Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Nebraska Rural Poll And Metro Poll Research Brief: Well-Being Among Metropolitan And Nonmetropolitan Nebraskans, Rebecca Vogt, David J. Drozd, Randolph Cantrell, Jerry Deichert, Brad Lubben, Cheryl A. Burkhart-Kriesel, Lj Mcelravy

Past Publications

Better or Worse Off Compared to Five Years Ago and Ten Years From Now.

Both the Nebraska Metro and Rural Polls asked residents if they are better or worse off than they were five years ago and if they expect to be better or worse off ten years from now.

Cpar Research Brief: Comparing Results Of The 2014 Nebraska Metro And Rural Polls On Resident Views Of Community Change And Outlook, Abby Heithoff, David J. Drozd

Past Publications

Nebraskans’ views of their community’s future in the next 10 years: How viewpoints differ by personal and community factors.

Nebraska Rural Poll And Metro Poll Research Brief: Attributes Of Successful Communities For Metropolitan And Nonmetropolitan Nebraskans, Rebecca Vogt, David J. Drozd, Randolph Cantrell, Jerry Deichert, Brad Lubben, Cheryl A. Burkhart-Kriesel, Lj Mcelravy

Past Publications

Both the Nebraska Metro and Rural Polls asked residents how essential or necessary various characteristics are in order for them to have a high quality of life.

Nebraska Metro And Rural Residents’ Views Of The Problems That Metro And Rural Areas Should Be Trying To Address: An Analysis Of Open‐Ended Survey Questions In The 2014 Nebraska Metro And Rural Polls, Abby Heithoff, David J. Drozd, Jerry Deichert

Past Publications

Researchers and policymakers across the state of Nebraska have often discussed the need for a statewide poll to understand residents’ perceptions of their communities, personal well‐being and community issues. Separate initiatives have periodically surveyed metropolitan and rural Nebraskans on these issues. However, to date, no single effort has obtained statewide coverage at the level necessary to report attitudinal differences across metropolitan and rural Nebraska. The Nebraska Metro and Nebraska Rural Polls represent a unique effort in the state of Nebraska to obtain directly comparable data on statewide residents. This report provides a detailed analysis of a subset of responses to …

Predicting Events Surrounding The Egyptian Revolution Of 2011 Using Learning Algorithms On Micro Blog Data, Benedikt Boecking, Margeret A. Hall, Jeff Schneider

Interdisciplinary Informatics Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

We aim to predict activities of political nature in Egypt which influence or reflect societal-scale behavior and beliefs by using learning algorithms on Twitter data. We focus on capturing domestic events in Egypt from November 2009 to November 2013. To this extent we study underlying communication patterns by evaluating content-based and meta-data information in classification tasks without targeting specific keywords or users. Classification is done using Support Vector Machines (SVM) and Support Distribution Machines (SDM). Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) is used to create content-based input patterns for the classifiers while bags of Twitter meta-information are used with the SDM to …

Diversion In Nebraska: Fy 2012/2013, Amy Hoffman, Anne M. Hobbs

Reports

Among the many initiatives created with the passage of LB 561, the position of the Juvenile Diversion Program Administrator was established within the Nebraska Crime Commission. The Diversion Administrator is tasked with assisting in creating and maintaining juvenile pretrial diversion programs to divert juveniles away from the judicial system and into community-based services. That process includes creating a statewide steering committee to assist in regular strategic planning related to supporting, funding, monitoring, and evaluating the effectiveness of plans and programs receiving funds from the Community-Based Juvenile Services Aid Program, as well as provide best practice recommendation guidelines and procedures used …

Emerge, Tammi M. Owens

Criss Library Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

Lightning talk presented at the 2014 LITA Forum. This inspire talk was for my early-career colleagues with titles like "Emerging Technologies Librarian," especially those who are at smaller institutions. Created on the fly on the iPad Mini with Haiku Deck.

Progress In A Social Work Writing Course: Self-Efficacy, Course Objectives, And Skills, Jane D. Woody, Mary G. Zeleny, Henry J. D'Souza, Jeanette Harder, Jacqueline Reiser, P.Eter Szto

Social Work Faculty Publications

Although instructors express concerns about social work students’ writing skills, little research has been conducted. One remedy is a social work-focused writing course. This study assessed a required writing course with a sample of 49 baccalaureate students. From online pre- and post-test surveys, two student outcomes improved significantly: self-reported scores for writing self-efficacy and competence in course objectives. On-demand writing samples improved significantly based on anonymous rating by the course instructors; however, blind ratings found gains but not at a significant level. Improved outcomes were not associated with demographic or background characteristics. We discuss limitations of the study and implications …

Enhancing Geographic Learning And Literacy Through Filmmaking, Christina E. Dando, Jacob J. Chadwick

Geography and Geology Faculty Publications

In this media-saturated society, students need to think more critically about the media they encounter and that they are producing. Through filmmaking, students can link geographic theory and the real world, bridging the distance from readings/lectures/ discussions to the geography on the ground, making the abstract concrete. But constructing films also enhances students’ understanding of the communications they consume and the communications they construct (films, television, podcasts, YouTube, etc.). In this article, a student and instructor discuss the making of short films or videos in geography classes and how it can enhance both geographic education and media literacy.

On Dittmer's Popular Culture, Geopolitics, And Identity As A Classroom Resource, Reecia Orzeck, James Craine, Christina E. Dando, Katrinka Somdahl-Sands

Geography and Geology Faculty Publications

In this intervention, four geographers, all of whom have used Jason Dittmer's book, Popular Culture, Geopolitics, and Identity, in their classes, assess its status as a teaching resource. All have had considerable success using Dittmer's book, alongside other resources, to cultivate critical thinking and critical knowledge production in a wide range of classes.

Understanding Workplace Meetings: A Qualitative Taxonomy Of Meeting Purposes, Joseph A. Allen, Tammy Beck, Cliff Scott, Steven G. Rogelberg

Psychology Faculty Publications

Purpose - Meetings are a workplace activity that deserves increased attention from researchers and practitioners. Previous researchers attempted to develop typologies of meeting purpose with limited success. Through a comparison of classification methodologies, we consider a taxonomy as the appropriate classification scheme for meeting purpose. The goal of our study is to propose a taxonomy of meeting purpose. We then utilize the developed taxonomy to investigate the frequency with which a representative sample of working adults engaged in meetings of these varying purposes. Our proposed taxonomy provides relevant classifications for future research on meetings and serves as a useful tool …

Naturalistic Decision Making In After-Action Review Meetings: The Implementation Of And Learning From Post- Fall Huddles, Roni Reiter-Palmon, Victoria Kennel, Joseph A. Allen, Katherine J. Jones, Anne M. Skinner

Psychology Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to add to our understanding of naturalistic decision making (NDM) in health care and how after-action reviews (AARs) can be utilized as a learning tool to reduce errors. The study focused on the implementation of a specific form of AAR, a post-fall huddle, to learn from errors and reduce patient falls. Utilizing 17 hospitals that participated in this effort, information was collected on 226 falls over a period of 16 months. The findings suggested that the use of self-guided post-fall huddles increased over the time of the project, indicating adoption of the process. Additionally, …

Linking Pre-Meeting Communication To Meeting Effectiveness, Joseph A. Allen, Nale Lehmann-Willenbrock, Nicole Landowski

Psychology Faculty Publications

Purpose – This study investigates the importance of communication that occurs just before workplace meetings (i.e., pre-meeting talk). We explore how four specific types of pre-meeting talk (small talk, work talk, meeting preparatory talk, and shop talk) impact participants' experiences of meeting effectiveness. Moreover, we investigate the role of participants’ personality in the link between pre-meeting talk and perceived meeting effectiveness.

Design/methodology/approach – Data were obtained using an online survey of working adults (N = 252). Because pre-meeting talk has not been studied previously, a new survey measure of meeting talk was developed.

Findings – Pre-meeting small talk was a …

Tech Speak And Librarian-Ese: Justifiable Jargon, Or Junk?, Tammi M. Owens

Criss Library Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

Many libraries are redesigning their websites for great user experiences through clean design. But what if you’ve redesigned your website, but still have patrons who are frustrated? It’s time to focus on language. Librarian-ese and tech speak are confusing and defeat our patrons before they begin. In this session I’ll show how you can use plain language, one of the main tenets of usability, to boost patron confidence. I’ll share real-life examples of websites and chat transcripts showing how little changes in language can make a big difference.

Building Institutional Repositories: Emerging Challenges, Yumi Ohira

Criss Library Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

This presentation will discuss the benefits and challenges associated with Institutional Repository (IR) initiatives and development, while sharing our experiences from WySR (Wyoming Scholar’s Repository). Our institutional repository, WySR, will be used as a case study to illustrate particular difficulties in obtaining author versions of publications; the quality of open access research; and technical limitations.

Transformational Leadership And Creative Problem-Solving: The Mediating Role Of Psychological Safety And Reflexivity, Abraham Carmeli, Zachary Sheaffer, Galy Binyamin, Roni Reiter-Palmon, Tali Shimoni

Psychology Faculty Publications

Previous research has pointed to the importance of transformational leadership in facilitating employees' creative outcomes. However, the mechanism by which transformational leadership cultivates employees' creative problem-solving capacity is not well understood. Drawing on theories of leadership, information processing and creativity, we proposed and tested a model in which psychological safety and reflexivity mediate the effect of transformational leadership and creative problem-solving capacity. The results of survey data collected at three points in time indicate that transformational leadership facilitates the development of employees' creative problem-solving capacity by shaping a climate of psychological safety conducive to reflexivity processes. However, the findings also …

Internal Funding Newsletter, Academic Year 2012-2013, Uno Office Of Research And Creative Activity

Internal Funding Newsletters

This newsletter features: a letter from Scott Snyder, Associate Vice Chancellor and Chief Research Officer, Office of Research and Creative Activity; Faculty Research Corner: Meet Dr. Alan Kolok, Biology; Award for Distinguished Research or Creative Activity 2013 Winner: Anna Monardo, Writer's Workshop; Graduate Research Corner: Taking Aim at Terrorism; Undergraduate Research Corner: Creative Solutions; 2012-2013 Internal Funding Awardees: Faculty Awards and Student Awards; and Internal Funding Opportunities and Summary.

Policy Briefs: Nebraska Legislative Planning Committee 2013 Report, Center For Public Affairs Research (Cpar)

Past Publications

The Nebraska Legislature's Planning Committee was created in 2009 with the passage of LB 653 in order to help establish a process of long-term state planning with the Nebraska Legislature. The committee was created to assist state government in identifying emerging trends, assets and challenges of the state and the long-term implications of the decisions made by the Nebraska Legislature.

Selected Characteristics For Nebraska Legislative Districts From The 2008-2012 American Community Survey, Center For Public Affairs Research (Cpar)

Past Publications

On December 17, 2013, the U.S. Census Bureau released five‐year American Community Survey (ACS) estimates for the combined years of 2008 through 2012, making available social, economic, housing and demographic statistics for Nebraska’s Legislative Districts. Also available are estimates for every community and county in Nebraska and the nation.

The charts and tables in this report are based on the Legislative District boundaries for the 103rd Legislature that were approved by the Legislature in 2011 and were based on data from the 2010 Census. Because of changes in Legislative District boundaries, the charts and tables in this report are not …

A Social Dimensional Cyber Threat Model With Formal Concept Analysis And Fact-Proposition Inference, Anup Sharma, Robin Gandhi, Qiuming Zhu, William Mahoney, William Sousan

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Cyberspace has increasingly become a medium to express outrage, conduct protests, take revenge, spread opinions, and stir up issues. Many cyber attacks can be linked to current and historic events in the social, political, economic, and cultural (SPEC) dimensions of human conflicts in the physical world. These SPEC factors are often the root cause of many cyber attacks. Understanding the relationships between past and current SPEC events and cyber attacks can help understand and better prepare people for impending cyber attacks. The focus of this paper is to analyze these attacks in social dimensions and build a threat model based …

Nebraska Legislative Planning Committee 2013 Report: Policy Briefs, Center For Public Affairs Research (Cpar)

Past Publications

The Nebraska Legislature's Planning Committee was created in 2009 with the passage of LB 653 in order to help establish a process of long-term state planning with the Nebraska Legislature. The committee was created to assist state government in identifying emerging trends, assets and challenges of the state and the long-term implications of the decisions made by the Nebraska Legislature.

Efforts during the first two years of the committee focused on the development of a database. The goals and benchmarks included in the database were developed and approved by the Legislature's Planning Committee to present a common-sense and data-driven assessment …

Library Education And Development Newsletter, Volume 7, Issue 2, Uno Library Science Education

Library Education and Development (L.E.A.D.)

This issue of the Library Education and Development Newsletter features Advice from the Frontlines from Betsy Rouse, a Student Spotlight of Krystal Spilger, Announcements, and Professional Development.

Less Acting, More Doing: How Surface Acting Relates To Perceived Meeting Effectiveness And Other Employee Outcomes, Linda R. Shanock, Joseph A. Allen, Alexandra M. Dunn, Benjamin E. Baran, Cliff W. Scott, Steven G. Rogelberg

Psychology Faculty Publications

This study adds to the growing body of research on work meetings and extends the emotional labour literature beyond a service context by examining the relationship between surface acting during meetings and perceived meeting effectiveness. Additionally, the relationships of surface acting during meetings and perceived meeting effectiveness with time-lagged reports of intention to quit and emotional exhaustion 3 months later were investigated. Structural equation modelling of data from 178 working adults revealed negative relationships between surface acting and perceptions of meeting effectiveness. Perceived meeting effectiveness partially mediated the relationship between surface acting and both intention to quit and emotional exhaustion …

Successful Transition To Elementary School And The Implementation Of Facilitative Practices Specified In The Reggio-Emilia Philosophy, Barry H. Schneider, Mara Manetti, Laura Frattini, Nadia Rania, Jonathan Bruce Santo, Robert J. Coplan, Eli Cwinn

Psychology Faculty Publications

Systematic, mandated facilitation of school transitions is an important but understudied aspect of the Reggio-Emilia approach to early childhood education admired internationally as best practice. We studied the links between Northern Italian transition practices and academic achievement, school liking, cooperativeness, and problem behaviors. We followed 288 students across a transition from preschool to elementary school. Schools varied in their implementation of transition practices. High implementation of Reggio-type transition practices was related to significantly more school liking and significantly fewer problem behaviors after the transition. At follow-up at the end of the post-transition year, high-implementation schools were still characterized by lower …

Invisible & Voiceless: Latinos In Council Bluffs Iowa, María Teresa Gastón, Lourdes Gouveia, Christian Espinosa, Clare Maakestad, Christopher C. Blue

Latino/Latin American Studies Reports

While Latino immigrant workers in Council Bluffs, Iowa have contributed significantly to the Iowa and Nebraska economies, they remain virtually invisible and lack a voice in the city’s key venues and institutions – this according to a new report being released by the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) Office of Latino/Latin American Studies (OLLAS) and funded in part by the Iowa West Foundation.

The report, titled “Invisible & Voiceless” combines data from the 2010 Census with 26 interviews with members of Council Bluffs’ civic, government, education, religious, non-profit and business communities as well as Latino voices gathered at interviews …

Nemo News, Volume 10, Issue 2, Uno Library Science Education

NEMO Newsletter

This issue of NEMO News features the ALA 2014 Scholarship Online Application, Important Dates and Reminders, Fit for the Library: Clemson Students Study on Stationary Bikes, NLA/NSLA Conference Photos, Student Spotlight on Bailey Halbur, Free Webinars, and Scholarship and Employment Opportunities.

Phonological Profiles Of 2-Year-Olds With Expressive-Only And Expressive And Receptive Language Delay: A Pilot Study, Kristin Vanwyngaarden, Shari L. Deveney

Special Education and Communication Disorders Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

This poster discusses: Background, Research Question, Methods, Results, Conclusions, Clinical Implications, and Limitations & Future Directions.

Needs Assessment For The United Neighborhood Alliances Of Omaha, Jerry Deichert

Past Publications

In February 2013 the Neighborhood Center closed. The Neighborhood Center provided a range of programs and services to neighborhood associations in the Omaha area. The United Neighborhood Alliances of Omaha (UNAO) identified a needs assessment as a necessary next step in planning what will take its place. The needs assessment was envisioned to assist the alliances in moving forward by helping to identify strategies that make the best use of Neighborhood Scan and other existing resources and offer the best response to neighborhood conditions.

Academic Librarians' Role In Gatekeeping: The Influence Of Vendor Labeling On Academic Library Collections, Melissa Cast-Brede

Criss Library Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study is to determine the influence of one corporate book vendor on collection holdings in seven Carnegie Class L academic libraries in the areas of practice of education and educational administration. The study uses the communicative rationality theory of Habermas (1989), the habitus work of Bourdieu (1988; 1993), and the gatekeeping theory of Lewin (1947) as theoretical frameworks for explaining how book vendors serve as a connection between organizations and individuals and the librarian’s gatekeeping role in collection development. Analysis of variance was used to measure overall congruence. Library employee size, vendorsupplied categories, and vendor-supplied labels …

Native American Methamphetamine And Suicide Prevention Program Evaluation (Year-4): Omaha, Nebraska, Final Report, R. K. Piper

Past Publications

This final report documents the major findings of the evaluation of the Methamphetamine and Suicide Prevention Initiative (MSPI Year 4), also referred to locally as the Soaring Over Methamphetamine and Suicide Program (SOMS), funded by the Indian Health Service (IHS), Division of Behavioral Health. The University of Nebraska at Omaha, Consortium for Organizational Research and Evaluation (CORE) contracted with the Nebraska Urban Indian Health Coalition (NUIHC) to provide technical assistance in completing this evaluation and the report.

The evaluation study consists of information collected and analyzed from three sources: 1) a review and summary of program-implementation, process and outcome data …