How researchers cite documents on the web

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How researchers cite documents on the web?

• NOBUKO MIYAIRI

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AGENDA

• Introduction
• Hypotheses
• Related studies
• Research questions
• Survey design
• Results
• Conclusions

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MOTIVATIONS
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AGENDA

• Introduction
• Hypotheses
• Related studies
• Research questions
• Survey design
• Results
• Conclusions

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HYPOTHESES

• Authors would use the web to search documents
  that are relevant to their work, and cite them if
  appropriate and necessary.
• Authors may consult web documents during the
  course of their literature review, but may not
  necessarily cite them for a variety of reasons.
• They may hesitate to cite web documents because
  they are not sure of the documents availability
  or persistence
• They may find web documents useful in the course
  of study, but may eventually find other resources
  are more relevant, authoritative, or appropriate
  to be cited.
• When citing documents on the web, authors may not
  use DOI or URL
• if there is more traditional citation format is
  available to describe the same material
• they could have used authors copy posted on
  universitys institutional repository, but used
  bibliographic information pointing to the
  publishers copy

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AGENDA

• Introduction
• Hypotheses
• Related studies
• Research questions
• Survey design
• Results
• Conclusions

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RELATED STUDIES (FINDINGS)

• Increasing use of web documents
• Citations to web resources and documents are
  increasingly found in scholarly articles
• Studies on citation behavior of students and
  researchers confirm that the use of electronic
  resources in their work is growing in number
• Growing reliance on electronic resources by
  scholars and a high occurrence of nontraditional
  types of resources
• Search tools to locate web documents
• Authors are increasingly using the electronic
  databases and indexes in their efforts to
  identify appropriate sources of information

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• Access to web documents
• Majority of references contain partial
  bibliographic information and no date reviewed
• Persistence and availability become obsolete over
  time.
• Instructions to authors by publisher do not give
  adequate guidance
• Evaluation of web documents
• Quality was the most important factor in choosing
  the information,
• but that quality was of little relevance if the
  source was unavailable.
• When they had enough to write, they stopped
  searching further.
• Some information on the Internet is unreliable.

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• Citations to web documents
• Growing number of citations to preprints and
  e-prints in the years 1988-1996 in the field of
  physics, astronomy and mathematics
• Some factors are unique to electronic sources, in
  addition to the factors in common with print
  sources.
• Use ? Access ? Evaluate ? Cite
• Methodology
• Unobtrusive approach
• Need direct feedback from authors

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AGENDA

• Introduction
• Hypotheses
• Related studies
• Research questions
• Survey design
• Results
• Conclusions

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RESEARCH QUESTIONS
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ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS

• Have you published, or submitted your manuscript
  to any journal publication from January 2008 to
  April 2008?
• Please provide the title of journal publication
  you indicated in 1.
• If you have more than 2 published items during
  this period, please indicate the latest.
• While you work on your latest publication, did
  you consult any documents on the web?
• Do you have any specific reasons why you did NOT
  consult?
• When you consulted documents on the web for your
  latest publication, which tools you used?
• Which tools you used most?
• In general, what are your feelings about using
  any documents on the web in your scholarly work?
• Please contrast to documents in more traditional
  formats.

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AGENDA

• Introduction
• Hypotheses
• Related studies
• Research questions
• Survey design
• Results
• Conclusions

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SURVEY DESIGN

• Critical Incident Technique (CIT)
• Largely dependent on respondents memory
• CIT to gain as accurate and realistic responses
  as possible
• a set of principles used for collecting aspects
  involved in human behaviors through direct
  observation
• CIT can reduce stereotypical or over-generalized
  statements to be reported as respondents
  experience
• Sampling
• Web of Science
• Records from 2008
• TAIWAN in author address
• First 5,000 papers ? 5,449 emails ? 4,192 .tw
• 89 responded (2.1) ? 54 completed (1.3)

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AGENDA

• Introduction
• Hypotheses
• Related studies
• Research questions
• Survey design
• Results
• Conclusions

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Have you published, or submitted your manuscript
to any journal publication from January 2008 to
April 2008?
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CATEGORY

• For grouping respondents by category,
  usedCurrent Contents Connect edition scheme.

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Please provide the title of journal publication.
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While you work on your latest publication, did
you consult any documents on the web?
No (3) No need Not known
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Which tools did you use to locate them?
PubMed Arxiv Univ Library System
Google (23)
Multidisciplinary (13) Subject specific (11)
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When you consulted web documents, did you cite it?
because they were electronic-only format
(2) because they were not significant enoughto
cite (1) because I had more suitable item to
cite from print publication (1)
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Did you indicate location on the web when you
cited web documents?
I cite the reference list according to the
APAmanual. once the reader is interestedin
the cited documents, he/she may search it on
the web it is not necessary to do so not
required no need
URL (23) DOI (12) Article number (9)
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In general, what are your feelings about using
any documents on the web in your scholarly work?
Less credible Prefer print
Easy Convenient Quick, Efficient Current, On
time Good
Available As good as print
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AGENDA

• Introduction
• Hypotheses
• Related studies
• Research questions
• Survey design
• Results
• Conclusions

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CONCLUSIONS

• 90 of authors consulted web documents.
• No specific reasons for not consulted
• Web search engines (47) and Commercial databases
  (30) were the main tools to locate web
  documents.
• Multidisciplinary databases were slightly
  preferred over subject specific databases
• 91 of authors who consulted web documents
  actually cited them
• 15 of them did not indicate the location on the
  web
• Mainly because it is not required
• 70 of authors feel positive about web documents

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LIMITATIONS

• Small, non-random sample
• Only Taiwan surveyed
• Category implications
• Free comments (not controlled)
• Descriptive analysis, not statistical

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THANK YOU /??