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1 – 10 of over 72000

Abstract

Details

Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: Gulf Perspectives, vol. 9 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2077-5504

Article
Publication date: 10 January 2020

Qingqing Zhou and Chengzhi Zhang

As for academic papers, the customary methods for assessing the impact of books are based on citations, which is straightforward but limited to the coverage of databases…

Abstract

Purpose

As for academic papers, the customary methods for assessing the impact of books are based on citations, which is straightforward but limited to the coverage of databases. Alternative metrics can be used to avoid such limitations, such as blog citations and library holdings. However, content-level information is generally ignored, thus overlooking users’ intentions. Meanwhile, abundant academic reviews express scholars’ opinions on books, which can be used to assess books’ impact via fine-grained review mining. Hence, this study aims to assess books’ use impacts by conducting content mining of academic reviews automatically and thereby confirmed the usefulness of academic reviews to libraries and readers.

Design/methodology/approach

Firstly, 61,933 academic reviews in Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries were collected with three metadata metrics. Then, review contents were mined to obtain content metrics. Finally, to identify the reliability of academic reviews, Choice review metrics and other assessment metrics for use impact were compared and analysed.

Findings

The analysis results reveal that fine-grained mining of academic reviews can help users quickly understand multi-dimensional features of books, judge or predict the impacts of mass books, so as to provide references for different types of users (e.g. libraries and public readers) in book selection.

Originality/value

Book impact assessment via content mining can provide more detail information for massive users and cover shortcomings of traditional methods. It provides a new perspective and method for researches on use impact assessment. Moreover, this study’s proposed method might also be a means by which to measure other publications besides books.

Details

The Electronic Library , vol. 38 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0264-0473

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 September 2019

Chengzhi Zhang, Tiantian Tong and Yi Bu

Websites have their own features in aspect preference (e.g. the relative importance platforms place on product aspects in product evaluation). The purpose of this paper is to…

Abstract

Purpose

Websites have their own features in aspect preference (e.g. the relative importance platforms place on product aspects in product evaluation). The purpose of this paper is to capture characteristics of different book reviews on aspect preferences by opinion mining techniques.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors employ two indicators for identifying aspect preferences, and propose a method for quantifying overall differences of reviews on aspect preferences through three dimensions: aspect awareness, aspect satisfaction and comprehensive value.

Findings

The results show that book reviews on e-commerce websites contain information about external aspects of a book (e.g. hardcover), while those on social network websites pay more attention to content-related aspects of the book (e.g. stories). These results indicate that aspect preferences of reviews vary from platforms and make it hard to evaluate book comprehensively based on single-source data. Online book reviews from a wide range of sources can assess book impact from multiple perspectives and dimensions.

Practical implications

In order to illustrate the value of the authors’ method, the authors show book impact assessment based on multi-source data as an application of these difference analyses. Furthermore, the authors present an example of a book promotion to provide customized marketing services for different user clusters.

Originality/value

This study investigates the influence of different data sources on book evaluation from the content of book reviews. The authors also showcase potential applications of these analyses in book impact assessment.

Details

Online Information Review, vol. 43 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1468-4527

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 8 June 2022

Qingqing Zhou

Citations have been used as a common basis to measure the academic accomplishments of scientific books. However, traditional citation analysis ignored content mining and without…

Abstract

Purpose

Citations have been used as a common basis to measure the academic accomplishments of scientific books. However, traditional citation analysis ignored content mining and without consideration of citation equivalence, which may lead to the decline of evaluation reliability. Hence, this paper aims to integrate multi-level citation information to conduct multi-dimensional analysis.

Design/methodology/approach

In this paper, books’ academic impacts were measured by integrating multi-level citation resources, including books’ citation frequencies and citation-related contents. Specifically, firstly, books’ citation frequencies were counted as the frequency-level metric. Secondly, content-level metrics were detected from multi-dimensional citation contents based on finer-grained mining, including topic extraction on the metadata and citation classification on the citation contexts. Finally, differential metric weighting methods were compared with integrate the multi-level metrics and computing books’ academic impacts.

Findings

The experimental results indicate that the integration of multiple citation resources is necessary, as it can significantly improve the comprehensiveness of the evaluation results. Meanwhile, compared with the type differences of books, disciplinary differences need more attention when evaluating the academic impacts of books.

Originality/value

Academic impact assessment of books via integrating multi-level citation information can provide more detailed evaluation information and cover shortcomings of methods based on single citation data. Moreover, the method proposed in this paper is publication independent, which can be used to measure other publications besides books.

Details

The Electronic Library , vol. 40 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0264-0473

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Global Perspectives on Educational Testing: Examining Fairness, High-Stakes and Policy Reform
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-434-1

Article
Publication date: 1 October 2006

David J. Brier and Vickery Kaye Lebbin

The paper sets out to provide a selected bibliography of books influential to the librarian's teaching and learning philosophy.

1200

Abstract

Purpose

The paper sets out to provide a selected bibliography of books influential to the librarian's teaching and learning philosophy.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper introduces and annotates books identified by LOEX‐of‐the‐West 2006 attendees as influential to their instruction activities, teaching philosophy, or meaning of education.

Findings

The paper provides information about each source, including an introductory discussion on the classification of the titles into six major genres of instruction inspiration and four major (generic) philosophies of education and learning.

Originality/value

The information presented in the paper may be used by librarians and interested parties to solidify and broaden their own thoughts and values on who they are as an instructor.

Details

Reference Services Review, vol. 34 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0090-7324

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 25 October 2018

Amalia Mas-Bleda and Mike Thelwall

The purpose of this paper is to assess the educational value of prestigious and productive Spanish scholarly publishers based on mentions of their books in online scholarly…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to assess the educational value of prestigious and productive Spanish scholarly publishers based on mentions of their books in online scholarly syllabi.

Design/methodology/approach

Syllabus mentions of 15,117 books from 27 publishers were searched for, manually checked and compared with Microsoft Academic (MA) citations.

Findings

Most books published by Ariel, Síntesis, Tecnos and Cátedra have been mentioned in at least one online syllabus, indicating that their books have consistently high educational value. In contrast, few books published by the most productive publishers were mentioned in online syllabi. Prestigious publishers have both the highest educational impact based on syllabus mentions and the highest research impact based on MA citations.

Research limitations/implications

The results might be different for other publishers. The online syllabus mentions found may be a small fraction of the syllabus mentions of the sampled books.

Practical implications

Authors of Spanish-language social sciences and humanities books should consider general prestige when selecting a publisher if they want educational uptake for their work.

Originality/value

This is the first study assessing book publishers based on syllabus mentions.

Details

Aslib Journal of Information Management, vol. 70 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2050-3806

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 October 2018

Emanuel Kulczycki

The purpose of this paper is to determine the characteristic patterns of monographs in the humanities, social sciences and hard sciences published by Polish scholars. The study…

1612

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to determine the characteristic patterns of monographs in the humanities, social sciences and hard sciences published by Polish scholars. The study provides a comprehensive overview of the Polish book evaluation system to explain how monographs are assessed and illustrate how changes in the definitions of the types of scholarly book publications influence publication patterns.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper analyses bibliographic records of 42,307 monographs published by Polish scholars in the humanities and science fields from 2009 to 2016. Through a bibliometric analysis, the paper investigates the characteristic patterns of the monographs, including authorship, publication language and length, across three fields.

Findings

The present study demonstrates that changes in the definitions of scholarly book publications in Poland have significantly influenced the characteristic patterns of monographs. The analysis of the characteristic patterns across three fields reveals that the monographs are different in terms of all characteristics. In the entire period, 85.3 percent monographs were written in Polish, 10.1 percent in English, 1.4 percent in German, 1.1 percent in Russian and 2.1 percent in 39 other languages. The most significant changes are observed in authorship patterns.

Originality/value

This work offers empirical findings on the characteristic patterns of monographs in the humanities, social sciences and hard sciences from a non-English speaking country. It discusses a unique model of book assessment and shows certain consequences of various overly formalized procedures of evaluation. Thus, the study identifies the major challenges and implications of using highly formalized procedures for book evaluation.

Details

Aslib Journal of Information Management, vol. 70 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2050-3806

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 20 July 2015

Elizabeth McDonald, Marina Rosenfield, Tim Furlow, Tara Kron and Irene Lopatovska

The purpose of this paper is to understand patterns in information behavior of academic librarians, individuals who influence information technology adoption in academic libraries…

2254

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to understand patterns in information behavior of academic librarians, individuals who influence information technology adoption in academic libraries and parent institutions. Librarians’ perception of their student patrons’ information behavior was also investigated.

Design/methodology/approach

An exploratory study investigated professional and personal information behavior of eight librarians employed by various academic institutions in the Greater New York City area. The data were collected in face-to-face interviews and analyzed using the content analysis technique.

Findings

The study found that librarians’ institutional affiliations had no effect on their information behavior. The patterns in librarians’ information behavior at work and leisure suggest that those behaviors are influenced by contextual variables, personal preferences and tasks, and are no different from the general population. Overall, librarians had accurate, evidence-driven understanding of their student patrons’ information behavior.

Research limitations/implications

The study findings have limited generalizability due to the small sample size and limited geographical pool of participants.

Practical implications

Academic library is often seen as the hub of the adoption of information technologies as librarians introduce new digital content and resources to the rest of academia. Understanding information behavior of academic librarians contributes to understanding factors that are affecting technology adoption in academia overall, and can potentially inform recommendations for optimizing academic library offerings.

Originality/value

The study is an original investigation of the relationships between institutional characteristics and librarian demographics, librarian information behavior at work and leisure, and librarians’ perception of students’ information behavior and information preferences.

Details

Aslib Journal of Information Management, vol. 67 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2050-3806

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 15 August 2008

Christine Furno and Daphne Flanagan

This descriptive research attempts to determine whether students are retaining knowledge from a single information literacy (IL) training session and whether there are other…

1852

Abstract

Purpose

This descriptive research attempts to determine whether students are retaining knowledge from a single information literacy (IL) training session and whether there are other competencies that need to be covered in a 60 minute IL session.

Design/methodology/approach

A questionnaire was designed to measure IL learning outcomes that included formulating search strategies, evaluation of resources, and resource recognition. The tool was administered to students registered in an English class who were required to complete IL instruction. Students were given the test prior to IL instruction and post‐IL instruction.

Findings

The results of the study show a number of areas where the IL training sessions could be improved to better use the allotted 60 minutes. The trainers' findings gave clear directions on where to focus their efforts and where positive results are being achieved. The questionnaire was easy to administer and helped to fulfill the objectives of improving the IL training.

Practical implications

The questionnaire developed provides one more way for the IL team to assess student learning outcomes.

Originality/value

The value of this research has helped to provide structure to assessing the IL program and feeds into the current assessment culture. The questionnaire focuses on three common student learning outcomes which will be of value to academic instruction librarians.

Details

Reference Services Review, vol. 36 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0090-7324

Keywords

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