ABSTRACT:
This article reports on the Web citation behavior of print and electronic thesis authors at Iowa State and Virginia Tech from 1997 to 2003. Citations from print theses were compared with those submitted as an electronic thesis or dissertation (ETD).
This study suggests that students who are required to publish their theses digitally exhibit citation behavior that is no different from students who produce their theses in print. Web citations accounted for 2.2 percent of citations in print theses and 5.4 percent of citations in ETDs. Persistence of Web citations was uniformly poor. The implications for library services and future research directions are discussed.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Dissemination of ETDs:
Virginia Tech, which began requiring ETDs of its students in January 1997, has played a key role in their development. Larry Thompson discusses Virginia Tech’s ETD program and its impact on traditional access to theses and dissertations.
The Virginia TechLibrary Web site maintains extensive links to available ETDs, technical information for ETD authors, and links to other ETD resources. The National Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations, founded in 1997 to coor-dinate ETD efforts among different institutions, quickly changed its name to the Net-worked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) as international interest in ETDs increased.
As of January 2005, 189 universities and 28 institutions are members of the NDLTD, with over 60 of them requiring ETDs of their students. Edward Foxpublished an update on NDLTD activities in 2000.
Electronic Resource Bibliometrics:
Citation analysis or other bibliometric studies of electronic resources are rare relative to the corpus of literature on electronic resources. Version 54 of Charles Bailey’s Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography lists 108 items under Electronic Serials: Research” out of more than 2,150 references in a recent edition of the bibliography. Of those 108 bibliometric studies of electronic serials account for fewer than 20 entries.
Limitations of Bibliometric Analysis:
Bibliometric analysis of Web citations can be used as a means for describing how scholars use Web citations in their work. It is useful for demonstrating the incidence of Web citation and explaining the characteristics of how Web citations are used.
It is less helpful in explaining the motivations of authors who cite Web resources. Research investigating the norms and mores that define how scholars act in their respective disciplines may better explain the motivations for using and citing Web resources.
Trends and Gaps in the Literature:
Current trends in the literature include a heavy emphasis on research about Open Access Initiatives (OAI). OAI provides free and open access to electronic content of journals, monographs, and other such materials as sound and video.
There are significant economic issues related to providing content through OAI not the least of which is development of pricing models that will allow publishers to recoup costs from lost subscription revenue. Debate about both the mechanics and economic issues related to OAI continues.
METHODOLOGY
Sample Selection:
To examine the differences in Web citation rates between print theses and ETDs, two sets of theses were selected one from Virginia Tech and the other from Iowa State. As stated earlier, Virginia Tech the first institution to require ETDs began requiring them in 1997. Iowa State does not accept ETDs and currently has no plans to do so. Both institutions are land grant schools with established economics programs that award both master’s and doctoral degrees. The institutional characteristics of the two schools.
Thesis and Citation Analysis:
Theses were classified by subject to validate the similarity between the two institutions using the Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classification system, the standard subject classification used for economics literature. Descriptors from titles and abstracts were used to classify each thesis. The results of this classification are described in a later section.
RESULTS
Thesis Characteristics:
Before examining citation content and the trends in electronic citation use at the two institutions, it is important to know something about the theses samples that Iowa State and Virginia Tech graduate similar numbers of students. The differences in the distribution of types of degrees granted are a reflection of the size of the Economics Department at each institution.
FUTURE RESEARCH PRIORITIES AND CONCLUSION
This research raises some important questions that need attention. First, what methodologies will be developed in the future to accurately reflect the use of electronic sources? Quantitative methods for studying the use of Web resources have evolved from traditional bibliometric methods.
Refinement of existing quantitative methods and development of more robust methods for analyzing Web resources may provide more reliable information about their use.
Another area for future research is that of user motivation. Research has shown that Web citations are appearing with increasing frequency in both scholarly and student research. There is little research, however, examining why scholars cite (or not) Web resources.
Why are there disparities in the incidence of Web citation among different disciplines? Are scholars, for example, reading a journal article online and citing the print version? Does it matter that they do this? By examining the incidence of citation and the motivations for citation, researchers may gain a clearer picture of how the Web is changing scholarly communication.
Bibliometric studies of Web citation behavior are valuable, but they only provide a partial picture of how scholars use their respective subject literatures. As discussed in the literature review, exploration of the behavioral and social aspects of electronic citation is an emerging area but not one without precedent.
What is clear from this study is that there is no single answer to the question of how scholars use subject literatures. Research that seeks to integrate methodologies from information retrieval, bibliometrics,information literacy, and information seeking behavior may provide a clearer picture of how scholars use electronic resources and the impact of that use on libraries.
Source: Iowa State University
Author: Jeffrey D. Kushkowski