Key threats and challenges to the preservation of digital records of public institutions in Ghana

The rapid pace with which technology is changing continues to pose a perpetual threat to digital preservation. Although initiatives in digital preservation in Europe, North America, Asia and sporadic attempts in Africa appear to have yielded some level of progress, permanent access to information and longevity of digital records continue to be a problem. Whilst Africa’s contribution to the growth of digital records may be insignificant, it is growing and Ghana cannot be insulated from this threat of digital growth. This paper examines the current challenges of digital preservation in sub-Saharan Africa with particular reference to Ghana. It identified funding, level of security and privacy, skills training and technological obsolescence as factors that pose key threats to digital preservation. The paper recommends that the ministries and agencies can address many of the digital preservation challenges if they adopt backup, refreshing, metadata and migration strategies.     

Research Online: Digital Commons as a Publishing Platform at the University of Wollongong, Australia

Since 2006, Research Online, the University of Wollongong's open access institutional repository has utilised Bepress' Digital Commons software to make available published research outputs and digital theses. This article discusses the outcomes of recent academic demand for its use as a publishing tool of university journals and conference proceedings. The Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice is provided as an example. Digital Commons includes the editorial management software, EdiKit, which assists in managing submissions, editorial functions, and peer review. Also considered are changes to scholarly communication patterns arising out of the new open access, electronic only, publication regimes.     

The Digital Divide Across All Citizens of the World: A New Concept

This paper is concerned with the requirements for and implications of, moving from the confines of the conventional concept of the digital divide to one that reflects a world distribution of Internet users with different income levels, with particular reference to those users living in poverty. The first part of the note provides a simple, sequential, two-country illustration of what such a transition would entail. The resulting framework is then used to revisit the much-discussed issue of recent changes in Internet use between rich and poor countries. One mechanism that is associated with the revised concept is shown to substantially reduce the size of the digital divide as conventionally measured. The other mechanism, by contrast, works in the opposite direction because the increased number of users in developing countries are drawn from high-income, educated and urban classes, creating a highly unequal distribution within these countries.

彝文历史档案数字化开发研究

彝文历史档案是彝族历史文化遗产的精华,利用数字人文的理念和技术进行开发利用,可以有效保护和传承彝族历史文化。在分析彝文历史档案数字化开发现状及现实困境的基础上,结合数字人文与彝文历史档案数字化保护的逻辑关联,探讨数字人文视域下彝文历史档案数字化开发的思路以及具体实现路径,以期指导当前彝文历史档案数字化开发实践工作。     

对我国城市化与城市贫困的几点思考

城市化是我国经济发展的必然趋势。本文主要探讨我国在城市化过程中的城市贫困问题,针对新增城市人口的主要组成部分是贫困人口,并出现农村贫困向城市转移的过程,强调由此带来的孟买现象、数字鸿沟、房地产建设对城市贫困人群的忽视和贫困社区、文化贫困等易被忽略却会产生严重社会经济后果的因素,今后在城市化过程中应避免这些问题的产生以保障经济的可持续发展。     

国家数字竞争力指数构建与国际比较研究

当前数字化与政治、经济、文化、社会等各领域深度融合,引领改革发展、创新驱动的未来方向,为提升国家竞争力乃至综合国力注入强大动能。本文对传统国际竞争力“钻石模型”进行扩展,构建国家数字竞争力评价体系,整合国际权威数据,系统评估全球数字竞争力状况,按照发展阶段和发展模式两个维度进行国家划分,研判中国数字竞争力在全球的位置、差距及影响因素,为“数字强国”建设提供基础数据支撑和国际参考。     

Digital skills and social media use: how Internet skills are related to different types of Facebook use among ‘digital natives’

Based on the idea that Internet use can be conceptualized in terms of depth (frequency) and width (differentiated) uses of the Web, this study explored how socio-demographic factors and digital skills are related to frequency and types of Facebook use among young adults. It used a face-to-face representative survey conducted in the three main urban areas of Chile among a sample of 18-to 29-year olds. The results found that men and more educated young people had higher levels of skills, confirming that the so-called ‘digital natives’ are not a monolithic group. They also revealed that digital skills did not predict frequency of Facebook use. Furthermore, lower educated young people tended to use Facebook more frequently. Although these results go against the long-established digital divide research, traditional digital gaps emerged when types of use were analyzed. While more educated and skillful individuals tended to use Facebook for informational and mobilizing purposes, socio-demographic factors and skills did not make a difference in Facebook use for social purposes.     

数码时代黑白照片的艺术价值与市场前景

本文从艺术与艺术性的角度出发,通过分析黑白照片本身的艺术创作特点,认为在百花齐放的艺术需求市场中,由于黑白照片独特的黑白影调艺术魅力和艺术价值,现在与将来,黑白数码摄影与黑白照片,在新闻纪实摄影、时尚摄影和艺术收藏等领域之中,都将会有自己独特的市场需求空间。     

高师生在教育科研中利用数字资源的问题探析

高师生利用数字资源来开展教育科研活动,已成为主要方式之一。资源外延的现代扩展使能够直接服务于高师生开展教育科研活动的教育资源迅猛增长,其中,主要是数字资源。但馆藏数字资源和虚拟馆藏资源的利用被高师生所忽视,在数字资源利用的行为上也存在单一化、“快餐化”的不良问题。应对这些问题的关键在于做到以学生为本。     

Understanding the Role of Individual Innovativeness in the Acceptance of IT‐Based Innovations: Comparative Analyses of Models and Measures*

As new technological innovations are rapidly introduced and changed, identifying an individual characteristic that has a persistent effect on the acceptance decisions across multiple technologies is of substantial value for the successful implementation of information systems. Augmenting prior work on individual innovativeness within the context of information technology, we developed a new measure of adopter category innovativeness (ACI) and compared its effectiveness with the existing measure of personal innovativeness in IT (PIIT). Further, we examined two alternative models in which the role of individual innovativeness was theorized differently—either as a moderator of the effects the perceived innovation characteristics of usefulness, ease of use, and compatibility have on future use intention (moderator model) or as a direct determinant of the innovation characteristics (direct determinant model). To ensure the generalizability of the study findings, two field studies (N= 634) were conducted, each of which examined the two models (moderator and direct determinant) and measured individual innovativeness using the two measures (ACI and PIIT). Study 1 surveyed the online buying practices of 412 individuals, and Study 2 surveyed personal digital assistant adoption of 222 healthcare professionals. Across the markedly different adoption contexts, the study results consistently show that individual innovativeness is a direct determinant of the innovation characteristics, and the two measures share many commonalities. The new measure offers some additional utilities not found in the PIIT measure by allowing individuals to be directly classified and mapped into adopter categories. Implications are drawn for future research and practice.