Digital Commons Network^™

Research Support Newsletter (Winter 2026), Elizabeth D'Angel

The AC's Research Support Newsletter (Formerly AISR Connections)

Sections

• New Resources & Updates 
• Research Support & Data Management
• Grants & Funding Opportunities
• Writing & Publishing Support
• Design & Presentation Tools
• Research Integrity
• Research Workshops

Tennessee Archivist 45, No. 1, Society Of Tennessee Archivists

Tennessee Archivist newsletters

Winter 2026 issue of the Tennessee Archivist, a newsletter produced by the Society of Tennessee Archivists.

Florida Springs: From Geography To Politics And Restoration, Linh Uong

The Southeastern Librarian

Christopher F. Meindl

Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2024

ISBN: 9780813079158

245 pp. $38.00 (Hbk)

Invisible Blackness: A Louisiana Family In The Age Of Racial Passing, Tim Dodge

The Southeastern Librarian

Katy Morlas Shannon

Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2025

ISBN: 9780807183823

184 pp. $29.95 (Hbk)

Leveraging Research-Based Knowledge Translation Via Rural Libraries To Improve Maize Postharvest Practices In Uganda, Jackline Estomihi Kiwelu, Patrick Ngulube

Libraries

Background: Rural community libraries are increasingly recognised for providing localised knowledge, yet their potential to support agricultural extension services and improve access to postharvest knowledge in Uganda remains underexplored.
Objectives: This study examined the postharvest information needs of smallholder maize farmers and explored how community libraries can be leveraged to translate and repackage research-based knowledge to meet these needs.
Method: A mixed-methods parallel design was employed. Data were collected from a survey of 312 maize farmers, personal interviews and two focus group discussions (FGDs) with 22 extension workers and four librarians. Desk research was conducted to analyse relevant documents. Quantitative …

Balancing Face-To-Face And Digital Communication: The Role Of Relationship Maintenance In Dual-Earning Families, Tamara D. Afifi, America L. Edwards

Information Science Faculty Publications

This study examines how face-to-face (FtF) and computer-mediated communication (CMC) contribute to relationship maintenance and resilience in dual-earning families, a largely overlooked area in family communication research. Guided by the theory of resilience and relational load (TRRL), we test how ongoing FtF and CMC maintenance behaviors predicted well-being across a week among 62 families (i.e., two parents and one adolescent). Using a week-long daily diary and physiological measures (cortisol and IL-6 assays), we assess perceived stress, mental health, and loneliness. Findings suggest that both FtF and CMC maintenance are associated with lower stress and better well-being, with FtF showing somewhat …

Enabling Communication Resiliency In The Connected Car Environment, Antonio Guerrero-Ibáñez, Juan Contreras-Castillo, Sherali Zeadally, Een-Kee Hong

Information Science Faculty Publications

Connectivity has become integral to various application domains, with the automotive sector as a prime example. Advances in electronics, computing, and telecommunications have driven the evolution of the connected car ecosystem, transforming it into a data-rich environment that enhances road safety, efficiency, and overall mobility. However, the success of this ecosystem depends on seamless, reliable, and resilient communications. We identify key challenges that may affect communications in the connected car environment and discuss solutions that enhance resiliency and robustness. Finally, we propose a multi-layered network architecture that will enhance communication resilience in the connected car ecosystem.

Critical Connections: The University Of Tennessee And Oak Ridge From The Dawn Of The Atomic Age To The Present, Camille Mccutcheon

The Southeastern Librarian

Lee Riedinger, Al Ekkebus, Ray Smith, and William Bugg

Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2024

ISBN: 9781621906544

488 pp. $39.95 (Hbk)

Creating A Responsible Authorship Culture In Science: Anchoring Authorship Practices In Principles Of Transparency, Credit, And Accountability, Susan Wolf, Véronique Kiermer, Sofia Adams, Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Joerg Heber, Mohammad Hosseini, Ana Marušić, Beau Nielsen, Magdalena Skipper, Geeta K. Swamy, Yensi Flores Bueso

Articles

Authorship remains the primary currency of academic credit and a cornerstone of research integrity, yet current practices often fail to reflect the collaborative and interdisciplinary nature of modern science and questionable authorship practices persist. We argue that addressing these shortcomings is a collective responsibility shared by researchers, journals, research funders, scholarly societies, and research institutions. We examined authorship guidelines issued by journals and research institutions and found that their recommendations to researchers are highly variable. We propose that fostering a responsible authorship culture requires a shared, principle-based framework grounded in transparency, credit, and accountability. These three interconnected principles highlight when …

America 250 - Government And Utrgv Lrgv Resources, Raquel Estrada, Shannon Pensa

Library Display Posters

Poster highlights the 250th anniversary of the United States by featuring documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, along with curated government, library, and UTRGV Special Collections & Archives resources. The poster also connects national history to the Rio Grande Valley through significant military and political events, local historical figures, and recommended readings.

Inclusion Meets Innovation: Exploring Vr Technological Acceptance And Accessibility Barriers For People With Physical Disabilities, Andrew E. Bedard

Selected Full Text Dissertations, 2011-

The central goal of this work was to examine the usability barriers Middle School and High School students encountered while using VR during an educational learning activity. 20 Middle and High School students aged 11–21, with little or no prior VR experience, participated in a set of explanatory VR activities, after watching instructional videos. After the activity, students completed a brief survey on their ease of setting up the headset, using the controllers, and managing both devices during gameplay. This study used a mixed-methods approach, combining descriptive survey results with Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), which was ultimately framed in the …

Making The Case For Open Dental Education, Casey D. Wright, Pamela P. Smalley, Fanny Eliza Bondah, Jennifer L. Lehto, Tonia Morley, Danelle Orange, Elisabeta Karl, Royce Kimmons

Library Faculty Research and Publications

Dental education as a field and dentistry as a profession are facing significant challenges, including workforce shortages, ever-rising costs, unmet student and community needs, as well as quality of pedagogical practices. Open educational resources are learning objects that are freely accessible and are able to be retained, reused, revised, remixed, and redistributed under the philosophy of more openness and sharing. While some efforts are being made to address the aforementioned concerns, the prospects of more readily welcoming and adopting open education have not been discussed as a potential means of alleviating these barriers. Here, we expound on some of the …

A Review Of Replications Over 88 Years Of The American Speech-Language Hearing Association Journal Publications, Andrea L.B. Ford, Jessica S. Riccardi, Austin Thompson, Helen L. Long, James C. Borders, Scott R. Schroeder, Alisa Baron, Mariam El Amin, Danika L. Pfeiffer

Speech-Language Pathology Faculty Publications

Purpose: This review aimed to determine the prevalence of replication studies in the field of Communication Sciences and Disorders and examine longitudinal changes in this prevalence across American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) journals from 1936 to 2024. It is a conceptual replication of Cook and colleagues' review of replications in special education journals.

Method: Our data source comprised 17,843 journal articles published in seven ASHA peer-reviewed journals between 1936 and 2024. We identified 3,903 articles, excluding duplicates, that had at least one instance of replicat*. Two research team members screened articles independently, and then one research team member coded each article, …

“We’Re All In The Struggle Together”: The Experiences Of First-Generation Graduate Students During Covid-19, Rebecca Stallworth, Danielle E. Maurici-Pollock, Jade Obler, Rachel A. Starr

Publications

This study explores the experiences of first-generation graduate students (FGGS) during the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically the positive and negative impacts of the pandemic on their learning experiences and their implications for the design of online graduate programs that foster a sense of belonging.

Digital Commons@Tmc 2025 Highlights, Alice Sherwood

TMC Library Newsletter (2015-)

No abstract provided.

Lunch & Learn Webinar Series, Sandra Y. Desjardins, Jenny Stockton

TMC Library Newsletter (2015-)

Take your CINAHL searches to the next level in this hands-on library training. Learn practical techniques for effectively combining subject headings, keywords, and filters to create strong, efficient search strategies that support evidence-based research and clinical decision-making.

Register here to attend the session.

January 2026 Library & Learning Newsletter, Minnesota State University, Mankato. Library & Learning Dean’S Office Communications Team

Library & Learning Newsletters

PDF version of the January (Volume 4, Issue 6) Library & Learning Newsletter.

Erosion Of Trust In Online Information, Tirth Desai

A with Honors Projects

Researching how AI spreads misinformation and impacts trust in information.

Rebuilding The Ship Of Theseus: Navigating Faculty-Librarian Relationships Through Changing Waters, Alan Witt

Milne Library

The Ship of Theseus is a philosophical paradox that poses a question of identity: If you repair every plank of a ship, replacing each with new wood, at what point does the ship cease to be the same ship? This is a useful metaphor for academic liaison librarians to consider when thinking about outreach to departments: your relationship to a department as a whole consists of the component connections, which change as individuals retire or leave. The goals of this chapter are to acknowledge the primacy of relationships in library outreach (and the consequences to the library of those relationships …

Modeling Rank Distribution And The Relative Importance Factor Index In Discrete Power-Law Models: Application To Social Resilience Using The Scopus Database, Brian Llinas, Jose Padilla, Humberto Llinas, Erika Frydenlund, Katherine Palacio

VMASC Publications

Prior research on power-law distributions has primarily focused on modeling frequency patterns, with less attention given to rank distributions and how ranked positions reflect relative importance among elements. In discrete power-law distributions, frequency-based metrics often provide limited discrimination in the tail, where elements may exhibit similar counts but differ in relative dominance. These patterns are especially evident, for instance, in academic publishing, where keywords, affiliations, and citations commonly exhibit power-law behavior. To address this limitation, we introduce the Relative Importance Factor (RIF) Index, a statistical measure derived from the estimated discrete power-law rank distribution rather than an additional independent parameter. …

Fifty Terms Or More: Researching Curriculum Materials Centers, Caitlin Stewart

Faculty and Staff Publications – Milner Library

Curriculum materials centers (CMCs), or specialized, localized collections of P-12 educational resources to support teacher preparation programs in higher education, are referred to by fifty unique terms in the Directory of Materials Centers and Collection 8^th edition. Education Source (Ebsco) and Education Research Index (ProQuest) were searched with all distinct terms as keywords. The number of search results in the controlled search environment were logged, and all search results returned were coded as highly, somewhat, or not definitionally relevant to the established definition of a CMC. Recommendations are given for how to best search for highly relevant CMC literature, …

2026 Cancelled Titles With Alternate Access, Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library

Himmelfarb Library Liaison Letters

No abstract provided.

News From The States, Blake Denton

The Southeastern Librarian

No abstract provided.

School Library Professionals’ Perspectives On Current And Future Workforce Challenges, Margaret Kristin Merga, Saiyidi Mat Roni

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

While school library professionals work across many nations, supporting student learning and wellbeing, there is limited current research capturing shared issues faced by this educational workforce. The International School Library Workforce Survey collected insights from 971 respondents across 63 countries derived from analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data. Findings suggest that in an international context, school library professionals are experiencing notable issues that impact upon their morale and their ability to enact their professional roles. Respondents were more likely to disagree then agree that school library professionals were typically valued in their country. While the vast majority of respondents …

Library Guide Assessment Standards For Quality-Checked Review Workbook, Sarah H. Moukhliss, Trina Mccowan Adams

Library Faculty Presentations & Publications

This OER workbook introduces the Library Guide Assessment Standards (LGAS), a practical, rubric-based framework for evaluating and improving LibGuides. Adapted from established online course quality models, LGAS provides a shared language for reviewing guide design, accessibility, usability, and maintenance. Designed for both individuals and teams, this workbook offers adaptable tools that support consistent, sustainable assessment in academic library contexts.

Reorienting Library Technology Through Slowness And Care, Sanjeet Mann

Library Faculty Publications & Presentations

Nearly all operations and services in contemporary libraries are mediated by technology. This makes systems and technology work an important place in the organization from which to address issues of time, power and culture.

In this essay, published as a chapter in a collection of essays about Slow Librarianship, I describe the origins of the associations between time, speed and technology in Western society. I articulate an alternative understanding of technology as relational, grounded in the needs and lived experience of those who work in and use libraries. I draw from several emerging concepts, including Slow Librarianship, feminist ethics of …

Partnering To Change Culture: Advancing Rigor And Transparency In Neurosciences Through Pie Chart, Melissa L. Rethlefsen, Danielle Maurici-Pollock, Leah Everitt, Will White, Ingrid Hendrix, Alexa Copeland, Sam Mckenzie, C W. Shuttleworth

PIE CHART

PIE CHART (Policies, Infrastructure, and Education to CHAmpion Rigor and Transparency) is a new program seeking to develop, test, and iterate sustainable models for improving the culture of rigor and transparency within the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center. This program is a unique partnership between the Health Sciences Library & Informatics Center and the Department of Neurosciences. This partnership enables departmental interventions, but also aims to benefit the broader community at the University of New Mexico. Using the Center for Open Science's Strategy for Culture Change framework, PIE CHART aims to incentivize rigorous and transparent neuroscience research through …

Pie Chart Overview And Tenure And Promotion, Melissa L. Rethlefsen

PIE CHART

This presentation gives an overview of PIE CHART and additional material relating to open science in tenure and promotion. Materials included in this project were supported by the National Institute Of Neurological Disorders And Stroke of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number RC2NS138557. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Visual Aids And Numeracy In Healthcare: Leveraging The Drawing Effect, Zephyr J. Markley

Capstone Showcase

Healthcare decisions often require patients to interpret numerical risk information under stress, yet many struggle with low numeracy, which can distort comprehension and undermine informed consent. Well-designed visual aids can improve diagnostic inference, calibrate confidence, and support better choices, especially for patients with limited numeracy, but their impact depends on whether users can actually interpret the format accurately. Drawing may further enhance these tools by adding a tactile, generative layer that engages visual, semantic, and motoric processing while helping patients organize information into concrete models.

Passive visual aids appear useful but limited because they often position patients as observers rather …

Agricultural Evidence Synthesis At A Critical Juncture: Quality Gaps And Implications For Evidence-Based Agriculture, Chao Cai, Jane Yatcilla, Justyna Czader, Sylvie Brouder, Jeffrey Volenec

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses have become essential tools for synthesizing evidence to guide agricultural policy and practice, yet whether these syntheses are themselves conducted with sufficient rigor has rarely been systematically assessed. This study provides a field-wide assessment of reporting quality in agricultural evidence synthesis, examining whether existing reviews are conducted with sufficient transparency and rigor to support the policy and practice decisions they are meant to inform. We drew a random sample of 244 systematic reviews and meta-analyses from a bibliometric dataset of 1,709 articles published between 1997 and 2023, evaluating reporting quality using a 12-indicator rubric across four …