An Up-to-date Knowledge-Based Literature Search and Exploration Framework for Focused Bioscience Domains

To handle the exponential growth in bioscience literature, several knowledge-based search systems that facilitate domain-specific search have been proposed. In such systems, knowledge of a domain of interest is embedded as a backbone that guides the search process. But the knowledge used in most such systems 1. exists only for few well known broad domains; 2. is of a basic nature: either purely hierarchical or involves only few relationship types; and 3. is not always kept up-to-date missing insights from recently published results. In this paper we present a framework and implementation of a focused and up-to-date knowledge-based search system, called Scooner, that utilizes domain-specific knowledge extracted from recent bioscience abstracts. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt in the field to address all three shortcomings mentioned above. Since recent introduction for operational use at Applied Biotechnology Branch of AFRL, some biologists are using Scooner on a regular basis, while it is being made available for use by many more. Initial evaluations point to the promise of the approach in addressing the challenge we set out to address

Doctoral candidates' information practice through research writing : cases of East-Asian students in Australian universities

Information practices are pertinent to research writing, particularly in the writing of a literature review. This study examined East Asian doctoral (PhD) candidates’ information practices as a construct in writing literature reviews for social science theses in Australian universities. The outcomes of this research complement and extend the current documented strategies and regulations in information practices in both fields of Higher Degree Research education and Library and Information Science (LIS). Conceptualised in terms of Foucauldian (1972) “statements”, this study contributes to a reconceptualisation of information practices in research writing through the analysis of students’ literature reviews. Further, this research sheds light on research pedagogy for researchers who are committed to being educators more than supervisors. For doctoral students this thesis provides in part a picture of information practices in research writing. Information practices in literature reviews have largely been under-researched and/or overlooked in the fields of LIS and research education. Past studies in these two areas have contributed to developing research students’ information search abilities and writing abilities through various strategies (Carter, 2011a; Cotterall, 2011a; Kavuluru et al., 2012; Lee & Kamler, 2008; McCulloch et al., 2010; Olsson, 2010; Switzer & Lepkowski, 2007), while there is lack of combined investigation about information practices in research writing. Moreover, there are few studies investigating the statements (Foucault, 1972) per se in these two areas. Statement which is the core unit of discourse brings about the particular modalities of existence such as the information practices in research writing (Foucault, 1972). The investigation on statement can generate new insights into research writing by relating to information practices in both research education and LIS