EnTRy 11: In 1000 words, write the reason why you like or dislike using e-portfolio as one of your learning and assessment tools. This may include how have you benefited or not from the process of e-portfolio development. This entry will be purely your opinions, thoughts and feelings reflecting your experience when developing the e-portfolio. Therefore you are not supposed to cite any references in this entry.

In the first class I attend for this course WXGB6105 – technologies for Information Management, our lecturer Dr.Noorhidawati told us to build one platform to make sure that we can sending a weekly portfolio through that platform. So for me, I had one basic experience build the blog before so I use these technologies as my platform to sending and publish my portfolio in the internet. The portfolio or entries are given by the lecturer every week for this subject. For my understanding, the e-portfolio is the electronic collection that managed and maintain by the user as their evidence work via the internet or web. Using the portfolio, I can add several of materials source such as text, image, video and also file which I can maintain dynamically over by time.

By using the e-Portfolio as my learning and assessment tools, what I can say that have many advantages that I have and get like planning, creating platform, entry the data, organize data and others things. Then with the e-Portfolio, what can I see that it also can save the used of paper because all the work are sending via internet which are totally electronic source. By writing and updating the blog regularly, I also need to make sure that the portfolio I write are much better than printed and sending personally to lecturer because using traditional ways, the reflection or entry that I write are read by the lecturer by self but now my portfolio can be read by other people widely and they can also comments for my entry. By using this also, I can see that there is a place which the technologies are help us much better to communicate directly between lecturer and student. The lecturer cans effort the student to write and reflect directly to the title given in the blog and they can comment and read week by week without waiting for fully compilation form the students.

By weekly update the portfolio, I also can gain my knowledge in the learning experience with record the learning and then presenting about what I learn in that week via the e-portfolio. Also I can plan and assessing the learning that to make sure I will more understanding by assessing the reflection that I done. By using the e-portfolio, I also can demonstrate of my understanding of using technologies in my learning curve because before this I use the other platform which is wordpress, during this class I have learn a new thing to develop a blog. Event it basic I hope its can used as my first step before it become better in the future.

But what I think for myself that not fully contribute for the e-portfolio is late to upload the work given because I prefer to write and reflect the title given in the Microsoft word where I can save it and make sure that reflection are finish before I publish it in my blog. So that why my blog are lately update and sometime are over the date given I publish it. But for the overall I totally agree using this approach to make sure that the technologies are fully used by the student. At the last what can I say that, I thoroughly enjoyed and having fun for the process of creating and maintaining the blog as my e-portfolio platform although it have a critical time because some portfolio I need to hold because not have a fully idea to reflect so it be more short time at the end because not have enough time to do a several reflection together but it all become my experience to avoid it happen again in the future. It’s all become part and challenges life for working student, but in the end I finished all my work given and I hope that Dr.Noorhidawati are satisfied with my works. I’m very thankful to her because understand the challenge as a working student and in the same time give us a new dimension of learning style, also to my colleagues because help me to finish my e-portfolio in successful.

EnTRy 10 : Discuss on the impact of Open Access Initiatives to libraries

From the Public Library of Science (PLOS), there give definition of open access which is a The author(s) and copyright holder(s) grant(s) to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship,as well as the right to make small numbers of printed copies for their personal use. From that definition we can say that open access is a work granted to open freely and enable to access from others people.

With encouragement to embrace open access coming from those funding much of the research and also from those publishing the research, and with content from such journals included in online databases, it stands to reason that open access has become more from a dream. Moreover, open access models are beneficial in a number of ways:

• Research is available at no cost, and with no access restrictions, for readers around the globe; scholars in economically disadvantaged areas are no longer barred access to the newest research.
•  Because research published via avenues of open access is openly accessible online, it is more easily discoverable both by scholars and by search engines.
• For scholars in science and technology, where subject matter may be especially time

There are several impacts of open access to libraries, first is from the economic views which people in all country and different culture can have an access right to see and view the work done by researchers. From the open access also will benefit the audiences and society as a whole will enjoy a better future once research is optimally disseminated by open access initiatives. For example like researcher from the other country done their research for their country, so that when they publish their output from their research it also can be used by other country to be compared and as a reference for them to do a research.

Second is in collection development policies for the open access, this is the most challenging issue  when to develop and manage library collections like how they will keep track of open access sources. Given the growing number of open access collection already out there, they may struggle to bootstrap themselves by introducing such sources to their collections. As sources begin to distinguish themselves from others and lesser-known, less widely used ones fade into obscurity.

Other impact is the role playing by the librarian are also change when the open access become regularly use by the users, the library needs to examine the very roles they play within their institutions and indeed within the global information market. The role of library as publisher is not entirely novel, but may become a key role that libraries play as they become more and more involved with open access, and may very well result in a radical transformation of scholarly communication as it is known today. Libraries might go about the task of publishing scholarly material in a number of ways, among which are cultivating and managing their own electronic journals, and supporting an institutional repository. One of the key goals of the institutional repository, simply stated, is to capture the intellectual output of an institution and make it available via a single interface, so that one no longer needs to scour disparate faculty and graduate student websites in order to find their research.

From the technology impact on the open access is to provide a place for the researcher to upload or store their research paper or journal to make it public. So some libraries develop their own Institutional Repositories (IR) and in the same time the most crucial issues is how to handle citation permanence in the IR collections. Now there have various open sources that provide one stop collection for the researcher to place their collection like DSpace, Fedora, Adore and others. The library can use this effort for them to make open access initiative running rightly.

EnTRy 9 : Discuss how open source and social software applications can serve to fill digital library roles.

Digital Libraries are the electronic counterparts of traditional paper libraries, where the digital medium opens new opportunities, especially in the area of improved access support, increased content availability, powerful content interlinking, and reduced costs, but also imposes new challenges like long-term preservation in the context of fast changing storage technologies. Further important challenges are issues of copyright and digital rights management and the cost of digitization for not digitally-born content.

Various definitions for Digital Libraries exist. These can be summarized as a Digital Library is an information system targeted towards a specific community, where content from different sources is collected and managed, content is structured and enriched with metadata, and a set of services is offered that makes the content available to a user community via a communication network, typically the Internet.

Digital libraries have attracted almost all the developed and developing countries due to its multifaceted features and the opportunities it extend to the information providers and information seekers. It offers new levels of access to broader audiences of users and new opportunities for library and information science field to advance both theory and practice. Creating effective digital libraries and providing cutting edge digital information services poses serious challenges for existing and future technologies. It include collection building, infrastructure, acceptability, access restrictions, readability, standardization, authentication, preservation, copyright, policy and strategic issues, user interface and others.

Digital libraries have attracted almost all the developed and developing countries due to its multifaceted features and the opportunities it extend to the information providers and information seekers. It offers new levels of access to broader audiences of users and new opportunities for library and information science field to advance both theory and practice. Creating effective digital libraries and providing cutting edge digital information services poses serious challenges for existing and future technologies. It includes collection building, infrastructure, acceptability, access restrictions, readability, standardization, authentication, preservation, copyright, policy and strategic issues, user interface and others.

The development and sharing of digital library collections using the freely available software like greenstone or DSpace will also make the Digital Library as a platform to provide the digital collections.  Like a Greenstone, it is a suite of software for building and distributing digital library collections, provides a new way of organizing information and publishing it on the Internet or on CD-ROM. Produced by the New Zealand Digital Library Project at the University of Waikato, and developed and distributed in cooperation with UNESCO and the Human Info NGO, it integrates functions such as metadata, full text search and retrieval, multilingual support, support for multiple document formats and administration. 

The other activities that managed by Digital Library is Search services that required for efficiently and effectively finding relevant content in the content collection. There are two approaches for supporting search in Digital Libraries, which may also be combined with each other, On the one hand, methods of information and multimedia retrieval and on the other hand metadata-based search.

Information and multimedia retrieval is a search approach which is based on a direct analysis of the content objects of a Digital Library. For efficient information retrieval, retrieval indices are automatically built and updated. A second method of information access is the use of metadata for retrieving relevant content objects. Metadata is data about data, or more precisely in the Digital Library context. Metadata form an additional information layer on top of the content objects, which are managed by a Digital Library, and can be used in retrieving interesting information, in selecting relevant content objects from a search result list.

Digital libraries also enable the creation of local content, strengthen the mechanisms and capacity of the library’s information systems and services. It increase the portability, efficiency of access, flexibility, availability and preservation of content. Digital Libraries also can help move the nation towards realizing the enormously powerful vision of ‘anytime, anywhere’ access to the best and the latest of human thought and culture. Digital library brings the library to the user, overcoming all barriers.

EnTRy 8 : Discuss on how Open Source Integrated Library Systems affect library functions and librarian roles

Before this I already explain about what is integrated Library System (ILS) and the uses of it, it needs to understand to make sure that the operation of library are in the right track. From that integrated system, now people talk much about the open source. First thought we heard about the open source surely the freely service or system provided by the internet user worldwide. Generically, open source refers to a program in which the source code is available to the general public for use or modification from its original design free of charge. Open source code is typically created as a collaborative effort in which programmers improve upon the code and share the changes within the community. Open source sprouted in the technological community as a response to proprietary software owned by corporations. But while open source software may be free, a developer may charge for services, including custom programming, installation, training, technical support, and hosting services for those who do not want to implement and maintain the software in- house. Some distributors of open source software are for-profit organizations and may charge prices for their services comparable to those charged by proprietary software vendors.

Integrated Library system management refers to the overall operation to become competencies such as knowledge, know-how, skills and attitudes,  necessary to create, store, analyze, organize, retrieve and disseminate digital information (text, images, sounds) in digital libraries or any type of information.

Now with the ILS are widely used in the library as their system support, librarian surely find the service or to reduce the cost of operation. So it is suitable for collaborative development.

Collaboratively developed computer programs are known as free software or open source software (OSS). Librarians and programmers have worked together to produce several open source ILSs. Users and developers are free to share and change open source programs, a practice similar to sharing recipes. Open source licenses ensure that OSS and its derivatives may be freely viewed, used, copied, modified, and redistributed. Examples of well-known OSS include the Mozilla Web browser, Apache Web server, and Linux operating system.

To make sure that library are successful in the ILS uses, it need the specialist staff in the library  as a technical staff for maintain and make sure that all the system involves in ILS are working well. These staff requirements are hard to find but are necessary to fulfill that position.  But in the same time the other staff also need to understand the function and how to use the system basically because when the library start using ILS, all the operation are totally changes. The librarian need to understand the system function to make sure that when patron ask about that, the can answer it as a reference.

By exiting the open source now days, some open source is covering the task or job for the library for example like DSPace, greenstone which help library to organize, restoring, managing their data and information. By using and integrating this technology open source it will reduce task that library needs to develop but just using the open source approach existing. At this point, by existing many of open source in market todays it not kill or overtook the librarian role or library function but it will make many patrons, researcher or information seeking people come to the library for asking their service because the open source are developed for the library so that they will sure take the librarian as their reference to understand and knows the service better.