Electronic Publication and the Narrowing of Science and Scholarship -- Evans 3... - The Diigo Meta page

• 02 Jul 09
  

  Michel Roland

  e-journals scholars citations serendipity

  • The forced browsing of print archives may have stretched scientists and scholars to anchor findings deeply into past and present scholarship. Searching online is more efficient and following hyperlinks quickly puts researchers in touch with prevailing opinion, but this may accelerate consensus and narrow the range of findings and ideas built upon.
  • the three most common practices used by scientists and scholars who publish. First, most experts browse or briefly scan a small number of core journals in print or online to build awareness of current research (6). After relevant articles are discovered online, these are often printed and perused in depth on paper (7). A second practice is to search by topic in an online article database. In recent years, the percentage of papers read as a result of browsing has dropped and been replaced by the results of online searches, especially for the most productive scientists and scholars (8). Finally, subject experts use hyperlinks in online articles to view referenced or related articles (6). Disciplinary differences exist. For example, biologists prefer to browse online, whereas medical professionals place a premium on purchasing and browsing in print. In sum, researchers peruse in print, browse in print or online (9), and search and follow citations online.
  • 3 more annotations...
  • • Collectively, the models presented illustrate that as journal archives came online, either through commercial vendors or freely, citation patterns shifted. As deeper backfiles became available, more recent articles were referenced; as more articles became available, fewer were cited and citations became more concentrated within fewer articles. These changes likely mean that the shift from browsing in print to searching online facilitates avoidance of older and less relevant literature. Moreover, hyperlinking through an online archive puts experts in touch with consensus about what is the most important prior work—what work is broadly discussed and referenced. With both strategies, experts online bypass many of the marginally related articles that print researchers skim. If online researchers can more easily find prevailing opinion, they are more likely to follow it, leading to more citations referencing fewer articles.
    • Agents view others' choices as relevant information—a signal of quality—and factor them into their own reading and citation selections. By enabling scientists to quickly reach and converge with prevailing opinion, electronic journals hasten scientific consensus. But haste may cost more than the subscription to an online archive: Findings and ideas that do not become consensus quickly will be forgotten quickly.
    • This research ironically intimates that one of the chief values of print library research is poor indexing.
• 13 Aug 08
  

  Lisa Spiro

  "Using a database of 34 million articles, their citations (1945 to 2005), and online availability (1998 to 2005), I show that as more journal issues came online, the articles referenced tended to be more recent, fewer journals and articles were cited, and more of those citations were to fewer journals and articles."

  eresources_study literary_research_course cultural userstudy research

Would you like to comment?

Join Diigo for a free account, or sign in if you are already a member.