Ryerson University Library and Archives

RTA MMP Creative Research Methods Winter 2012

Gaudi

Virtual Parking Lot

If you should have questions that are

either too time consuming, theoretical

or technical in nature to be addressed

in this introductory session, then e-mail

your question to

Jay Wolofsky jwolofsk@ryerson.ca

… the answer to your question(s) will be Picasso

shared with the group.

Session Objectives

1 Introduction/Raison d'être

2 Library ‘Research Styles’

3 Information Sources I

3.1 RULA Web Page

4 Information Quality I

4.1 Boolean Logic Moore

4.2 Scholarly/Peer-Reviewed Journals

5 Information Sources II

5.1 Journal Databases

5.2 Digital Facilitators

5.3 Deep Web/ Federated Search Engines

5.4 Open Access

6 Information Quality II

6.1 Smart Searching: Cited Reference Searching

6.2 Journal Ranking

7 Clinic

Research Questions

In what ways does auto-ethnography Braque

change the process in media research?

What are the practical implications of

Postmodern thought on media research?

How does social media impact upon or

interact with the “tissue of sociality”?

Library ‘Research Styles’

Braque

Library ‘research styles’ range from ‘traditional’ to ‘informal’

Traditional: users need to become familiar with search strategies

using specific databases to provide solutions to information-

seeking problems

Informal: users enter words into a search box and allow the

search engine to do most of the work

The empirical literature shows a definite trend towards the informal style

Library Research Spectrum

Traditional ………………………… Informal

Information Sources I RULA Web Page

Boolean Logic

3D Representations of Combination, Intersection and Subtraction

Smart Searching Using Boolean Logic

This technique was invented by George Boole (1815-1864)

Boole’s work ultimately led to the application of

binary mathematics to contemporary computer

programming

Essentially is a form of linguistic algebra which

allows combination, intersection,and subtraction

of concepts

Critically important when searching journal

databases

Quickly pinpoints relevant information

Minimises information overload

Smart Searching Using Boolean Logic

Boolean Machine

Operators

AND

NOT

OR

WILDC*RD* AND TRUNATIO*

NESTING

Scholarly Journals

Van Gogh

Distinguishing Scholarly Journals

Peer-Review

Peer review is the process of subjecting an author’s

scholarly ms to the scrutiny of experts in the same field

prior to publication in a journal

Single-blind peer review (norm) where the author’s

identity is known to the reviewers, but for the reviewers’ Gaudi

identity to be hidden from the author (blinding allows free

comment without fear of repercussions)

Double-blind (most effective) peer review where the identities

or the author and reviewers are hidden from each other, assuming

that if the reviewers do not know the author or their institution, then

they will focus on content, unaffected by conscious or even

unconscious bias

Open peer review author’s and reviewers’ identities are known

to each other and optionally published ensuring transparency,

i.e. higher quality reviews

Post publication (supplemental open peer review variant) where

all readers are able to reviewand rate the ms on a numerical scale

Research DatabasesTraditional

Need to know

Which are the

most relevant

Syntax

Structure of the thesaurus

Limits

Modigliani

Digital Facilitators

Informal Kandinsky

Digital facilitators assist publishers in digitising their publications for the Internet

Provide content management and end-user access for

e-content from the world's leading publishers

Host digital journal editions, conference proceedings and books

HighWire Press, MetaPress, Scholar's Portal Journals

The Deep Web

The Deep Web is the set of web-sites and their documents that cannot be accessed via standard crawler-type search engines, e.g. Google or Safari since each source has a unique method of access

The Deep Web contains high quality information found in more specialised or remote corners of the Internet, e.g. journal databases

Federated Search Engines

Informal

Federated search engines execute simultaneous real time search of the Deep Web using sophisticated software “connectors”

The results are collated and presented back to the user in a unified format

Federated Search Engines

Informal Dali

One type, a ‘web spider variant’ crawls information from from as many databases as possible creating a giant uniform index, e.g. Google Scholar

A more advanced type searches across each database’s own indexing AND crawls information, e.g., Biznar, Mednar, DeepDyve

Federated Search Engines

There are 3 general types:

The first type searches across each

database using its own indexing Dali

The second type ‘web spider’ crawls information

from as many databases as possible creating a

giant uniform index, e.g. Google Scholar, OpenDOAR

The third type searches across each database’s

own indexing AND crawls information, e.g.

Biznar, Mednar, DeepDyve …

Open Access

Informal

Gaugin

Alternative to the current scholarly publishing

model

Digital information is made freely available

Users may have a variety of permissions, including

the right to copy, use, change, distribute or display

the information, as long as the original author are cited

Digital Commons@Ryerson, T-Space, OpenDOAR

Cited Reference Searching

Cited Reference Network Visualisation

Cited Reference Searching

Who has cited (referred to) previously

published works

Find more recent articles which update

earlier research

Find responses to an article

See how influential an article or book

has been

Identify articles on the same topic as the original work

Cited Reference Searching

Research databases

that provide links to

citing sources

Escher

Academic Search Premier

Google Scholar

IEEE

Scopus

Web of Science

Journal Ranking: A Very Brief Overview

Eigenfactor Network Visualisation

Raison d'être

Widely used in academia for the evaluation

of journal’s quality

Indicator of the status of a journal within its

field

Relative difficulty of being published in that

journal and the associated prestige

Consistent high-quality work which defines

their field Modigliani

Lower ranked journals, although peer-reviewed,

may have a higher acceptance rate and contribute

less to their field as a whole

ScaffoldingJR is a sub-set of bibliometrics (biblio: books,

information; metric: measure) which is a

sub-discipline of information science

Pareto Principle (Vilfredo Pareto, 1848-1923)

“80/20” rule

20% of journals account for 80% of use

Zipf’s Law (George Kingsley Zipf, 1902-1950)

disproportionate distributions of use popularity

Lotka’s Law/Long Tail (Alfred James Lotka,

1880-1949) most authors contribute few articles

Modigliani

Bradford’s Law (Samuel C. Bradford, 1878-1948)

similar to Pareto’s, Zipf’s and Lotka’s distributions

Journals may be grouped into a core of relevance and successive rings of lesser relevance for any

subject or discipline

Dali

Simply put: A small number of core journals have the greatest concentration of relevant articles

Qualitative Journal Ranking

Using expert opinion

Lipchitz

Qualitative Journal Ranking

Tier A 

World-wide distribution and readership

Virtually all papers are of a very high quality

Contributions are scientifically and methodologically

most fastidious and innovative

Acceptance rates are typically very low

High competition Bacon

Stringent criteria used for selection of editorial board

 

Double blind peer review process

Qualitative Jounal Ranking

Tier B 

Supraregional distribution

Contributions are scientificaly and

methodologically sound

Braque

Submissions from a supraregional realm

Braque

Frequently important outlets for the work of

PhD students and early career researchers

  

Relatively high acceptance rates

Criteria used for selection of editorial board

Usually single blind peer reviewed process

 

Qualitative Journal Ranking

Tier C

Minimally national distribution

Practitioners rank amongst the core target group

Less stringent criteria used for selection of editorial board

Usually single blind peer review process Picasso

Quantitative Journal Ranking

Van Gogh

Citation Metrics

Statistics gathered on the number

of times a journal article has been

cited by other journal articles Bacon

Used to assess the quality of a journal

The assumption is that if a journal is

frequently cited, then it must be publishing

important, high quality or ground breaking

research

Citation Metrics

Selected Methods

Age-Weighted (AWCR, AWCRpa, AW)

AR-index

Egghe’s g-Index

Eigenfactor

Essential Science Indicators (ESI)

Hirsch’s h-Index

Contemporary h-Index

e-index

Egghe’s g-Index

Generalised h-index

Individual h-Index

hl-index, hl-norm, hm-index

Humanities Journal Rankings (ESF)

JCR Impact Factor

Journal Ranking.com (Red Jasper)

Publish or Perish

SciMago Dali

Science Gateway

Source Normalised Impact per Paper (SNIP)

Zhang’s E-Index

Journal Impact Factor

Moore

Seeks to measure the influence a journal has in its field

More specifically, it measures how often scholars

and researchers have cited articles in a particular

journal in the most recent 2 (or 5) years

Simply put, the higher the number, the better the

journal's impact factor

The better the journal's impact factor, the more

influence it is presumed to have in its field

Eigenfactor

Moore

Scholarly literature forms a vast network of academic papers connected to one another by citations in bibliographies and footnotes

The structure of this network reflects millions of decisions by individual researchers and scholars about which papers are

important and relevant to their own work

Within the structure of this network is a wealth of information about the relative influence of individual journals, and also about the patterns of relations among academic disciplines

Eigenfactor

Gaudi

The Eigenfactor™ algorithm corresponds

to research model in which researchers

follow chains of citations as they move

from journal to journal

A researcher selects a journal article at random

and after reading the article, randomly selects

a citation from that article, and reads it … n!