The main purpose of this study was to investigate the perceived usefulness and suitability of the Library of Congress Classification (LCC) Subclass KBP for Islamic Law (IL). The study was done by examining the traditional and modern approaches to IL, investigating LCC Subclass BP treatment and in-house expansions for IL, and providing a brief description for the newly developed Subclass KBP and its treatment for IL. Qualitative techniques including analysis of the literature, OPAC search, and personal interviews were used in collecting the data necessary to answer the seven research questions of the study. The population of the study consisted mainly of 30 cataloguers and head of cataloguing departments (HOCDs) from ten university libraries located in Jordan, Malaysia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Eight subject experts in IL were also selected on purposive basis from three universities located in the three countries. Ten end users (students) from the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) were also interviewed. Resources analysis and interpretation indicated that Islamic legal schools laid down the foundation for a systematic subject-based classification for IL (traditional approach). Modern Muslim legal scholars build on this approach and called for classifying IL on new basis. Muslim information scientists contributed in the classification of IL by adapting, expanding, and developing special schemes for IL. Analysis of Subclass BP for Islam showed that IL was inadequately treated. As a result, libraries applied different in-house expansions. Analysis of Subclass KBP indicated that the new schedule provides better treatment for IL than Subclass BP. In its online format, the new Subclass covers large amount of IL topics, incorporates common law topics in Furū‘ al-Fiqh, which is the largest section of the schedule, uses helpful searching and browsing techniques, and provides special functions and hotlinks to primary and secondary tables. However, the schedule partially respects the traditional approach to IL, especially in the internal arrangement of Furū‘ al-Fiqh. As for the perceived usefulness of Subclass KBP, results showed that respondents viewed KBP as partially useful for IL. Fourteen (50%) aspects of usefulness out of twenty-eight were perceived as useful, twelve (43.7%) as not useful, and two (7%) as inconclusive/undetermined. Furthermore, respondents identified thirteen strengths and eleven weaknesses for Subclass KBP. Finally, respondents supported the opinion that Subclass KBP is suitable for the classification of IL, although there was a tendency towards applying the schedule with some in-house modifications. Majority of the respondents disagreed with using Subclass BP or currently used in-house applications instead of Subclass KBP. Furthermore, the idea of developing a Subclass KBP substitute was not supported by respondents. Thus, it was concluded that although cataloguers perceived Subclass KBP as partially useful, they confirmed its suitability for the classification of IL. Additional recommendations for the Library of Congress (LC) and other libraries were provided. Implications for further research were also proposed.

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In today information society, users expect services that allow them to retrieve information by subject. Their main concern is to obtain access to the sources and to make use of them, regardless of the different institutions involved. This could be achieved with the establishment of a central repository for digital cultural heritage information. The establishment of the repository allow users to search and retrieve information from one dedicated source. The development of a central repository for local cultural heritage information would enhance global community’s understanding about the nation’s culture and become a reference point for the world to access information and knowledge about the country. The establishment of the central repository requires full cooperation and collaboration between the different types of cultural institutions. In Malaysia, such central repository for digital cultural heritage information is not yet available or be in existence. Thus, this study attempts to explore the current state of digitisation initiatives in Malaysia and to investigate the feasibility of establishing a national digital cultural heritage repository (NDCHR) in Malaysia. The major concern of this study is to identify the factors that contribute towards the establishment of the repository. There are two phases involved in this study. In the first phase, an exploratory survey was conducted to examine the current state of cultural heritage information digitisation initiatives by cultural institutions in Malaysia. Sixty public cultural institutions as listed in the Ministry of Cultural, Art and Heritage directory involved in this phase. The second phase of this study intends to identify the needs to establish a national digital central repository for cultural heritage information and factors that contribute towards the establishment of the repository. For this purpose, the study employed the Delphi technique to elicit the experts’ opinions with regards to the subject matter. Finally, based on the conclusive outcomes of the experts’ deliberations, the study attempts to construct and propose a workable model for the establishment of a national digital cultural heritage repository centre for the nation.

This study was undertaken with the purpose to unfold and understand individual intranet utilization and their corresponding determinants and impacts. The conduct of this study was using multiple-case design approach involving mixed methods i.e. qualitative and quantitative approach. Four organizations were involved in the study namely Malaysia Airport, Telekom Malaysia, Tenaga Nasional and Petroliam Nasional. Preliminary studies involving interviews, observation and review of materials (i.e. the intranet itself) were undertaken to understand the phenomenon of intranet utilization, followed by a survey with the purpose of validating the developed theoretical model and testing the formulated hypotheses. Three groups of determinants i.e. organizational characteristics, intranet characteristics and individual characteristics were hypothesized to be significantly related with intranet utilization measured in terms of utilization modes, utilization for decision support and utilization for knowledge sharing. Four organizational characteristics were investigated being top management support, technical user support, functional integration and subjective norm. Four intranet characteristics were examined being task-fit, information quality, systems quality and service quality. Four individual characteristics were explored being web efficacy, personal IT innovativeness, intranet experiences and length of service. In addition, the three intranet utilization constructs i.e. utilization modes, utilization for decision support and utilization for knowledge sharing were hypothesized to be significantly related with individual performance measured in terms of task productivity, task innovation and personal sense of accomplishment. Based on the analysis of 359 responses collected using stratified random sampling, it was discovered that all the conceptualized determinants were indeed significantly related with intranet utilization. Likewise, the three conceptualized intranet utilization variables were also found to be significantly related with individual performance. Upon further analyses unveiled that except for top management support, length of service and intranet experiences, all other variables from the three groups of determinants were strong predictors of intranet utilization. The major contribution of the study can be assessed from three perspectives i.e. theoretical, methodological and practical. From the theoretical viewpoint, it has developed an empirical-based framework that represents the phenomenon of intranet utilization and its corresponding determinants and impacts in the context of Malaysian users. From the methodological viewpoint, it has developed instruments which can be further tested in other research settings. From the practical viewpoint, the developed instrument can be utilized to evaluate individual utilization behaviors as well as their determinants and impacts. Despite its success in achieving its objectives, this study is subjects to several limitations being the number of variables investigated, chosen respondents and the perceptual measures. Future research should consider investigating other variable such as cultural and extend the coverage of respondents beyond the executive levels to include the support staffs as well. Alternative to perceptual measures, objective measures such as using log-analysis would definitely offer interesting findings.

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The problem-based learning (PBL) environment enables learners to learn from a real world problem, which incorporates uncertainty to provoke real learning. Students must possess high level of communication skills, ability to identify and define problems, seeking and evaluating information and use it effectively, which are embraced under the broad term of information (IL) skills. The purpose of this research was twofold: 1) To study the impact of IL skills training on uncertainty reduction, learning performance, and academic self-efficacy (ASE). 2) To examine the relationship among these variables. 78 students (2008 FALL Semester of American Degree Programme at Taylor’s University College, Malaysia) participated in this study. Solomon Four-group quasi experimental design was utilized in this study. The independent variables consist of information literacy (IL) skills training and pretest. The dependent variables consist of uncertainty, learning performance, and “ASE”. ASE was measured in a questionnaire adapted from Klobas. Uncertainty was measured in a (30-item) self-reporting questionnaire. Learning performance consists of 3 components: 1) Learning satisfaction, measured in a self-reporting, questionnaire adapted from Davis (10 items), 2) “Attitude of Learning” was evaluated throughout problem-based learning process, and 3) “learning scores” was obtained from test marks and assessment of the report submitted. Results from T-test, factorial ANOVA, One-way ANOVA and ANCOVA showed that IL skills training has an impact on the uncertainty reduction, improvement of “ASE”, and learning performance. Pearson’s correlation analysis revealed that there was a significant correlation among these variables. This research contributes to the field of higher education and information literacy which suggested that by integrating information literacy skills training with the collaboration from library staff and educator will empower students in exploring and maximising their potential in deep learning, hence it enhances knowledge acquisition in a problem-based learning (PBL) environment.

This study was undertaken with the purpose to unfold and understand the relationship between e-learning usability attributes and motivation to learn. The conduct of this study was using quantitative approach. The largest distance learning provider in Malaysia namely Open University Malaysia was selected in the study. Preliminary studies involving interviews, observation and review of materials (the LMS itself) were undertaken to understand the phenomenon of motivation to learn in an e-learning environment, followed by a survey with the purpose of validating the developed theoretical model and testing the formulated hypotheses. Three groups of predictor namely technical usability, pedagogical usability and universal usability were hypothesised to be significantly related with motivation to learn. Five technical usability attributes were investigated being accessibility, consistency, ability to learn, navigation and visual design. Seven pedagogical usability attributes were examined being content and resources, interactivity, instructional assessment, instructional feedback, learners’ guidance and support, learning strategies design and multimedia use. Three universal usability attributes were explored being gap in learners’ knowledge, learner diversity and technology variety. Based on the analysis of 664 responses collected using stratified random sampling, it was discovered that all the conceptualized predictors, namely the e-learning usability attributes were indeed significantly related with motivation to learn. The major contribution of the study can be assessed from three perspectives, i.e. theoretical, methodological and practical. From the theoretical viewpoint, it has developed an empirical-based framework that represents the phenomenon of motivation to learn, its corresponding predictors and impacts in the context of Malaysia e-learning environment. From the methodological viewpoint, this research has developed instrument which can be further tested in other research settings. From the practical viewpoint, the developed instrument can be utilized to evaluate learner motivation to learn behaviour as well as their predictors and impacts. Despite its success in achieving its objectives, this study is subjects to several limitations being the number of variables investigated, chosen respondents and the perceptual measures. Future research should consider investigating other variable such as cultural and extend the coverage of respondents beyond the learners level to include the academic staffs as well.

This study investigated the information seeking behaviour of school teachers in rural areas of selected states in Nigeria, a developing country in Africa. The main objectives of the study were to identify the information seeking behaviour of school teachers in rural areas of Nigeria and propose a new model of information seeking behaviour. The study has addressed the questions (i) the information seeking behaviour of school teachers (how they locate and use relevant information for their teaching and leaning), (ii) relationship between demographic factors and information use and seeking pattern of school teachers. Various sources of information utilised by school teachers as well as barriers to information seeking affecting the school teachers were identified and discussed (iii) whether the existing models of information seeking could be applicable, suitable and expandable to study the school teachers’ information seeking behaviour. The data was collected using cross-sectional survey design for both quantitative and qualitative data. Stratified sampling with proportionate and random selection was applied to sample the target school teachers in the selected states of Nigeria. The study employed a researcher-developed questionnaire and interview guide using the weaknesses of the existing ISB models and literatures from previous studies. It was preliminarily tested with 84 school teachers, validated by 15 content experts from 7 countries. Findings from the study showed that the information seeking behaviour of school teachers were found to be similar with other respondents else where. However, in this research the findings further showed that the respondents used varieties of ICT to search for information, though they are lacking competent skills. The findings revealed that respondents used the internet and other electronic resources but they hold printed resources as the most preferred resources for their activities. The study also showed that school teachers in rural areas of Nigeria experienced four barriers during the process of information seeking activities which are: environmental, educational, technological and economic/political barriers. The findings of the study revealed that demographic factors of school teachers were found to have significant relationship with library use, information seeking pattern, information use pattern and ICT use. Finally, the research found that, the existing models of information seeking such as Ellis (1989), Kulthau (1994), Wilson (1999), Johnson (1997), Leckie et al (1996), Krikelas (1983) and Al-suqri (2007), might be applicable, suitable and expandable to the study of information seeking behaviour. However, they might not be sufficient enough to be fully utilized in understanding the information seeking behaviour of school teachers, especially in rural areas of Nigeria. In this regards, some modifications, amendments, refinements, and incorporation of other elements have to be made in order to suit the information seeking process of school teachers particularly in rural areas of Nigeria. The study therefore, proposed a new model of information seeking behaviour i.e. circular model framework for school teacher’s information seeking behaviour. Recommendations were made to school and library management, government and educational agencies, school teachers and future research.

The influence of complex business environment has resulted in a continuous and increasing pressure for SMEs to adapt and change. Success in adaptation and change will come if they are able to match the threats and opportunities by understanding the business environment, and the key area of concern is environmental scanning. A review of the literatures has suggested a widening gap between the environmental scanning practices of small and large companies. SMEs are crucial in Malaysia’s economy and the development and progress of SMEs are growingly important. However, little is known about the environmental scanning activities of Malaysia SMEs particularly the E50 SMEs. The study investigates the extent of environmental scanning practice, the factors related to information sources that E50 SMEs utilized for environmental scanning and the effects of organizational and owner/ manager characteristics on environmental scanning practice of E50 SMEs.. The study employed the survey method. A total of 102 questionnaires were collected. Analysis of data found that E50 SMEs most frequently scanned the business environment using human/ oral information sources for customer information followed by scanning the technological sector. It was revealed that the main predictor of environmental scanning practice of E50 SMEs to be the resources for environmental scanning from the organizational characteristics factors and the study substantiates the hypothesis of the combined effects of the owner/ manager characteristics and organizational characteristics on the environmental scanning practice. The findings of the study provides an environmental scanning practice of E50 SMEs that can be emulated by SMEs in Malaysia to acquire meaningful signals from the environment that replaces gaining experience as a principal guide to the future. The findings of the study provides a basis for helping to identify owner/ manager requirements and necessary training programs to overcome environmental scanning barriers with respect to the utilization of information sources.

Knowledge sharing is essential in the implementation of any knowledge management initiative. The real sharing required is between the employees and their co-workers. The actual success depends on individuals’ willingness to encourage and share their organisational knowledge through internal organisational social exchanges. The process requires the element of reciprocal arrangement and trust. It requires intra-team trust and intra-team relational bonds, leadership and also intercultural training that foster regular and frequent mutual cross-cultural exchange of ideas. The real advantage of knowledge management initiatives can be realised by truly empowering the employees. The study attempted to elicit enlightenment on the relationship and state of the knowledge sharing practices among the researchers and officers of the National Institutes of Health Malaysia (NIH). How they perceived the planned changes would lead to the improvement in the governance and organisational structure of the NIH. What are the possible driving forces capable of inspiring members of the NIH to embrace the culture of knowledge sharing. This study employed survey research method to obtain the perception of the researchers and officers of the NIH with regards to knowledge sharing practices. The questionnaire was distributed to 400 respondents from the six research institutes under NIH, namely Institute for Medical Research (IMR), Institute for Public Health (IPH), Network for Clinical Research Centres (CRC), Institute for Health Management (IHM), Institute for Health Systems Research (IHSR) and Institute for Health Promotion (IHP). Data from the survey was systematically arranged, tabulated and analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The strength and relationship between the variables were examined using Pearson ‘r’ correlation coefficient to answer and test the research questions and hypotheses. Factor analysis was used as the exploratory technique to reduce and define factors influencing knowledge sharing practices in the NIH. The procedure was employed to confirm the six elements in the top management support and commitment factor, the six elements of the environment and infrastructure factor, and the four elements in the culture of knowledge sharing factor. The responses seem to indicate in essence, the arguments with regards to knowledge sharing always hinge within the context of encouraging and rewarding the practices of organisational knowledge sharing. The findings suggest four factors namely Environment and Infrastructure, Management Support, Culture and Technology as significant determinants in influencing the organisational knowledge sharing practices among the employees. Nonetheless, the study only deliberates the perceptual aspect of the issue from the individuals’ opinion and sentiment.

The main purpose of this study is to add to the body of knowledge on the Resourcebased View (RBV) of public organisation‘s information technology management by developing and testing the causal relationship model. The underlying theory was grounded in the RBV of the organisation. In order to have better understanding in public organisation behaviour, an exploratory study was conducted, which interviewed academicians and managers. A research model was then developed based on the findings of the exploratory study and an extensive review of previous literatures. By using the structural equation model (SEM), the proposed model was tested on a sample of 118 Malaysian public agencies. The causal relationship between organisational, information technology (IT) capability and IT effects of organisational performance was examined, in the context of the Excellence Model of organisational Performance-based approach, based on viewing the concept of strategic resources from the RBV and the concept of complementary resources from Complementarity Theory. Initially, the three sets of independent models were tested for their impacts and then found that the organisational and IT capability were both empirically good models, respectively. The study incorporated the three independent models into a causal model and the findings showed that the model had a good fit. Subsequently, it was also shown that IT capability partially mediated the relationship between organisational capability and organisation performance. Theoretically, this study integrated multiple disciplines, besides the underlying theory of RBV, to provide a comprehensive view of the success of IT transformation in public organisation. This study also provides public managers with strategic thinking on mobilisation of organisational and IT capabilities in becoming successful.

Assessing learners’ answer is a time consuming task that makes teachers or educators cut down the time they can devote to other important tasks. In fact, many academic examinations make heavy use of questions that require learners to write one or two sentences and which are worth for some amount of marks. These short answer questions are highly valued and integral to the examinations but have been absent from computer-based assessment due to limitations in computerized marking technology. This thesis presents an assessment technique to assess learners’ understanding for short free-text answer based on a hybrid approach with a combination of natural language processing, node-link representation and excess entropy. A textual answer of learner and expert are tagged according to its part of speech and only noun, verb, adverb, and adjective terms will be extracted. Each expert term is assigned to synonym terms before any comparison of a learner’s term is performed. Later, the knowledge model for both expert and learners’ are generated by converting the terms into a node link representation to uncover the hidden knowledge structure. By applying an information theory approach that is excess entropy, the generated knowledge models of an expert and learner are analyzed and results are in bits unit. Testing materials are obtained from 4 different domains that is computer science, medical, engineering, and science and also being categorized into 2 categories that are school and tertiary. Bloom taxonomy is used in categorizing the competency level test for each testing material. Pearson correlation, exact agreement and exactplus- adjacent agreement are used as an evaluation method. Results show computer science, and medical domain of tertiary level has achieved an excellent agreement of between 81% and 87%. And science domain of school level has achieved a fair to good agreement of between 48% and 66%. Experiment also shows that NL Scoring able to assess knowledge, understanding, and evaluation competency test for both tertiary and school level. Benchmarking NL Scoring with other baseline method such as vector space model, and latent semantic analysis has showed that NL Scoring performed better than them. Research hypotheses have indicated that proposed approaches is domain-independent, workable for sentence length of at least 3 words for both tertiary and school level, and has achieved a comparable result to other existing technique concerning short answer text assessment.

This study investigates the knowledge management (KM) readiness of the Sri Lankan telecommunication industry and the factors that contribute to KM Readiness. As the scope of the KM is very wide, this study was confined only to the knowledge creation and sharing processes of KM. Data were collected from 313 executives of seven companies in the Sri Lankan Telecommunication Industry using self administered questionnaires. This study considered KM enablers, such as organisational culture, structure, and IT infrastructure, and individual acceptance factors, such as performance expectancy and effort expectancy of KM, as the contributing factors to the KM readiness. The study found that the executives in the Sri Lankan telecommunication industry are ready for knowledge creation and sharing. In addition, all KM enablers and factors of individual acceptance except informal organisational structure were significantly and positively correlated with KM readiness. There were five significant predictors of KM readiness; three KM enablers and two individual acceptance factors; namely ‘trust & collaboration’, ‘IT support’, ‘ICT use & support for search and sharing’, ‘performance expectancy of KM’, and ‘effort expectancy of KM’. Furthermore, the study found that gender moderates the relationship between ‘IT support’, ‘ICT use & support for search and sharing’, ‘performance expectancy of KM’ and KM readiness. Age moderates the relationship between ‘IT support’ and KM readiness. In terms of theoretical contribution, the study integrates both KM and information systems (IS) perspectives to develop a theoretical model that explores the concept of KM readiness. From the practical contribution perspective, managers in the knowledge intensive organisations in Sri Lanka could use the measures to evaluate the KM readiness of their respective organisations before embarking on the implementation of KM processes.

E-procurement in public administration is not an old phenomenon. Although its existence is just recent, two focal issues are significant to be investigated. First is the proven realization of its forecasted success. Second is the factors that influence the use that leads to the success. Therefore, the study was conducted to address the issues. Using the Malaysian public e-procurement system, known as ePerolehan as the context of the research, the use of the system was hypothesized to be significantly related with success measured as transparency, relationship development, service performance, information quality, process efficiency, cost efficiency and user satisfaction. Likewise, individual, organizational, environmental and technological factors were posited to influence the use of the ePerolehan system. The individual factors examined were user information system skills and knowledge, training and attitude. On the other hand, the organizational factors investigated were top management emphasis, organizational learning and facilitating condition. As for the environmental factors, the examined determinants were policy compliance, supplier expectation and mimetic pressure. Finally, the technological factors were information technology infrastructure, information technology risk and control and system compatibility. Besides, the mediating effect of dynamic capability on the relationship between organizational factors and use was also examined. The study was primarily conducted as a survey design among federal government agencies in Malaysia. Based on the analyses of 244 respondents, the findings suggest the use of the public e-procurement system has significant and positive influence to posited success. Moreover, the findings indicate significant relationships exist between individual factor, organizational factor, environmental factor, technological factor and e-procurement system use. In addition, there are also evidences of dynamic capability as a mediator to the organizational factor and system use relationship. Further analyses unveiled the significant success factors of the Malaysian public e-procurement system use, based on the level of strength are system compatibility, user attitude, organizational learning, IT infrastructure and supplier expectation. Therefore, it suggests for linkages between individual, organizational, environment and technological factors, and public e-procurement system use, at the organizational level. Such findings are imperative in providing evidences for a relationship between individual characteristics and system use for the organizations, which have not been proven before. The major theoretical contributions of the study include extending the previous literature on the success of information systems usage, verifying the linkage between individual factor and system use and validating the stability of organizational, environmental and technological factors in information system use by an organizational study. From the practical viewpoint, the findings have provided evidences for the Malaysian government e-procurement system success achievement. However, the study is subject to several limitations mainly on the success which should not be interpreted as an absolute procurement achievement since the responses gathered only from the buyer perspective. Hence, future efforts should be placed on examining the success from various contexts.

It is estimated that about 2000 deaf children are born each year in Malaysia. Most deaf Malaysian children have very poor speech intelligibility. Reduced intelligibility severely compromises communication and social interaction for affected individuals. Although speech deficiencies in the deaf are quite difficult to overcome, learning to produce intelligible speech is not an impossible task. Studies have shown that deaf children receiving Cued Speech can acquire reasonable speech intelligibility, surpassing the majority of signing children in verbal language skills. A reliable measure of speech intelligibility for deaf children is required for several reasons: to provide an index of the severity of speech disorder, to assist in treatment decisions, and to quantify changes which may result from intervention or treatment. This thesis investigates the approach to measure speech intelligibility of deaf Malaysian children. The research discussed in this work starts with the experiments on a practical Malay Speech Intelligibility Test (MSIT), suitable for use within deaf Malaysian children training programme. In this study, speech intelligibility of deaf children is measured through the ability to say simple nonsense syllables (consisting of a consonant and a vowel) for all 22 Malay consonants. The MSIT score should indicate how well these children can produce speech; the higher the score, the better their speech intelligibility. The next course of action was to investigate phoneme recognition system that will suit MSIT. Artificial neural network was utilized to effectively model the distribution of feature vectors present in speech signals for classification. A novel approach using speech spectrum image becomes the inputs to a three-layer MLP (Multi-layer Perceptron) neural network. The input feature sets for the intelligent phoneme identification were based on the intrinsic characteristics of Malay syllables shown in the captured speech signal spectrum image. The spectrum images were produced from widely used speech filter algorithm; Mel-frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC), Perceptual Linear Prediction (PLP) and Relative Spectral Transform - Perceptual Linear Prediction (RASTA-PLP). The classifiers have been tested for twenty-two Malay phonemes utterances from two males and two females’ children speaker. The performance of the system for recognition of Malay phonemes is measured and compared with the performance of human listener. The successful development of the phoneme recognition system serves several purposes: (a) it will be one of the first methods employed to objectively measure speech intelligibility of deaf Malaysian children, and (b) it will contribute to better assessment and management of intervention programme for deaf Malaysian children.

Previous strategic information systems planning (SISP) studies have highlighted that an ideal SISP practice should emphasise on organisational learning (OL) in their SISP approach. Surprisingly, studies focusing on the extent of OL and its contextual factors are lacking. This study aims to develop and validate a model for assessing SISP performance in the Malaysian public sector from OL perspective. For this purpose, an SISP performance model was developed based on the absorptive capacity theory where SISP is viewed as a learning process instead of planning process. The theoretical assumption is that the quality of SISP contextual factors will influence the extent of SISP learning which eventually will influence the SISP success. The contextual factors are SISP climate, consultant expertise and CIO capability. Meanwhile, the SISP learning factors comprise of shared ICT/business knowledge and SISP process effectiveness with SISP success as the SISP performance measurement. 706 questionnaires were sent to 234 selected government agencies in Malaysia. Only 27% of the government officers responded to the questionnaire meets the criteria of this study. The descriptive analyses were conducted by using SPSS to obtain the demographic profiles and the validity of the measurements. Subsequent confirmation on the measurements and structural validity were done by adopting the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analyses using AMOS. The results of this study demonstrated that the hypothesised SISP performance model adequately fits the sample data which assumed the model is acceptable. Generally, the findings of this study indicated that higher level of SISP climate, consultant expertise and CIO capability positively influence the extent of SISP learning factors and later influence the SISP success. In determining the SISP success, this study revealed that it is crucial for the Malaysian government agencies to identify appropriate SISP team members based on their knowledge, skill and attitude to promote conducive SISP learning climate for effective SISP decision making.

This research investigated the Quality of the Undergraduate Curriculum of Library and Information Science Departments in Nigerian Universities. The curriculum is considered as a backbone to the training of LIS professionals in the country, particularly, in this rapidly changing LIS environment. The main objectives of the research were to determine whether the contents of the undergraduate programmes offered by library schools in Nigeria were of international standards; to determine the extent of commitment by the library schools in conducting curriculum review; and to propose a model curriculum for undergraduate programmes for library schools in Nigeria. As a result, the rate of compliance of the curricula with the requirements of the international standards, the views of the faculty members, the views of the employers/stakeholders, as well the curricular documents of the LIS schools were all investigated. In addition, the factors that hindered the quality of the curriculum were also investigated. To accomplish the research objectives, mixed methods research were employed. The respondents to the study were the heads of the nine (9) LIS schools, the faculty members in those schools, and the employers of the LIS graduates. Their views were sought through qualitative and quantitative techniques that included: 68 self-administered questionnaires to the academic staff; another 9 self-administered questionnaires to the heads of the LIS schools; and 30 face-to-face in-depth-interviews with the employers of the LIS graduates in different types of libraries. These were further complemented by content analysis of the curricular documents of the LIS schools involved in the study with the aim of gaining further insights into the curricular issues in the LIS schools. The results of the study indicate that there were more core than elective courses in the curricula of the LIS schools studied. Undergraduate curricula remained strong in traditional areas of the field, like cataloguing, classification, indexing and abstracting services, as well as reference and information services. The study found that nearly all the LIS schools studied have a curriculum review committee with academic staff as members. As well, the undergraduate curricula were found to be in compliance with the local standards: the NUC MAS, and at the same time had closely complied with the IFLA, ALA, and ALIA standards/guidelines, although with deficiencies in certain areas. The research equally found that all the LIS schools surveyed were lacking in ICT subjects in their undergraduate curricula; while resources and facilities for curricular implementation were also inadequate. Furthermore, many departments changed their names from Library Science to Library and Information Sciences; and the curricula of some of the LIS schools contained some new and modern courses such as, Financial Management Skills, Economics/Politics of Information, Change Management, Internet Search Skills, as well as Entrepreneurship in LIS, but were not adequate. Additionally, the research found that whilst the faculty expressed satisfaction with their school’s undergraduate curricula; the employers’ of LIS graduates expressed dissatisfaction with the undergraduate curricula used in training the students. With regard to the participation of employers in curriculum development and review exercises in the LIS schools, the study found that the employers were neither involved nor consulted during such exercises. Recommendations were made based on the findings of the study. Additionally, a new curricular content for undergraduate LIS education was proposed.

As Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO) grows in complexity, there is a call for effective management of ITO relationship to reduce risks. This study integrates theoretical concepts from resources based view and social exchange theory with existing research on ITO to understand the process of ITO decisions and implementations in five Malaysian public healthcare sector agencies, particularly the problems, difficulties, critical factors and relationship management, to develop a conceptual model for understanding the complex relationship. Malaysia public healthcare sector involves complex organisations and managing ITO in this environment is challenging especially for public sector staff. Moreover, inconsistent findings raise confusion and doubt, leaving public managers uncertain about ITO directions and researchers unclear about theoretical perspectives relevant to ITO. This study, therefore, presents an interpretive empirical multiple case studies of the ITO relationship experience in Malaysian public health sector agencies. Qualitative method design for the study includes: (1) a single pilot exploratory case study and (2) a multiple case study of four agencies. The rich evidence obtained is also used to build a grounded theory and explanations for the phenomenon. Moreover, using GT, the study develops an ITO relationship model for better practices in the management of ITO relationship. The main findings from the study are: i) the case agencies adopted ITO for various reasons including technological, economic and business benefits, particularly access to external superior resources competences and capabilities and inadequate competent and capable staff in the agencies and IT division. The agencies can channel limited internal resources to focus on core businesses of healthcare functions and services. Public sector has limited skills competences and capabilities in complex and latest technologies; ii) Public sector is well known for its structured hierarchical organisation involving inter and intra ministries and divisions. In the ITO process, proper committees were formed to evaluate on and manage ITO decisions and implementations. Selective ITO is common in public sector. Service providers were only involved in non-strategic areas such as IT infrastructure and systems development; iii) This study finds that most difficulties and challenges in ITO were due to human factors and IT technical aspects did not cause major problems. Inter and intra relationship management is crucial in those cases. Thus, project management competence and capability is required by both service provider and receiver; iv) For an ITO relationship model, the study summarises ITO strategy, due diligence, structure, stakeholders, contracts/SLAs, governance, resources competences and capabilities, working relationship context, project management and knowledge management as the critical elements in ITO relationship efficacious process. These factors must be given due consideration by service receivers prior to entering any ITO arrangement.

Although, stemming improves the effectiveness of information retrieval of language, it has some limitations and shortcomings. Among the main problems are that it can reduce unrelated words to the same stem as well as fall short to reduce related words to a common stem. In addition, most stemmers such as light stemming are of heuristic effort, falling short of full understanding of the morphology of the language. This lays the ground for more research works on search engines which use stemming in order to develop the most effective one for Arabic IR, such as Addaall. This research investigated the retrieval performance of Addaall stemmer. Addaall is a web based Arabic search engine that uses a morphological analyzer and generator to construct different indices based on both root and stem of a word. It evaluates the Addaall prefixes and suffixes removal search (PSRS) and root search (RS) for retrieving Arabic news documents in semi-laboratory setting. The theoretical assumption is that semantic linguistic search can improve recall and precision for both root and stem searches in semi-laboratory environment setting. The research conducted a comparison between PSRS, RS and exact search (ES) as well as explored the main obstacles attributed to indexing and retrieval of Arabic information using different types of index strategies, stem and roots. Queries were constructed from Al-Jazeera news from 2002-2007 and submitted to the two main searches; Addaall and AlJazeera search engine. The retrieved documents were judged relevant if they contain correct and meaningful search term with no ambiguity. Strata and random sampling were carried out in order to run statistical significance testing. The findings of this research demonstrated that PSRS precision rate was significantly higher than those of ES and RS. The RS recall rate was significantly higher than ES and PSRS recall rate. Additionally, this research indicated that Addaall stemmer had improved both recall and precision compared to non-stemming. This is due to Addaall use of linguistic semantic search in its morphological analysis at different levels. On the other hand, the causes for failure were related to root, stemming, Arabic diacritics and indexing. Hence, the significance of this research is underscoring the need for constant research on these factors in order to propose the proper strategies and solutions. Generally, the findings of this research indicated that using web collection in semi-laboratory environment showed that removing prefixes and suffixes without trying to remove the infixes or finding the root enhanced recall and precision values.