Selected Research and Publications

CURRICULUM-EMBEDDED ALIGNMENT IN ONLINE LEARNING COMMUNITIES combines my university-level teaching with empirical research and 7-12 classroom experience. This research uses a number of innovative techniques (e.g., knowledge maps and unobtrusive assessment tools) as represented in the following set of references:

  • Ercegovac, Zorana. "What students say they know, feel, and do about cyber-plagiarism and academic dishonesty? A case study." In the Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Sparking Synergies: Bringing Research and Practice Together. Charlotte, N.C., Oct. 28-Nov 2, 2005. Click here to read full text.
  • Ercegovac, Zorana and John V. Richardson. "Academic dishonesty, plagiarism included, in the digital age: A literature review," to appear in College & Research Libraries, 2004.
  • Ercegovac, Zorana. Information Literacy: Search Strategies, Tools & Resources for High School Students. Linworth Publishing, 2001. (Description and Table of Contents)
    (WebLinks, available from     InfoEN Associates, Los Angeles, CA)
  • Ercegovac, Zorana and Mark Simpson. "Motion pictures from 1894-1915 at the Library of Congress Digital Library as the basis for understanding the development of gender roles." Funded by the American Memory Fellows Program 2001. The Library of Congress, National Digital Library.
  • Ercegovac, Zorana. "Information technology literacy: Position paper for the Computer Science and Telecommunication Board (CSTB) of the National Research Council." Presented at the National Academy of Sciences Meeting, Irvine, CA, January 15, 1998. (Abstract)
  • Ercegovac, Zorana. "Information access instruction (IAI4): Design principles." College & Research Libraries, 56(3):249-257, 1995.(Abstract)

Research on METADATA IN DIGITAL LIBRARY ENVIRONMENTS is influenced by my doctoral project that dealt with description and identification of information resources (e.g., maps and geospatial objects); most recently in the digital library environments, there has been an enormous press and need to construct schema for defining element sets in order to identify, describe, preserve, and manage federated digital repositories of resources. The activity related to metadata has resulted in the following set of publications:

  • Ercegovac, Zorana. "Multiple-version resources in digital libraries: Towards user-centered displays." This paper is published online in advance of print in Early View here. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, June 2006. Rec: 20 Sept. 2004; rev: 10 May 2005; accepted: 23 May 2005.
  • Ercegovac, Zorana. "Towards user-centered displays of resources in global digital libraries." In the Proceedings of the 7th International Society for Knowledge Organization (ISKO), The Human Dimension of knowledge organization, Barcelona, Spain, July 6-8, 2005. http://bd.ub.es/isko2005/en/comunicacions.php.
  • Ercegovac, Zorana. "Multi-version documents in digital libraries: Experiments with FRBR." Invited paper, to appear in the Anniversary Proceedings in honor of establishing the Department of Library and Information Science, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, 2004.
  • Ercegovac, Zorana. "Global access to bibliographic information: Converging patterns, new paradigms." Obvestila, 5(4) : 4-28. 2000. Presented as the keynote paper at the COBISS/SICRIS Annual Conference, Maribor, Slovenia, 28-29 November, 2000. IZUM, Institut informacijskih znanosti. In Slovenian. (English version)
  • Ercegovac, Zorana. "Introduction" to the Special Topic Issue, "Integrating Multiple Overlapping Metadata Standards." Guest Editor of the Journal of the American Society for Information Science (JASIS); The 50th Anniversary issue of JASIS in November, 50(13), 1999.(Abstract)
  • Ercegovac, Zorana. "Minimal level cataloging: What does it mean for cartographic materials in the contexts of card catalogs, online catalogs, and digital libraries?"  Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 49(8):706-719, 1998.(Abstract)
  • Ercegovac, Zorana. "Resources metadata+user metadata: Toward knowledge metadata." A position paper published in the Proceedings of the NSF Invitational Workshop on Distributed Information, Computation, and Process Management for Scientific and Engineering Environments. Herndon, VA, May 15-16, 1998. Nicholas M. Patrikalakis, ed., MIT http://deslab.mit.edu/DesignLab/dicpm/ (Abstract)

PROJECT LEARNING PORTFOLIO FOR ACCESSING ENGINEERING INFORMATION FOR ENGINEERS and SCIENCE/ENGINEERING INFORMATION LITERACY PORTAL 7-12 (funded in part by the Engineering Information Foundation) has had several directions, including the areas of engineering informatics, information seeking behavior and problem-based information literacy. This is an ongoing research project; the following papers and programs have resulted from this study:

  • Ercegovac, Zorana. "Bridging the knowledge gap between secondary and higher education." College & Research Libraries, 64(1):75-85. January 2003.
  • Ercegovac, Zorana. "Bringing the library into the lab: How information literacy skills make better science students." School Library Journal, 49(2):52-53 February 2003.
  • Ercegovac, Zorana. "Factors affecting the design of Science Engineering Information Literacy Portal for High School Learners," to be presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, October 20-23, 2003, Long Beach, Calif.
  • Ercegovac, Zorana and D. Rennels. Engineering Information Literacy Portal for 7-12 Students: Priming the Pipeline into the Engineering Profession. Technical Report EiF01.17, March 31, 2003.
  • Ercegovac, Zorana and M. Milling. "Aligning science learning outcomes with information literacy power." Presented as a poster session at the 2002 Annual Conference of the Special Libraries Association, the Chemical Division, Los Angeles, June 11, 2002. Available at: http://www.cs.ucla.edu/Leap/zer/sla.htm
  • Ercegovac, Zorana. "Accessing global information for engineers," In: Proceedings of the 64th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. "Information in a Networked World: Harnessing the Flow." vol 38. Washington DC, Oct 31-Nov 4, 2001. Medford, NJ: Information Today, published for ASIS.
  • Ercegovac, Zorana. "Accessing engineering global information for engineers: Phase 2." University of California, Los Angeles. Technical Report EiF-99.8. February 2001. 48 p.
  • Ercegovac, Zorana. "LEArning Portfolio for accessing engineering information for engineers," In: Proceedings of the 62nd Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science. "Knowledge: Creation, Organization and Use." vol 36, pp. 450-461. Washington DC, Oct 31-Nov 4, 1999. Medford, NJ: Information Today, published for ASIS. (Abstract)
  • Ercegovac, Zorana and Ann R. Karagozian. Learning Portfolio for Accessing Engineering Information for Engineers. EIF-97.3. Funded by the Engineering Information Foundation. For details see EISA.
  • Ercegovac, Zorana. "The interpretation of library use in the age of digital libraries: Virtualizing the name." Library and Information Science Research, 19(1):31-46, 1997. (Abstract)

Research on KNOWLEDGE-BASED REPRESENTATION began with my dissertation work (Ph.D., June 1990; advisor Harold Borko). Knowledge representation dealt with capturing both public knowledge (defined as that body of knowledge that is formally codified, widely understood, published and taught) and combining it with personal knowledge (formalized experts' rules of thumb and judgments in a given domain). This work resulted in a series of 5 peer-reviewed journal articles (The MAPPER Project). This project was supported by NSF award (SES 8814111) and OCLC Library and Information Science Research Grant Program award in 1987-88.

The main objective of this study was to understand how an experimental, semi-automatic cataloging advisor (Mapper) could be designed to assist the novice user in the descriptive cataloging of certain U.S. produced single-sheet maps. The study empirically derived a working definition of a map author for the maps under investigation. It has also shown that novice can produce significantly better cataloging answers when assisted by the Mapper than those who were not assisted by the Mapper. Selected articles in this area are:

  • Ercegovac, Zorana and H. Borko. "Design and implementation of an experimental cataloging advisor--Mapper." Information Processing and Management, 28(2):241-257, 1992. (Abstract)
  • "A multiple-observation approach in knowledge acquisition for expert systems: A case study," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 43(7):506-517, 1992. (Abstract)
  • Ercegovac, Zorana and H. Borko. "Performance evaluation of Mapper." Information Processing and Management, 28(2):259-268, 1992.(Abstract)
  • Ercegovac, Zorana. "Proposed definitional conditions as a basis to study the concept of map-author,"  Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 10 (4):19-50, 1990. (Abstract)
  • Ercegovac, Zorana. Research on knowledge-based descriptive cataloging of cartographic publications:  An experimental advice-giving system-- Mapper, Ph. D. dissertation, Graduate School of  Library and Information Science, University of California, Los Angeles, June 1990.

Citations to my other published articles include:

  • Ercegovac, Zorana. "Environmental research: Communication studies and Information sources." Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (ARIST), Martha E. Williams, ed. vol. 27. Medford, N.J.: Learned Information, pp. 173-225, 1992.
  • Ercegovac, Zorana. "A principle of cultural diversity in the design of  'Community Right-To-Know' databases." Proceedings of the Fourteenth National Online Meeting, New York, May 4-6,  1993. Medford, N.J.: Learned Information, pp. 119-128. (Abstract)
  • Ercegovac, Zorana. "Approaches in the design of augmented assistance in online catalog subject  searching." In: Christine Roysdon and Howard D. White, eds. Expert Systems in  Reference Services No. 23. New York: The Haworth Press, pp. 21-40, 1989.
  • Ercegovac, Zorana. "Artificial intelligence and cataloging reasoning: Promises and pitfalls." In:  Proceedings of the Seventh National Online Meeting, New York, May 6-8, 1986.  Medford, N. J.: Learned Information, pp. 109-117.
  • Ercegovac, Zorana. "Knowledge-based expert systems: A profile and implications." In: Proceedings of the Fifth National Online Meeting, New York, April 10-12, 1984. Medford, N.J.: Learned Information, pp. 39-46.