Constructivism & Deconstruction in Electronic Resource Evaluation

1. Constructivism & Deconstruction in Electronic Resource Evaluation OLA SuperConference 31 January 2014 Charlotte Innerd & Matt Thomas

2. Agenda • Introduction - Charlotte • Definitions - Matt • Constructivism - Matt • Deconstruction - Charlotte • Complementary – Matt & Charlotte • Conclusion – Matt & Charlotte

3. Introduction "Moreover as purveyors of culture, libraries are instrumental in forming the ideology of the community.  The community's ideology, in part formed by the library, is the source from which the alleged values are drawn." (p299)

4. Definitions

5. Evaluation

6. Evaluation “Determination of Value”

7. Value

8. Value “Quantity or measurement”

9. Value “Principle or standard of behaviour”

10. Value “Desirable property”

11. Others?

12. Constructivism

13. Epistemological or Educational Constructivism

14. Cognitive Constructivism Social Constructivism Constructionism (or Linguistic Constructivism)

15. “Learning is an active process of constructing rather than acquiring knowledge.”

16. “Evaluation is an active process of constructing rather than acquiring (or simply measuring) value.”

17. Epistemological Foundationalism “theories of justification which require a distinction, among justified beliefs, between those which are basic and those which are derived, and a conception of justification as one-directional, i.e., as requiring basic to support derived beliefs, never vice versa.” From Susan Haack’s 1993 book “Evidence and inquiry : towards reconstruction in epistemology”.

18. Evaluative Constructivism “Evaluation is an active process of constructing value rather than ‘acquiring’ it, resulting in hierarchy of values, some being derived from others.”

19. Deconstruction “The object of deconstruction is to highlight the unacknowledged assumptions that govern descriptions of reality and denaturalize them.” (p86)

20. Other "She argued that the "universal" is taken to be the "white, ethnically European, bourgeois, Christian, heterosexual, able-bodied male (WEBCHAM) presence" from which all else is deviation (Olson 2001a 4)." (p83)

21. Purveyors of Culture "Moreover as purveyors of culture, libraries are instrumental in forming the ideology of the community.  The community's ideology, in part formed by the library, is the source from which the alleged values are drawn." (p299)

22. Constructivism and Deconstruction are complementary.

23. Cyclically & Simultaneously.

24. Cycles of Construction & Deconstruction

25. From “Subway Construction Company Ltd. (via subwaycon.com)

26. Constructivist building of your value system and individual evaluations. Deconstructing, to identify flaws, assumptions, problems, etc. Go to (i) and REPEAT FOREVER.

27. Complementary - Charlotte

28. Conclusions…

29. “Value is constructed.”

30. “A construction needs maintenance.”

31. “Normalization is the goal.”

32. Objectivity “Normalization is the goal.”

33. Conclusion - Charlotte “Derrida's lesson for libraries is not necessarily that they can overcome this condition but rather to show how ostensibly neutral or objective practices of organizing information implicate these practices in the perpetuation of dominant discourses and to highlight the ethical responsibilities libraries have as arbiters of knowledge and meaning.” (p 86)

34. Questions? cinnerd@wlu.ca mthomas@wlu.ca

35. Selected Bibliography Bohannon, J. (2013). Who's Afraid of Peer Review? Science 342: 6154, 60-65. doi:10.1126/science.342.6154.60 Callison D. (2001). Constructivism. School Library Monthly, 18(4):35-51. Deodato, J. (2010). Deconstructing the Library with Jacques Derrida. In G. J. Leckie, L.M. Given & J.E. Buschman (eds) Critical theory for library and information science (75-88). Oxford: Libraries Unlimited. Haack S. (1993). Evidence and inquiry : towards reconstruction in epistemology. Oxford : Blackwell. Lee, D.N. (2013, October 11). Responding to No name Life Science Blog Editor who called me out of my name. Retrieved from http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/urban-scientist/2013/10/11/give-trouble-to-others-but-not-me/ Meinershagen K (Allen Press). (2012). Is that 90,000 Articles in Your Pocket? Evaluating the BioOne Mobile Site. BioOne Publishers and Partners Meeting, Friday, April 19, 2013, in Washington, DC. Millard WB. (2013). Some research wants to be free, some follows the money. Annals of Emergency Medicine, 62(2):A14-A20. Miller, R. (2008). Twelve Point Plan For Quantitative and Qualitative Evaluation of Databases. Computers In Libraries, 28(7), S2-S3. Nature’s sexism (2012). Nature 491:495. doi:10.1038/491495a Olson, H.A. (1997). The Feminist and the Emperor’s New Clothes: Feminist Deconstruction as a Critical Methodology for Library and Information Studies. Library & Information Science Research 19:2, 181-198. Olsen, H.A. & Fox, M.J. (2010). GayatriChakravortySpivak: Deconstructionst, Marxist, Feminist, Postcolonialist. In G. J. Leckie, L.M. Given & J.E. Buschman (eds) Critical theory for library and information science (295-309). Oxford: Libraries Unlimited. Stvillia B, Gasser L, Twidale MB, Smith LC. (2007). A framework for information quality assessment. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 58(12):1720-1733. Talja, S., Tuominen, K. & Savolainen, R. (2005) “Isms” in information science: constructivism, collectivism and constructionism. Journal of Documentation 61:1, 79-101.