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The CALA Jing Liao Annual Award for the Best Research

The pursuit of excellence in research and service was what defined the career of Jing Liao (1954-2011), a long-time CALA member and a devoted and accomplished librarian at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The establishment of this memorial fund is to honor the memory of Jing Liao by encouraging CALA members to strive for excellence in research in all media.

Recipients of CALA Annual Jing Liao Award (2012 - Present)

CALA Annual Jing Liao Award Thank You Letter

Guidelines for Jing Liao Award Application and Selection

(This edition was approved by the Board 2016-2017 at 2017 ALA Mid-winter meeting)

(This updated revision was approved by the CALA President, 2018-2019)

The pursuit of excellence in research and service was what defined the career of Jing Liao (1954-2011), a long-time CALA member and a devoted and accomplished librarian at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The establishment of this memorial fund is to honor the memory of Jing Liao by encouraging CALA members to strive for excellence in research.

Guidelines for Application:

  1. An award in the amount of $500 will be granted annually to the author(s) of the winning publication;
  2. Applicants must be CALA members in good standing for three consecutive years, including the award year;
  3. Applicants must demonstrate excellence in scholarly research by publishing works in any online and printed peer-reviewed publications, including books, book chapters, conference proceedings, e-journals, and Open Access journals, focusing in the fields of Library and Information Sciences.
  4. Applicants may submit one work, in either English or Chinese, published in the previous year for consideration;
  5. The first author of the research publication must not be a past recipient of the award.

For applications, please submit the followings:

  1. A short cover letter including a statement of your CALA membership history and current status;
  2. Full-text of your publication in a PDF;
  3. A complete citation of your publication in Chicago, APA, or MLA style, including its DOI link or URL if available;
  4. A copy of your recent curriculum vitae.

Award Assessor and Reviewer:

The CALA Annual Jing Liao Award for the Best Research Committee is created to review the research works submitted by the qualified CALA applicants. The mission of the CALA Annual Jing Liao Award for the Best Research Committee is to promote excellence in research among the CALA members. Throughout a fair and transparent as well as clear evaluation, the CALA Annual Jing Liao Award for the Best Research Committee makes every effort to select a research work with the best scholarly values to impact subject fields of library research and services.

Selection Criteria

To provide the CALA committee members with a clear and practical guideline on how the submitted research works will be evaluated, the CALA Annual Jing Liao Award for the Best Research Committee will assess and evaluate the submitted research works based on the following selection criteria:

  1. Scholarly Value: This criterion explores which research work has demonstrated more creative ideas, new discoveries, deep influences, innovative approaches, etc. to promote any type of Library and Information Science research.
  2. Research Focus: This criterion examines if the author has sufficient ability, experience, knowledge, and skills to deal with addressed research subjects.
  3. Range and Scope of Research: This criterion measures the extent and range of the researcher’s perceptions and thoughts in his/her research work.
  4. Methodology: This criterion examines if the researcher utilizes an effective methodology to generate accountable conclusions, such as the connection between the population and the sample for quantitative analysis, etc.,
  5. Discovery: This criterion explores if the submitted research work has any new discoveries or suggestions different from other previous research in the same fields.
  6. Influence: This criterion measures the potential implication or promotion for further studies in the related research fields.

Evaluation Rubric

INDICATORS EXCELLENT VERY GOOD GOOD NEEDS IMPROVEMENT
SCHOLARLY VALUES The research work demonstrates that the author fully understands the related research fields and has applied his/her expertise to generate important or unique discoveries and insights in the addressed research field to guide and promote further studies in related subject fields of Library and Information Sciences. The research work demonstrates that the author, for the most part, understands and has applied his/her expertise to conduct a qualified research. However, some weaknesses, such as sampling sizes or a short time frame, may not support the study’s conclusion. The research work demonstrates that the author, to a certain extent, understands and has applied an effective methodology to explore a specific subject field in Library and Information Sciences. However, further studies need to be made to explore more details for a reliable conclusion. The research work demonstrates that the author fails to present his/her full expertise in the research work. The research needs more improvements, such as data collection in a longer time frame, before a conclusion can convince both reviewers and readers.
RESEARCH FOCUS The research is very well formulated and meaningfully answered. It is focused enough to explore hidden truths. An abstract or a thesis statement provide a direction for the research, either by statement of a position or hypothesis. The research is well formulated and meaningfully answered in general. However, it is focused without establishing a reliable position because of data collection, timeline, or other issues. The research is reasonably formulated and meaningfully answered in general. However, its focus is too broad so that the author is not able to solve several issues in one study. The research is not adequately formulated and meaningfully answered. Its focus is not clearly defined. The study is involved with several unrelated aspects somehow.
RANGE AND SCOPE OF RESEARCH The sample size is extremely adequate, and the generality of the findings is extremely strong. In-depth discussion and elaboration have been made in all sections of the research work. The sample size is very adequate, and the generality of the findings is very strong. In-depth discussion and elaboration in most sections of the research work are made. The sample size is adequate, and the generality of the findings is relatively strong. However, the researcher has omitted pertinent content or content runs-on excessively. The author uses too many quotations to outweigh his/her original ideas. The sample size is not adequate, and the generality of the findings is not strong. Cursory discussion is in all the sections of the research work or brief discussion is in only a few sections.
METHODOLOGY The research presents a clear and detailed discussion with full understandings, outstanding arguments, and effective logical structures while applying casual-comparative method, correlational method, descriptive method, empirical-analytical method, experimental method, historical method, etc. The research presents a clear but partial understanding of the selected topic. During the course of applying a certain methodology in support of or against a particular viewpoint, the research needs more substantial evidence to generate a reliable conclusion for its study in the needed depth of study. The research only makes a simple presentation based on limited arguments and descriptions, often not completely. Some required methodology parts are missing from the study. The research does not understand the topic completely. For variable reasons, some required arguments, data, justification, reasoning, etc. are incorrectly processed via a selected methodology.
DISCOVERY The research presents or shed some lights on new and unique discoveries which previous studies have not reached to promote library creation and innovation. The research examines the same topics or issues from different perspectives which previous studies seldom explored. Further studies are still needed to generate innovative opinions. The research is only completed to repeat what other previous and similar studies explored. The research only presents questionable conclusions due to small data population or limited time frame, etc.
INFLUENCE The research has a deep implication on further studies in certain subject fields of Library and Information Sciences. The research becomes one of the important sources to initialize new or similar research in certain subject fields of Library and Information Sciences. The research provides a limited contribution to the current study for certain subject fields of Library and Information Sciences. The research fails to contribute sufficient scholarly values due to the fact of lacking a reliable data collection, data analysis, reasoning process, etc.

Evaluation Scale:

  • Excellent = 5 points
  • Very Good = 4 points
  • Good = 3 points
  • Needs Improvement = 2 points

Evaluation Procedures:

The whole evaluation process is composed of a primary selection and a final selection. An evaluation rubric will be used to assess and evaluate the submitted research works.

Additional Reference Tools for Measurements:

  1. Google Scholar: Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.com/) is a specific web search engine for published scholarly literature, including books, conference proceedings, dissertations, journal articles, theses, white books, etc. Its citation information is a good indicator to measure impacts and influences made by published research works.
  2. Journal Citation Reports: As an annual publication by Thomson Reuters, Journal Citation Reports (JCR) has been integrated with the Web of Science and can be accessed from the Web of Science-Core Collections. It is an indicator to measure impacts and influences made by academic journals.
  3. OCLC WorldCat: The OCLC WorldCat (https://www.worldcat.org/) is the world’s largest union catalog used to check which books have been collected among 72,000 libraries in 170 countries and territories that participate in the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) global cooperative. It is usually used to measure impacts and influences made by published books.
  4. Others.

Appeal and Review:

If a CALA member has any questions regarding the evaluation, he or she may request that the CALA Jing Liao Annual Award for the Best Research Committee to review the evaluations of submitted work. The CALA Jing Liao Annual Award for the Best Research Committee will take every necessary step to reassess the research work in question in a fair and unbiased way. The final decision will be made by the CALA Jing Liao Annual Award for the Best Research Committee based on mutual respect and understanding.

Schedules:

The award will be presented at the annual CALA Award Banquet. The announcement of the award should include the following about the fund:

This fund was established in memory of Jing Liao (1954-2011), a long-time CALA member and an accomplished librarian at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It aims to encourage CALA members to strive for excellence in research