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 your question to Jay Wolofsky … 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 ( ) 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 Databases Traditional 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 PressHighWire Press, MetaPress, Scholar's Portal JournalsMetaPressScholar'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 ScholarGoogle Scholar A more advanced type searches across each database’s own indexing AND crawls information, e.g., Biznar, Mednar, DeepDyveBiznarMednarDeepDyve

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, OpenDOARGoogle ScholarOpenDOAR The third type searches across each database’s own indexing AND crawls information, e.g. BiznarBiznar, Mednar, DeepDyve …MednarDeepDyve

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 T-Space, OpenDOART-SpaceOpenDOAR

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

Scaffolding JR is a sub-set of bibliometrics (biblio: books, information; metric: measure) which is a sub-discipline of information science Pareto Principle (Vilfredo Pareto, ) “80/20” rule 20% of journals account for 80% of use Zipf’s Law (George Kingsley Zipf, ) disproportionate distributions of use popularity Lotka’s Law/Long Tail (Alfred James Lotka, ) most authors contribute few articles Modigliani Bradford’s Law (Samuel C. Bradford, ) 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!