Knowledge organisation in a Web‐based environment
Reviews the approaches to the organisation of knowledge in Web‐based environments. The control and structure helps searchers to locate information and services, but only provided that searchers understand and relate to the terms and information structure designed into the system. The other alternative is for the searcher to specify the topic of their search through the use of keywords. These keywords are in the natural language of the searcher, which may or not be coincident with the natural language of the Web sites being searched by the search engine. In order to negotiate the variability of natural language the searcher needs to learn to use more advanced search features such as Boolean searching, nesting and truncation. The knowledge organisation issues associated with access to and retrieval from large databases, such as those that are searched across the Web, are significant and need careful and specialist attention.
08- Hazilah Mohd Amin
This article is aimed at identifying the structure of conventional library classification schemes i.e. the enumerative, hierarchy and faceted structures that can be used to classify web resources. Literature review and case study have been conducted on two organisations, Yahoo! and Staples. The case study explores the hierarchy structure approach used by Yahoo! web directory as well as the faceted structure approach used by Staples, an online retailer. The study revealed that Yahoo! has adopted some of the principles in the conventional library classification scheme. The simple hierarchy structure, as employed by Yahoo, has been utilised by most of the web classifiers due to its ability to classify collections, as well as due to its ability to ease users in selecting the category and drilling down the hierarchy. The faceted structure meanwhile is used by a number of e-commerce websites such as Staples not only because the structure is flexible and able to classify 08Hazilah Mohd Amin 4/26/05, 8:57 AM 133 134 collections, but also because it enables information to be retrieved using category as well as enables multidimensional retrieval. Its application in classifying web resources however, is still at a preliminary stage.
Nonprofit Communication and Fundraising in China: Exploring the Theory of Situational Support in an International Context
Using a survey of 586 college students from Beijing, China, this study tested the theory of situational support by exploring Chinese students’ motivations to participate in nonprofit fundraising events. This study also compared theory variables between Chinese and U.S. college students by looking at similar data from a survey previously conducted with 514 U.S. students. There were differences between the two groups regarding constraint recognition, subjective norms, attitudes toward fundraising, and other variables, perhaps because of Confucianism, collectivism, and other differences between China and the United States. The findings generate a range of theoretical and practical implications including how nonprofit practitioners in China might develop better communication and messaging strategies to segment publics, motivate potential donors, and advance future fundraising efforts.