1,720,988 research outputs found
Credit due: Multiple author attribution for interdisciplinary informatics research groups
No full textInformation behaviors in an online smoking cessation forum
No full textSmoking is a major contributor to morbidity and mortality today, and a focus of attention by primary care practitioners and public health. Few studies take into account the role of community-based information transactions, nor have they examined the information needs of quitting smokers beyond generic patient education pamphlets. A pilot study examines the function and value of information communicated in an online forum dedicated to smoking cessation. Firstly, a Web-based survey was sent to fourteen forum participants known by the author. Twenty questions about medications, decision support sources, the evaluation of those sources, and basic demographic information were asked and the resulting responses were analyzed. Secondly, 371 selected posts from the Web forum were collected to better understand the importance and frequency of specific types of cessation-related information. Several models are discussed in a preliminary attempt to characterize the forum's community-based information behaviors. Survey respondents view the existence of online community-based information resources (in the persons of their community peers) as a major factor in their cessation efforts. Although no attempt was made to generalize findings beyond this initial pilot, gaps were tentatively identified between the support provided by more traditional healthcare practitioners and the information needs experienced by this population. In their provision of a milieu for the exchange of information, online fora may enable support at a depth and quantity unavailable through more immediate channels. Further studies are needed to develop a better understanding of information-related behaviors of this large population
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Further study is needed to define and measure the use of reflective practice in library and information science
No full textA review of: Grant, Maria J. “The Role of Reflection in the Library and Information Sector: A Systematic Review.” Health Information and Libraries Journal (2007) 24: 155-166.
Objectives - To identify and review the literature of reflective practice in Library and Information Science (LIS) in order to understand its role, particularly with regard to health libraries.
Design - Systematic review
Setting - LIS English-language articles indexed in the Library and Information Science Abstracts (LISA) database and published between 1969 and 2006.
Subjects - 929 citations retrieved from the LISA database.
Methods - The author conducted free text searches in the LISA database for the terms ‘reflective’ or ‘reflection*’ or ‘reflexion*.’ An initial search series was conducted in 2004 in order to retrieve items published between 1969-2003, then in 2007, for articles published between 2004-2006. In all, 929 article citations were retrieved. Exclusion criteria included those articles addressing the facilitation of reflective practices in others, as well as non-English language, and materials predating 1969. After review, 55 articles met the author’s relevance standard. Citation tracking then added 10 articles to the total. From this dataset, full text articles were obtained where possible, if determined on initial scrutiny to be deserving of further examination. Thirteen articles (.013%) were ultimately selected for analysis. These articles were categorized as analytical or non-analytical, with respect to perspective (individual or organizational), and recency of events (retrospective or recent). In addition, a determination was made about whether the articles’ focus was reflection occurring on (in retrospect to) or in (during) practice.
Main results - Of 13 articles, 5 were found to be non-analytical, with the other 6 being analytical. Three of the non-analytical items were the reflections of an individual, while the remaining 2 offered an organizational perspective. The non-analytical accounts were found to be mostly descriptive accounts by an individual, mostly retrospective and offering no consideration of implications for LIS practice. Analytical reflective accounts attempt to systematically appraise events from the recent past, and draw conclusions in order to improve future actions.
Conclusion – A gradual increase in the use of analytical reflective practice is demonstrated over the period from 1969-2006, although insufficient examples of the practice were found in the published literature. Reflective practice is likely to be beneficial to LIS practitioners, especially when time is spent in considering the implications of lessons learned from practice
Tracking theory building and use trends in selected LIS journals: More research is needed
No full textObjective - The authors measure theory incidents occurring in four LIS journals between 1984-2003 in order to examine their number and quality and to analyze them by topic. A third objective, only identified later in the text of the study, was to compare theory development and use between Korean and international journals. Research questions asked include whether LIS has its own theoretical base as a discipline, and what characteristics the theoretical framework has.
Design – Bibliometric study.
Setting – Journal issues selected from four LIS journals for the time span from 1984 - 2003.
Subjects – Two international journals, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (JASIST) and Library and Information Science Research (LISR) were selected based on their high ranking in the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) impact factors. Two Korean journals, Journal of the Korean Society for Information Management (JKSIM) and Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science (JKSLIS) were selected.
Methods - After having determined a definition of theory, and identifying different levels of theory, the authors set up rules for the identification of theory incidents, which are defined as “events in which the author contributed to the development or the use of theory in his/her own paper” (550).
Content analysis of 1661 research articles was performed to measure theory incidents according to working definitions. Interrater reliability was ensured by conducting independent coding for “subfield classification, identification of theory incidents, and quality measurement” (555), using a sample of 199 articles (random selection not specified), achieving 94-97% interrater reliability. Incidents, once identified, were evaluated for quality using Dubin’s “efficiency of law” criteria, involving measures of relatedness, directionality, co-variation, rate of change, and “profundity,” defined as the depth to which theory is incorporated into the research study.
Main Results - 21.79% (n=362) of the articles contained theory incidents that were analyzed and evaluated. Trend measurement indicated an overall increase, although a slight decrease was shown in the year range 1993-2003. International journals accounted for 61.33% of theory incidents, compared to 38.67% for the Korean journals. T-testing showed that differences in means between Korean and international journals were not statistically significant.
Topical theory areas were ranked by frequency. The top five areas were shown to be nearly identical between Korean and international journals. ANOVA was performed with significant results in the difference between efficiency ratings.
Conclusion – The authors find that the overall proportion of theory incidents including both theory development and use increased through the 20-year time span examined, and that LIS has established its own theoretical framework based upon the frequency of incidents
Does a social network based model of journal metrics improve ranking?
No full textA Review of: Bollen, J., Van de Sompel, H., Smith, J.A., & Luce, R. (2005). Toward alternative metrics of journal impact: A comparison of download and citation data. Information Processing and Management, 41:1419-1440.
Objective: To test a new model for measuring journal impact by using principles of social networking. Research questions are as follows:
Can valid networks of journal relationships be derived from reader article download patterns registered in a digital library’s server logs?
Can social network metrics of journal impact validly be calculated from the structure of such networks?
If so, how do the resulting journal impact rankings relate to the ISI impact factor (IF)?
Design: Bibliometric, social network centrality analysis
Setting: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), New Mexico
Subjects: 40,847 full-text articles downloaded from a large digital library by 1,858 unique users over a 6 month period.
Methods: Full-text article downloads from a large digital library for a six-month period were examined using social networking analysis methods. ISSNs for journals in which the retrieved articles were published were paired based upon the proximity of use by the same user, based on the supposition that proximal downloads are related in some way. Reader-Generated Networks (RGNs) were then tested for small-world characteristics. The resulting RGN data were then compared with Author-Generated Networks (AGNs) for the same journals indexed in the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) annual impact factor (IF) rankings, in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) database. Next, a sample of the AGN-derived pairings was examined by a team of 22 scientists, who were asked to rate the strength of relationships between journals on a five-point scale. Centrality ratings were calculated for the AGN and RGN sets of journals, as well as for the ISI IF.
Main results: Closeness and centrality rankings for the ISI IF and the AGN metrics were low, but significant, suggesting that centrality metrics are an acceptable impact metric. Comparison between the RGN and ISI IF data found marked differences, with RGN mirroring local population needs to a much higher degree, and with a non-significant correlation between the ISI IF and RGN ranking, while AGN and RGN centrality rankings show significant centrality and closeness and betweenness correlations. RGN network ranking identified highly localized foci of interest for the LANL, as well as “interest-bridging” subject areas pointing to possible emerging interests among the scientists.
Conclusion: The study results appear to successfully demonstrate an alternative to existing journal impact ranking that can more validly and accurately reflect the practices of a local community. The authors suggest that the social network-derived methodology for identification of impact rankings avoids biases intrinsic to ISI IF as a result of frequentist metrics collected from a global user group. Although the authors resist the idea of generalizability due to the local nature of their data, they suggest that the methodology can be successfully used in other settings, and for a more global community. Finally, the authors propose the automated creation of an open-source RGN whose data could be localized for smaller communities, with potentially large implications for the existing publishing industry
Variations on the Author
No full text“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
No full textWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
No full textWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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