMA OF PHYSICAL DISABILITY:

This article reexamines the stigma of physical disability using the empirical example of wheelchair users' treatment in public places. It draws upon conversational interviews with wheelchair users, field notes recorded during participant observation in public places while using wheelchairs, and previously published autobiographical accounts. The analysis of these materials primarily focuses upon the many public encounters in which wheelchair users request and receive various forms of assistance. Our analysis demonstrates that wheelchair users' place in public life is more uncertain and unsettled than the concepts deviance and stignia suggest. We argue for an empirical reassessment of the social definition of various physical disabilities through ethnographic study of relations between typical and atypical people and analytic attention to situated processes of identification.     

Hyperstructures and the Biology of Interpersonal Dependence: Rethinking Reciprocity and Altruism

Fluctuations in endogenous opioid activity in the brain, controlled under ordinary conditions by attachment, are capable of producing patterns of dependence in social behavior resembling those appearing in substance abusers. Withdrawal symptoms arising in relation to these fluctuations, short of producing dependence, ordinarily fuel everyday social interaction, and interaction then serves to modulate opioid activity within a range associated with comfort. Comfort-constraints in this sense operate in all settings of social interaction, part of an innate caregiving mechanism conserved by evolution in human behavior. In this paper we present a formal model of the neurosociological mechanism embodying these comfort constraints. Conceptualized as a hyperstructure , the mechanism grounds thinking about social interaction in recent biological discoveries about the brain, and enables sociologists to study how activity in core brain systems constrains deep patterns in social life, including the human tendencies to altruism and reciprocity. Using computational methods, we undertake simulations to study the mechanism, deriving implications about moral behavior. The theory of the hyperstructure leads to new conclusions about reciprocity and altruism, and bears upon sociological understanding of related subjects such as justice and social comparison.     

A sequential approximation to a permutation test

A sequential method for approximating a general permutation test (SAPT) is proposed and evaluated. Permutations are randomly generated from some set G, and a sequential probability ratio test (SPRT) is used to determine whether an observed test statistic falls sufficiently far in the tail of the permutation distribution to warrant rejecting some hypothesis. An estimate and bounds on the power function of the SPRT are used to find bounds on the effective significance level of the SAPT. Guidelines are developed for choosing parameters in order to obtain a desired significance level and minimize the number of permutations needed to reach a decision. A theoretical estimate of the average number of permutations under the null hypothesis is given along with simulation results demonstrating the power and average number of permutations for various alternatives. The sequential approximation retains the generality of the permutation test,- while avoiding the computational complexities that arise in attempting to computer the full permutation distribution exactly     

Propinquity and educational homogamy

Education is one of the most important dimensions in patterns of assortative marriage. It is unclear whether the pronounced and persistent evidence of educational homogamy is an outcome of educational propinquity, that is, individuals' attendance at the same school during the same time, or of individuals' general preferences for spouses with educational attainments similar to their own. This study first describes some aspects of educational propinquity and then investigates the association between spouses' educational attainments after considering whether or not the bride and the groom attended an educational institution in common. The results clearly show that the strong association between spouses' educational attainments should not be attributed to educational propinquity.     

How Fair Is Safe Enough? The Cultural Approach to Societal Technology Choice1

This paper consists of an argument and a pilot study. First is a general, perhaps philosophical, argument against the National Academy's viewpoint⁽¹⁾ that dealing with risk is a two-stage process consisting of (a) assessment of facts, and (b) evaluation of facts in sociopolitical context. We argue that societal risk intrinsically revolves around social relations as much as around evaluations of probability. Second, we outline one particular approach to analyzing societal risk management styles. We call this the fairness hypothesis. Rather than focusing on probabilities and magnitudes of undesired events, this approach emphasizes societal preferences for principles of achieving consent to a technology, distributing liabilities, and investing trust in institutions. Conflict rather than probability is the chief focus of this approach to societal risk management. This view is illustrated by a recent empirical pilot study that explored the fairness hypothesis in the context of new nuclear technologies.