15,126 research outputs found
Issues in student training and use of electronic bibliographic databases
In an article in this journal Ottewill and Hudson (1997) raised a number of issues concerning students’ use of electronic bibliographic databases. They emphasized the need for co‐operation between academics and librarians in database training and in coursework where databases would be used. We report a project on students’ use of bibliographic databases. Our findings reveal that access to these databases, whilst solving many of the problems students experience in sourcing reference material for coursework and research, raises new intellectual problems due to the sheer breadth and depth of their coverage of subject matter. Typically database training programmes focus on search skills and the use of different interfaces. However, our findings demonstrate that students should be encouraged to develop a more critical perspective on databases since these can be seductive, time‐consuming and, in certain circumstances, counterproductive resources. Students would benefit from more guidance on the quality cues that academics and librarians employ when evaluating different databases and their contents
Software tools for conducting bibliometric analysis in science: An up-to-date review
Bibliometrics has become an essential tool for assessing and analyzing the output of scientists, cooperation between
universities, the effect of state-owned science funding on national research and development performance and educational
efficiency, among other applications. Therefore, professionals and scientists need a range of theoretical and practical
tools to measure experimental data. This review aims to provide an up-to-date review of the various tools available
for conducting bibliometric and scientometric analyses, including the sources of data acquisition, performance analysis
and visualization tools. The included tools were divided into three categories: general bibliometric and performance
analysis, science mapping analysis, and libraries; a description of all of them is provided. A comparative analysis of the
database sources support, pre-processing capabilities, analysis and visualization options were also provided in order to
facilitate its understanding. Although there are numerous bibliometric databases to obtain data for bibliometric and
scientometric analysis, they have been developed for a different purpose. The number of exportable records is between
500 and 50,000 and the coverage of the different science fields is unequal in each database. Concerning the analyzed
tools, Bibliometrix contains the more extensive set of techniques and suitable for practitioners through Biblioshiny.
VOSviewer has a fantastic visualization and is capable of loading and exporting information from many sources. SciMAT
is the tool with a powerful pre-processing and export capability. In views of the variability of features, the users need to
decide the desired analysis output and chose the option that better fits into their aims
A comparison of the performance of seven key bibliographic databases in identifying all relevant systematic reviews of interventions for hypertension
BACKGROUND: Bibliographic databases are the primary resource for identifying systematic reviews of health care interventions. Reliable retrieval of systematic reviews depends on the scope of indexing used by database providers. Therefore, searching one database may be insufficient, but it is unclear how many need to be searched. We sought to evaluate the performance of seven major bibliographic databases for the identification of systematic reviews for hypertension. METHODS: We searched seven databases (Cochrane library, Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE), Excerpta Medica Database (EMBASE), Epistemonikos, Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE), PubMed Health and Turning Research Into Practice (TRIP)) from 2003 to 2015 for systematic reviews of any intervention for hypertension. Citations retrieved were screened for relevance, coded and checked for screening consistency using a fuzzy text matching query. The performance of each database was assessed by calculating its sensitivity, precision, the number of missed reviews and the number of unique records retrieved. RESULTS: Four hundred systematic reviews were identified for inclusion from 11,381 citations retrieved from seven databases. No single database identified all the retrieved systematic reviews for hypertension. EMBASE identified the most reviews (sensitivity 69 %) but also retrieved the most irrelevant citations with 7.2 % precision (Pr). The sensitivity of the Cochrane library was 60 %, DARE 57 %, MEDLINE 57 %, PubMed Health 53 %, Epistemonikos 49 % and TRIP 33 %. EMBASE contained the highest number of unique records (n = 43). The Cochrane library identified seven unique records and had the highest precision (Pr = 30 %), followed by Epistemonikos (n = 2, Pr = 19 %). No unique records were found in PubMed Health (Pr = 24 %) DARE (Pr = 21 %), TRIP (Pr = 10 %) or MEDLINE (Pr = 10 %). Searching EMBASE and the Cochrane library identified 88 % of all systematic reviews in the reference set, and searching the freely available databases (Cochrane, Epistemonikos, MEDLINE) identified 83 % of all the reviews. The databases were re-analysed after systematic reviews of non-conventional interventions (e.g. yoga, acupuncture) were removed. Similarly, no database identified all the retrieved systematic reviews. EMBASE identified the most relevant systematic reviews (sensitivity 73 %) but also retrieved the most irrelevant citations with Pr = 5 %. The sensitivity of the Cochrane database was 62 %, followed by MEDLINE (60 %), DARE (55 %), PubMed Health (54 %), Epistemonikos (50 %) and TRIP (31 %). The precision of the Cochrane library was the highest (20 %), followed by PubMed Health (Pr = 16 %), DARE (Pr = 13 %), Epistemonikos (Pr = 12 %), MEDLINE (Pr = 6 %), TRIP (Pr = 6 %) and EMBASE (Pr = 5 %). EMBASE contained the most unique records (n = 34). The Cochrane library identified seven unique records. The other databases held no unique records. CONCLUSIONS: The coverage of bibliographic databases varies considerably due to differences in their scope and content. Researchers wishing to identify systematic reviews should not rely on one database but search multiple databases
CitNetExplorer: A new software tool for analyzing and visualizing citation networks
We present CitNetExplorer, a new software tool for analyzing and visualizing
citation networks of scientific publications. CitNetExplorer can for instance
be used to study the development of a research field, to delineate the
literature on a research topic, and to support literature reviewing. We first
introduce the main concepts that need to be understood when working with
CitNetExplorer. We then demonstrate CitNetExplorer by using the tool to analyze
the scientometric literature and the literature on community detection in
networks. Finally, we discuss some technical details on the construction,
visualization, and analysis of citation networks in CitNetExplorer
"Seed+Expand": A validated methodology for creating high quality publication oeuvres of individual researchers
The study of science at the individual micro-level frequently requires the
disambiguation of author names. The creation of author's publication oeuvres
involves matching the list of unique author names to names used in publication
databases. Despite recent progress in the development of unique author
identifiers, e.g., ORCID, VIVO, or DAI, author disambiguation remains a key
problem when it comes to large-scale bibliometric analysis using data from
multiple databases. This study introduces and validates a new methodology
called seed+expand for semi-automatic bibliographic data collection for a given
set of individual authors. Specifically, we identify the oeuvre of a set of
Dutch full professors during the period 1980-2011. In particular, we combine
author records from the National Research Information System (NARCIS) with
publication records from the Web of Science. Starting with an initial list of
8,378 names, we identify "seed publications" for each author using five
different approaches. Subsequently, we "expand" the set of publication in three
different approaches. The different approaches are compared and resulting
oeuvres are evaluated on precision and recall using a "gold standard" dataset
of authors for which verified publications in the period 2001-2010 are
available.Comment: Paper accepted for the ISSI 2013, small changes in the text due to
referee comments, one figure added (Fig 3
Impact of the Information and Communication Technologies on the Education of Students with Down Syndrome: a Bibliometric Study (2008- 2018)
This article analyzes the impact of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on students with Down
syndrome through the consult of scientific articles published during the 2008 to 2018 period, in five scientific journal databases
utilized in the academic world. Through a descriptive and quantitative methodology, the most significant bibliometric data according
to citation index is shown. Likewise, a methodology based on the analysis of co-words and clustering techniques is applied through a
bibliometric maps, in order to determine the fields of scientific study. The results show that articles published have a medium-low
index of impact. There are linked with the importance of using ICT with these students, from educational inclusion and accessibility
perspective
Contextualization of topics - browsing through terms, authors, journals and cluster allocations
This paper builds on an innovative Information Retrieval tool, Ariadne. The
tool has been developed as an interactive network visualization and browsing
tool for large-scale bibliographic databases. It basically allows to gain
insights into a topic by contextualizing a search query (Koopman et al., 2015).
In this paper, we apply the Ariadne tool to a far smaller dataset of 111,616
documents in astronomy and astrophysics. Labeled as the Berlin dataset, this
data have been used by several research teams to apply and later compare
different clustering algorithms. The quest for this team effort is how to
delineate topics. This paper contributes to this challenge in two different
ways. First, we produce one of the different cluster solution and second, we
use Ariadne (the method behind it, and the interface - called LittleAriadne) to
display cluster solutions of the different group members. By providing a tool
that allows the visual inspection of the similarity of article clusters
produced by different algorithms, we present a complementary approach to other
possible means of comparison. More particular, we discuss how we can - with
LittleAriadne - browse through the network of topical terms, authors, journals
and cluster solutions in the Berlin dataset and compare cluster solutions as
well as see their context.Comment: proceedings of the ISSI 2015 conference (accepted
ADAPTS: An Intelligent Sustainable Conceptual Framework for Engineering Projects
This paper presents a conceptual framework for the optimization of environmental sustainability in engineering projects, both for products and industrial facilities or processes. The main objective of this work is to propose a conceptual framework to help researchers to approach optimization under the criteria of sustainability of engineering projects, making use of current Machine Learning techniques. For the development of this conceptual framework, a bibliographic search has been carried out on the Web of Science. From the selected documents and through a hermeneutic procedure the texts have been analyzed and the conceptual framework has been carried out. A graphic representation pyramid shape is shown to clearly define the variables of the proposed conceptual framework and their relationships. The conceptual framework consists of 5 dimensions; its acronym is ADAPTS. In the base are: (1) the Application to which it is intended, (2) the available DAta, (3) the APproach under which it is operated, and (4) the machine learning Tool used. At the top of the pyramid, (5) the necessary Sensing. A study case is proposed to show its applicability. This work is part of a broader line of research, in terms of optimization under sustainability criteria.Telefónica Chair “Intelligence in Networks” of the University of Seville (Spain
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