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Article
Publication date: 16 November 2021

B. Niveditha, Mallinath Kumbar and B.T. Sampath Kumar

The present study compares the use of web citations as references in leading scholarly journals in Library and Information Science (LIS) and Communication and Media Studies (CMS)…

Abstract

Purpose

The present study compares the use of web citations as references in leading scholarly journals in Library and Information Science (LIS) and Communication and Media Studies (CMS). A total of 20 journals (each 10 from LIS and CMS) were selected based on the publishing history and reputation published between 2008 and 2017.

Design/methodology/approach

The present study compares the use of web citations as references in leading scholarly journals in LIS and CMS. A PHP script was used to crawl the Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) collected from the reference list. A total of 12,251 articles were downloaded and 555,428 references were extracted. Of the 555,428 references, 102,718 web citations were checked for their accessibility.

Findings

The research findings indicated that 76.90% URLs from LIS journals and 84.32% URLs from Communication and Media Studies journals were accessible and others were rotten. The majority of errors were due to HTTP 404 error code (not found) in both the disciplines. The study also tried to retrieve the rotten URLs through Time Travel, which revived 61.76% rotten URLs in LIS journal articles and 65.46% in CMS journal articles.

Originality/value

This is an in-depth and comprehensive comparative study on the availability of web citations in LIS and CMS journals articles spanning a period of 10 years. The findings of the study will be helpful to authors, publishers, and editorial staff to ensure that web citations will be accessible in the future.

Details

Aslib Journal of Information Management, vol. 74 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2050-3806

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 April 2018

B.T. Sampath Kumar and S.U. Shiva Kumara

The purpose of this paper is to know the frequency, place, and purpose of use of computer. It also aimed to know the various problems faced by the students in using the computer…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to know the frequency, place, and purpose of use of computer. It also aimed to know the various problems faced by the students in using the computer and to know the reasons for not using computer by rural and urban students.

Design/methodology/approach

A total of the 2,592 sample population were selected from 64 rural and urban high schools of two districts of Karnataka state. A structured questionnaire was used for the data collection and data have been analyzed using Software Package for Social Science. Statistical tests, namely, χ2 and one-way ANOVA were applied to test the formulated hypotheses.

Findings

The results of the study showed that only 20.66 percent rural students and 69.70 percent of urban students used computer for various academic purposes. Further, most of the rural and urban students opined that “electric power failure” and “lack of computer” skills were major problem in using computer.

Originality/value

Today, the computer education in schools plays an important role in student’s career development and enhances the quality of learning among students. Thus, the local government/school authorities may provide the minimum ICT infrastructure in both schools and more particularly in rural schools.

Details

World Journal of Science, Technology and Sustainable Development, vol. 15 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2042-5945

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 23 September 2013

B.T. Sampath Kumar and G.T. Kumar

The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of various search engines and meta search engines by Indian academics for retrieving information on the web. It also aims to know…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of various search engines and meta search engines by Indian academics for retrieving information on the web. It also aims to know whether the academics use search strategy of various search engines for retrieval of information or not, and how the Indian academics learn the various search strategies for using search engines.

Design/methodology/approach

The data collection instruments used for this study were a questionnaire and follow-up interviews with students and faculty members. The questionnaire consisted of various questions which were designed to elicit the use of search engines, search strategies and method of leaning the search strategies of search engines. A total of 450 questionnaires were distributed, out of which 300 duly filled copies were returned, constituting a 66.66 percent response rate. The data thus collected were analysed with the help of the SPSS (version 19.0) statistical package to present the findings in percentage and test the formulated hypothesis.

Findings

The findings of the survey show that the majority of the respondents most frequently used Google (91.93 percent) and Yahoo (43.85 percent) while Dogpile and Ixquick (35.78 percent each) were less frequently used by the respondents. 65.26 percent of respondents used the search strategy for retrieving information. The study also shows that there is a significant relationship between the respondent's profession and use of search engines (p=0.018) as well use search strategies of search engines (p=0.028). Method of learning the search strategies of search engines is also associated with the respondent's profession (p=0.008).

Originality/value

The results of this study have clear implications for information literacy instruction in the context of search engines. The study recommends that there is a need to conduct intensive training for students and faculty members in order for them to acquire the essential search strategies for effective information retrieval. The findings of the study will be helpful to concerned authorities to enhance the effective and efficient use of search engines by the respondents.

Details

Program, vol. 47 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0033-0337

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 29 June 2012

B.T. Sampath Kumar and K.S. Manoj Kumar

The main purpose of the present study is to examine the availability and persistence of URL citations in two LIS open access journals. It also intended to calculate the half‐life…

Abstract

Purpose

The main purpose of the present study is to examine the availability and persistence of URL citations in two LIS open access journals. It also intended to calculate the half‐life period of URL citations cited in journal articles.

Design/methodology/approach

A total of 2,890 URL citations cited in 689 research articles published in LIS journals spanning a period of 14 years (1996‐2009) were extracted. In order to check the accessibility of URL citations, W3C link checker was used. After the initial check, inactive URL citations were listed. Domains and HTTP errors associated with inactive URL citations were identified for further analysis. The half‐life period was calculated using the formula t(h)=[t ln(0.5)]/[ln W(t)−ln W(0)].

Findings

The research findings indicated that 57.61 percent (397 of 689) of articles have URL citations and percentage of URL citations increased from 5.98 percent in 1996 to 27.79 percent in 2009. It was found that 26.08 percent of all citations were not accessible during the time of testing and the majority of errors were due to HTTP 404 error code (not found). The domains.net and.gov were more stable compared to the domains.com/.co,.org, and.edu. The half‐life was computed to be approximately 11.5 years, which compares favorably against earlier research works.

Originality/value

This is a comprehensive study on the availability and persistence of URL citations cited in LIS journals articles spanning a period of 14 years. The findings of the study will be helpful to authors, publishers and editorial staff to improve existing URL citation conventions and to promote URL use to ensure that URL citations are accessible in future.

Details

Aslib Proceedings, vol. 64 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0001-253X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 7 April 2015

B T Sampath Kumar, D Vinay Kumar and K.R. Prithviraj

The purpose of this paper is to know the rate of loss of online citations used as references in scholarly journals. It also indented to recover the vanished online citations using…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to know the rate of loss of online citations used as references in scholarly journals. It also indented to recover the vanished online citations using Wayback Machine and also to calculate the half-life period of online citations.

Design/methodology/approach

The study selected three journals published by Emerald publication. All 389 articles published in these three scholarly journals were selected. A total of 15,211 citations were extracted of which 13,281 were print citations and only 1,930 were online citations. The online citations so extracted were then tested to determine whether they were active or missing on the Web. W3C Link Checker was used to check the existence of online citations. The online citations which got HTTP error message while testing for its accessibility were then entered in to the search box of the Wayback Machine to recover vanished online citations.

Findings

Study found that only 12.69 percent (1,930 out of 15,211) citations were online citations and the percentage of online citations varied from a low of 9.41 in the year 2011 to high of 17.52 in the year 2009. Another notable finding of the research was that 30.98 percent of online citations were not accessible (vanished) and remaining 69.02 percent of online citations were still accessible (active). The HTTP 404 error message – “page not found” was the overwhelming message encountered and represented 62.98 percent of all HTTP error message. It was found that the Wayback Machine had archived only 48.33 percent of the vanished web pages, leaving 51.67 percent still unavailable. The half-life of online citations was increased from 5.40 years to 11.73 years after recovering the vanished online citations.

Originality/value

This is a systematic and in-depth study on recovery of vanished online citations cited in journals articles spanning a period of five years. The findings of the study will be helpful to researchers, authors, publishers, and editorial staff to recover vanishing online citations using Wayback Machine.

Details

Program, vol. 49 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0033-0337

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 30 September 2013

B.T. Sampath Kumar and G. Manjunath

The internet growth has created a new scientific communication system with new facilities that are competing with the traditional sources of information. The present study…

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Abstract

Purpose

The internet growth has created a new scientific communication system with new facilities that are competing with the traditional sources of information. The present study investigated impact of internet use on academic performance of teachers and researcher in university setup. The aim of this paper is to find out how these academics use internet sources and services? What is the user's satisfaction level with internet sources and services? And what problems has the user encountered when searching the information on the internet. It further aims to know how the user compares the internet sources with traditional information sources.

Design/methodology/approach

Questionnaires were distributed to randomly selected teachers and researchers in Kuvempu University, Karnataka state. Total 200 questionnaires were distributed out of which 140 duly filled questionnaires were returned. The questionnaire consisted of various questions which are designed for the teachers and researchers to elicit the impact of internet use on their academic performance.

Findings

This study has demonstrated the high use of the internet sources and services by teachers and researchers in university setup. Most of them used internet in support of their study and teaching. Majority of respondents learnt to use the internet through self-instruction and trial and error, with the help of friends and by reading books or papers. Study results also indicated that internet has made an impact on their academic performance (i.e. in writing more research papers, in doing better research, better learning experience, etc.).

Originality/value

This is the comprehensive study on the impact of internet sources and services on the academic performance of teachers and researchers in the university environment. Findings of the study will be helpful to university authority to enhance the internet facilities for effective and efficient use by the teachers and researchers. The study also suggested that there is a need to focus on opportunities for providing training on use advanced internet search skills to the academic community. Concerned authorities also need to enhance the internet bandwidth to increase the internet speed.

Details

Higher Education, Skills and Work-based Learning, vol. 3 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2042-3896

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 16 February 2010

B.T. Sampath Kumar and G.T. Kumar

This paper aims to examine the perception and use of e‐resources and the internet by the engineering, medical and management academics in Bangalore City, India. The prime…

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to examine the perception and use of e‐resources and the internet by the engineering, medical and management academics in Bangalore City, India. The prime objective is to find out how academics compare e‐sources with print sources and how they perceive the advantages of e‐sources and problems for accessing them. It further aims to establish the extent of internet use, the purpose of such use and factors influencing it.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected from 300 students and faculty members in selected engineering, medical and management colleges of Bangalore City. The questionnaire consists of 15 main questions with many of them having a number of subsidiary questions. The questions are designed for the students and faculty members to elicit their experience with the e‐sources and internet use for their study and research work.

Findings

Study results show that the students and faculty who participated in this survey are aware of e‐sources and also the internet. Even though a majority of the academic community use electronic information sources for their academic‐related work, most of them prefer print to electronic information sources. Many of the students and faculty learned about the electronic information sources either by trial and error or through the advice of friends.

Practical implications

Librarians need to reallocate more budget to expand the availability of electronic resources for students and faculty. Library professionals should also help users to ascertain what high‐quality free resources are available on the internet and how to search these resources more effectively and efficiently.

Originality/value

This is the first comprehensive study of the use of e‐sources and internet by engineering, medical and management students and faculty members in India. Its findings will help library professionals in respective college libraries to plan for effective and efficient use of the internet to fulfil information requirements of the students and faculty members.

Details

The Electronic Library, vol. 28 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0264-0473

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 10 February 2012

B.T. Sampath Kumar and K.R. Prithvi Raj

The worldwide web is growing at an enormous speed and web citations are becoming very common in scholarly publications. However the major problem of web citation is its…

Abstract

Purpose

The worldwide web is growing at an enormous speed and web citations are becoming very common in scholarly publications. However the major problem of web citation is its persistence since citations disappear over time, causing accessibility problems for readers. In this context the present study aims to investigate the availability of web citations and their persistence in Indian Library and Information Science literature. The study also aims to investigate types of link accessibility errors encountered, domains associated with missing web citations and the correlation between the path depth and missing web citations.

Design/methodology/approach

The web citations (URLs) from 350 articles published in Indian Association of Teachers in Library and Information Science (IATLIS) conference volume (2001‐2008) were extracted and then tested to determine the accessibility. The W3C Link Checker (http://validator.w3.org/checklink) was used to evaluate links associated with a cited web resource. This link checker tests a submitted web page for broken or non‐valid hypertext links and reports the types of HTTP messages encountered.

Findings

Results of the study show that the average citations per article have been increased substantially from 0.25 (in the year 2001) to 3.02 (in the year 2008). It also found that 45.61 per cent of citations are not accessible during the time of testing, and the majority of web citations show HTTP Error Code 404 (63.84 per cent). Web citations from the .org domain are found to have the highest failure rates (30.29 per cent) compared to .edu (21.49 per cent) and .com/.co (14.33 per cent) domains.

Originality/value

The researchers analysed 673 web citations from 350 articles published during 2001 to 2008 in IATLIS conference volumes. The study investigated the percentage of missing web citations and domains associated with missing web citations. The study suggests some possible solutions to improve web citation accessibility. This carries research value for web content providers, web authors and researchers in library and information science.

Details

The Electronic Library, vol. 30 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0264-0473

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 July 2023

Fayaz Ahmad Loan, Aasif Mohammad Khan, Syed Aasif Ahmad Andrabi, Sozia Rashid Sozia and Umer Yousuf Parray

The purpose of the present study is to identify the active and dead links of uniform resource locators (URLs) associated with web references and to compare the effectiveness of…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of the present study is to identify the active and dead links of uniform resource locators (URLs) associated with web references and to compare the effectiveness of Chrome, Google and WayBack Machine in retrieving the dead URLs.

Design/methodology/approach

The web references of the Library Hi Tech from 2004 to 2008 were selected for analysis to fulfill the set objectives. The URLs were extracted from the articles to verify their accessibility in terms of persistence and decay. The URLs were then executed directly in the internet browser (Chrome), search engine (Google) and Internet Archive (WayBack Machine). The collected data were recorded in an excel file and presented in tables/diagrams for further analysis.

Findings

From the total of 1,083 web references, a maximum number was retrieved by the WayBack Machine (786; 72.6 per cent) followed by Google (501; 46.3 per cent) and the lowest by Chrome (402; 37.1 per cent). The study concludes that the WayBack Machine is more efficient, retrieves a maximum number of missing web citations and fulfills the mission of preservation of web sources to a larger extent.

Originality/value

A good number of studies have been conducted to analyze the persistence and decay of web-references; however, the present study is unique as it compared the dead URL retrieval effectiveness of internet explorer (Chrome), search engine giant (Google) and WayBack Machine of the Internet Archive.

Research limitations/implications

The web references of a single journal, namely, Library Hi Tech, were analyzed for 5 years only. A major study across disciplines and sources may yield better results.

Practical implications

URL decay is becoming a major problem in the preservation and citation of web resources. The study has some healthy recommendations for authors, editors, publishers, librarians and web designers to improve the persistence of web references.

Details

Data Technologies and Applications, vol. 58 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2514-9288

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 February 2016

B T Sampath Kumar and M T Basavaraja

This study aims to understand the expectations of rural students with respect to their computer access and use. It also made an attempt to learn the expectations of rural students…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to understand the expectations of rural students with respect to their computer access and use. It also made an attempt to learn the expectations of rural students from their schools and local government in providing the information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure.

Design/methodology/approach

Interview schedules were used to collect the necessary data from the rural students. The interview schedules consisted of various questions that were designed to elicit the expectations of rural students in terms of their usage of computers. A total of 300 interview schedules were collected from the students, and data were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (Windows 19.0 version) to test the formulated hypothesis.

Findings

This study clearly showed that 72 per cent of female and 63.33 per cent of male students have not used a computer. Most of the students opined that lack of support from teachers (91.57 per cent = Male, 94.25 per cent = Female) and non-availability of computers at home and schools (82.10 per cent = Male, 80.55 per cent = Female) were the main reasons for not using the computer. A notable finding of the study was that 93.68 per cent of male and 95.37 per cent of female students were interested in using a computer. Most of the students opined that the state/local government should establish computer laboratories and provide Internet facilities in rural schools.

Originality/value

This paper has provided useful empirical data regarding the expectations of rural students with respect to their access and use of computers. The results of this study will be more helpful to school authority and government in providing necessary ICT infrastructure to rural schools.

Details

Quality Assurance in Education, vol. 24 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0968-4883

Keywords

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