Archives des mots-clés : scientific pratices

Use of Web Resources for Scholarly Research in Language and Literature: A Study among Research Scholars in Aligarh Muslim University, India

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This paper assesses the level of awareness and use of web resources by the research scholars of languages and literature in Aligarh Muslim University, India. Further the paper aims to highlight the problems faced by research scholars while accessing web resources, their opinion about the features and usefulness of the e-resources. The study was conducted through a well structured questionnaire administered among the research scholars in the department of English, Hindi, Arabic, Urdu, Persian, Modern Indian Languages and Comparative literature and Culture.

A random sample of 250 respondents collected during the months of June to August 2011 has been taken for analysis. This paper restricts the study exclusively to use of web resources by research scholars of Language and Literature in Aligarh Muslim University. The scope of the study can be extended to other Indian Universities also.

The study reveals that web resources have became an essential part of the research works in AMU. Almost all the services and resources available on Web are utilized by the researchers and Google is the widely used search engine in the University. Many attempts have been made to study the use of e-resources by research scholars in various universities in India, but this is the first of its kind among the researchers of Language and Literature with some suggestions for improvement of web resources and services.

URL : http://irjlis.com/use-web-resources-scholarly-research-language-literature/

Researchers of Tomorrow the research behaviour of Generation…

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Researchers of Tomorrow: the research behaviour of Generation Y doctoral students :

“In 2009, the British Library and JISC commissioned the three-year Researchers of Tomorrow study, focusing on the information-seeking and research behaviour of doctoral students in ‘Generation Y’, born between 1982 and 1994 and not ‘digital natives’. Over 17,000 doctoral students from more than 70 higher education institutions participated in the three annual surveys, which were complemented by a longitudinal student cohort study.”

URL : http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/publications/reports/2012/researchers-of-tomorrow.pdf

Digital repositories ten years on: what do scientific researchers think of them and how do they use them?

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Digital repositories have been with us for more than a decade, and despite the considerable media and conference attention they engender, we know very little about their use by academics.

This paper sets out to address this by reporting on how well they are used, what they are used for, what researchers’ think of them, and where they thought they were going. Nearly 1,700 scientific researchers, mostly physical scientists, responded to an international survey of digital repositories, making it the largest survey of its kind.

High deposit rates were found and mandates appear to be working, especially with younger researchers. Repositories have made significant inroads in terms of impact and use despite, in the case of institutional repositories, the very limited resources deployed. S

ubject repositories, like arXiv and PubMed Central, have certainly come of age but institutional repositories probably have not come of age yet although there are drivers in place which, in theory anyway, are moving them towards early adulthood.

URL : http://ciber-research.eu/download/20120620-Digital_repositories_ten_years_on.pdf

Research Blogs and the Discussion of Scholarly Information…

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Research Blogs and the Discussion of Scholarly Information :

“The research blog has become a popular mechanism for the quick discussion of scholarly information. However, unlike peer-reviewed journals, the characteristics of this form of scientific discourse are not well understood, for example in terms of the spread of blogger levels of education, gender and institutional affiliations. In this paper we fill this gap by analyzing a sample of blog posts discussing science via an aggregator called ResearchBlogging.org (RB). ResearchBlogging.org aggregates posts based on peer-reviewed research and allows bloggers to cite their sources in a scholarly manner. We studied the bloggers, blog posts and referenced journals of bloggers who posted at least 20 items. We found that RB bloggers show a preference for papers from high-impact journals and blog mostly about research in the life and behavioral sciences. The most frequently referenced journal sources in the sample were: Science, Nature, PNAS and PLoS One. Most of the bloggers in our sample had active Twitter accounts connected with their blogs, and at least 90% of these accounts connect to at least one other RB-related Twitter account. The average RB blogger in our sample is male, either a graduate student or has been awarded a PhD and blogs under his own name.”

URL : http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0035869

Examining Motivations behind Paper Usage in Academia …

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Examining Motivations behind Paper Usage in Academia :

“We carried out a qualitative study to identify the “missing pieces” in current computing devices and technologies that are preventing people from eliminating paper from their lives. Most of the existing literature has looked into the work practices of businesses, while a few have researched how high school and college students and teaching assistants at universities work with paper. We were specifically interested in analyzing paper use for people in the research side of academia, and seeing how our results compare to existing work. We recruited and interviewed participants from academia to understand what kind of tasks they use paper for, what kind of tasks they use computing devices for and what motivates them to use these two media. We found that, despite having access to at least one personal computing device, the participants preferred to work with paper in many situations. This appears to be attributed to certain intrinsic qualities that paper has, such as open format, easy navigation, readability, and the affordances these qualities provide. In order to eventually replace paper with devices, designers of new technology will have to successfully emulate these qualities.”

URL : http://arxiv.org/abs/1206.0302

Does Tenure Matter Factors Influencing Faculty Contributions to…

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Does Tenure Matter? Factors Influencing Faculty Contributions to Institutional Repositories :

“INTRODUCTION : Institutional repositories (IRs) provide colleges and universities a way to ensure stability of access to and dissemination of digital scholarly communications. Yet, many institutions report that faculty willingness to contribute to IRs is often limited. This study investigates faculty attitudes about IR contributions by tenure status and category of material.

IMETHODS: Two focus group interviews were conducted in the spring of 2009 among English department faculty at a large Midwestern university. One group consisted of tenured faculty and the other of tenure-track and adjunct faculty.

IRESULTS: Both groups recognize the benefit of open access to research materials but expressed concern about their intellectual property rights. Untenured faculty spoke more about nonprint research. Both groups also shared concerns about contributing instructional materials, primarily in regard to plagiarism and outdated materials. In regard to faculty service, the tenured group discussed many items they would contribute, while the untenured faculty mentioned very little.

IDISCUSSION: Some minor differences emerged related to experience and tenure status in regard to contributing research and instructional artifacts, but the major variation was the strong support tenured participants gave for contributing service items, compared to the untenured faculty, who did not view this category positively. Tenured faculty viewed the IR as a way to document their own service activities, investigate those of colleagues, and had fewer concerns about plagiarism or other negative effects in the service category.

CONCLUSION: Promoting faculty contribution of service-related items to an IR may be a way to encourage larger numbers to participate.”

URL : http://jlsc-pub.org/jlsc/vol1/iss1/8/