Information-seeking behaviour of physicists and astronomers

Purpose – The study examines two aspects of information seeking behaviour of physicists and astronomers including methods applied for keeping up-to-date and methods used for finding articles. The relationship between academic status and research field of users with their information seeking behaviour was investigated. Methodology/approach – Data were gathered using a questionnaire survey of PhD students and staff of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at University College London; 114 people (47.1 per cent response rate) participated in the survey. Findings – The study reveals differences among subfields of physics and astronomy in terms of information-seeking behaviour, highlights the need for and the value of looking at narrower subject communities within disciplines for a deeper understanding of the information behaviour of scientists. Originality/value – The study is the first study to deeply investigate intradisciplinary dissimilarities of information-seeking behaviour of scientists in a discipline. It is also an up-to-date account of information seeking behaviour of physicists and astronomers

Information-seeking behaviour of physicists and astronomers

Purpose – The study examines two aspects of information seeking behaviour of physicists and astronomers including methods applied for keeping up-to-date and methods used for finding articles. The relationship between academic status and research field of users with their information seeking behaviour was investigated. Methodology/approach – Data were gathered using a questionnaire survey of PhD students and staff of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at University College London; 114 people (47.1 per cent response rate) participated in the survey. Findings – The study reveals differences among subfields of physics and astronomy in terms of information-seeking behaviour, highlights the need for and the value of looking at narrower subject communities within disciplines for a deeper understanding of the information behaviour of scientists. Originality/value – The study is the first study to deeply investigate intradisciplinary dissimilarities of information-seeking behaviour of scientists in a discipline. It is also an up-to-date account of information seeking behaviour of physicists and astronomers

Information-seeking behaviour of physicists and astronomers: an interdisciplinary study.

The study of information-seeking behaviour of scientists has been one of the main concerns of librarians and information scientists since mid twentieth century and yet we need to improve our understanding of their information behaviour in order to maximise the efficiency of information services provided. This thesis studies the information-seeking behaviour of physicists and astronomers with an intradisciplinary approach in order to look at similarities and dissimilarities among the subfields within physics and astronomy. The study also looks at the information-seeking behaviour of people with different academic status and investigates the information-seeking activities of physicists and astronomers in different stages of research projects with the focus of the thesis being research related information-seeking behaviour. Moreover, the research investigates reading behaviour and publishing patterns of physicists and astronomers. The study is a mixed-methods study that uses both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The population of the study included the staff and PhD students in the Department of Physics and Astronomy of University College London. Fifty-six face-to-face semi-structured interviews were conducted, an online questionnaire survey of 114 respondents (out of 242 sample, 47% response rate) was carried out and 88 information-event cards were completed by participants. The findings of the study showed that although some similarities exist in information-seeking behaviour of people in the different subfields of physics and astronomy, each subfield has its own characteristics. Variations were found with regard to different aspects of information-seeking behaviour including the reliance on e-print archives and journal articles, methods used for keeping up-to-date and methods used for identifying articles. The study showed the importance of human information sources and informal communication in the information-seeking behaviour of physicists and astronomers and highlighted the need for and the value of looking at narrower subject communities within disciplines for a deeper understanding of the information behaviour of scientists

Formation des doctorants dans le monde : tendances et évolution (La)

Diaporama de la communication de Maria-Carme Torras i Calvo, Senior Librarian à la bibliothèque de l’Université de Bergen, où elle dirige la commission d’enseignement qui coordonne le développement et l’intégration de l’éducation à l’information dans les programmes d’études et actuellement présidente de la section Information Literacy de l’IFLA, dont elle était membre du comité permanent depuis 2005, à l\u27occasion des 10e Rencontres Formist et de la 3e journée d’études du réseau des URFIST

The Extraction of Community Structures from Publication Networks to Support Ethnographic Observations of Field Differences in Scientific Communication

The scientific community of researchers in a research specialty is an important unit of analysis for understanding the field specific shaping of scientific communication practices. These scientific communities are, however, a challenging unit of analysis to capture and compare because they overlap, have fuzzy boundaries, and evolve over time. We describe a network analytic approach that reveals the complexities of these communities through examination of their publication networks in combination with insights from ethnographic field studies. We suggest that the structures revealed indicate overlapping sub- communities within a research specialty and we provide evidence that they differ in disciplinary orientation and research practices. By mapping the community structures of scientific fields we aim to increase confidence about the domain of validity of ethnographic observations as well as of collaborative patterns extracted from publication networks thereby enabling the systematic study of field differences. The network analytic methods presented include methods to optimize the delineation of a bibliographic data set in order to adequately represent a research specialty, and methods to extract community structures from this data. We demonstrate the application of these methods in a case study of two research specialties in the physical and chemical sciences.Comment: Accepted for publication in JASIS

Comment soutenir la recherche doctorale : les doctorants, la littératie informationnelle et la formation à l’utilisation des bibliothèques

La littératie informationnelle est un élément essentiel de la recherche. Pour faire des recherches, il faut savoir trouver et gérer l’information scientifique d’une part, puis être capable de l’utiliser de façon responsable afin de créer un nouveau savoir d’autre part. La littératie informationnelle permet au chercheur de développer une disposition critique et de maîtriser les utilisations pratiques des technologies de l’information et des ressources dont il dispose. L’accélération de l’innov..

The critical incident technique as a tool for gathering data as part of a qualitative study of information seeking behaviour.

Since devised by Flanagan in 1954 as a tool to explore what people do to achieve an organisational aim, the critical incident technique (CIT) has been used in various disciplines as a method of understanding human behaviour. This paper provides an overview of the use of CIT in the specific field of information behaviour, both in large-scale quantitative studies designed to assess the quality and impact of library and information systems and services, and in more qualitative research examining the information needs and use of particular professions or occupational groups, or of particular societal or community groups. It highlights the inconsistent application of CIT in academic research, and the quantitative versus qualitative tension that exists in discussions of the use of CIT as a data collection tool. The paper also discusses the use of CIT by the authors in a study of the information seeking behaviour of oil and gas professionals in a health and safety context, considering that project in relation to Flanagans five main steps in the CIT process, and in terms of the benefits and limitations of the technique identified by Flanagan and by other commentators. The authors believe that CIT has particular advantages in the study of information behaviour as a method of illuminating the ways in which the context of information need impacts on information behaviour, how participants feel, and in particular in identifying positive and negative behaviours in information seeking and use. The authors also argue that CIT must be used in a thoughtful manner and in a full recognition of its weaknesses in the design of future research

Information seeking behaviour of mathematicians : scientists and students

Introduction. The paper presents original research designed to explore and compare selected aspects of the information seeking behaviour of mathematicians (scientists and students) on the Internet. Method. The data were gathered through a questionnaire distributed at the end of 2011 and in January 2012. Twenty-nine professional mathematicians and 153 students of mathematics from the Institute of Mathematics of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland, were surveyed. Analysis. The gathered data were analysed in a quantitative manner and then interpreted comparatively to find similarities and differences between the behaviour of professional mathematicians and students. Results. Students, as opposed to scientists, often declared searching for reference works and multimedia objects and comparatively rarely for journal papers and information about sources unavailable on the Web. They more willingly use social networking sites while scientists more often search discipline-oriented portals or library Websites. Scientists use, first of all, the author's name or the publication titles to formulate queries, students prefer keyword searching. While scientists trust their own ability to determine the scientific character of information or treat journals as determinants of the scientific quality, students do not. Conclusions. The research revealed some significant differences between the information seeking behaviour of those two groups of mathematicians. It could be the result of different levels of experience in scientific work, distinct tasks undertaken within the academic environment, and the change in the general paradigm of information searching