Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Texas, 1992. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 226-235).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Texas, 1992. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 226-235).

Thesis (Ed. D.0--University of Toronto, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 150-161).

Sociologists ask a myriad of questions about their cultural environment, the relationships which are formed within it, and the social products of human interaction. In recent decades, sociologists have begun to ask these questions of the scientific research community. They have been interested in identifying the social and intellectual connections which bring together scholars and their ideas, forming subcultures within academic disciplines. The present study, which follows this line of sociological inquiry, employs author cocitation analysis to identify the distinct subcultures which characterize the field of higher education research. The cocitation patterns among the twenty-one most highly cited researchers in the field are examined through multidimensional scaling, cluster analysis, and an analysis of the authors’ vitae which reveals the cognitive and social contexts of the authors’ citation careers. A unique temporal factor is introduced, dividing the scholars’ Careers into time periods based on the dates of their cited articles, in order to evaluate the extent to which author's cognitive interests and relationships change over time. The statistical analyses reveal that three dimensions and five clusters best characterize the author cocitation data. As a result of these quantitative analyses, and the more subjective analysis of the authors’ vitae, five subcultures are identified within the field of higher education research: Organizational Structure and Leadership in Academia, Impact of College Environment on Student Outcomes, Material and Nonmaterial Culture of Academia, Student Perceptions and Effective Teaching, and Hierarchy and Inequality in Education. The temporal analysis reveals that six of the authors move from one subculture to another at some point during their careers; these subcultural shifts are explained through examination of the authors’ changing research foci and career developments. The subcultures are compared on characteristics such as cluster stability, and the length and extent of influence of the subcultures on the larger culture of higher education. The unique contributions and the methodological limitations of this study are discussed, as are suggestions for further analysis of higher education research. Finally, the present methodology is reviewed in relation to its applicability to the exploration of other academic cultures, using several areas within sociology as illustrations. / Ph. D.

Described as accommodating both traditional and new information spaces (Fourie 2002: 53), the Web has significantly changed the milieu of research and study. The study determined how this changing research and study environment has affected the research behaviour of students in African higher education environments, specifically at the research entry level of master's degree programmes. The study examined both explicit examples of the affect of the Web on students' citation behaviour and tacit influences that may have determined the extent of this affect. Explicit examples of the affect of the Web were drawn from analysing changes in the citation patterns of Master of Information Studies (MIS) theses during a period of access to the Web, and specifically in the years 1996, 1999 and 2002. Tacit influences on students' citation behaviour were inferred from an investigation of the level and nature of MIS supervisors' use and support of the Web for research and of a background study of the facilities, resources and services supporting student access to the Web at the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg. Findings of this study concluded that the use of the Web medium has grown and in 2002 accounted for 17.5% of all citations included in MIS bibliographies. However use of this medium is disparate with a few bibliographies accounting for much of this growth. Findings indicated that the Web medium was mostly utilised for the delivery of sources that do not meet the traditional description of a scholarly source. The study also found that the Web was used as an alternative medium for the delivery of informal and grey literature sources without necessarily increasing the level of use of these sources. The study revealed greater support for this medium from the masters programme's supervisors than was evidenced from a citation analysis of the bibliographies of theses. Disparities in the support of this medium for research, within the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg's supporting infrastructure was also observed. Recommendations drawn from these conclusions include the need for greater intervention from teaching faculty, librarians and the institution in the provision of clear guidelines of expectations, relevant instruction and sufficient physical access at points of expertise, to effectively support the use of Web resources. / Thesis (M.I.S.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2004.

Thesis (MPhil (Information Science))--University of Stellenbosch, 2005. / The incidence of referencing errors in research is difficult to manage due to the many types of bibliographic sources that have to be referenced. Preventing referencing errors is an essential part of bibliographic management and PBMS (Personal Bibliographic Management Systems) have been designed to manage this. To design appropriate strategies for preventing the errors, the prevalence of PBMS usage in higher education needs to be investigated. The aim of the research was to determine whether available PBMS used at institutions would address the referencing errors at a UoT (University of Technology), and to recommend a suitable PBMS for the institution. The main research instruments used to gather data consisted of questionnaires, interviews and a head-to-head comparison of five PBMS programs EndNote, ReferenceManager, ProCite, Biblioscape and B3. Researchers in the Faculty of Business were selected because they highlighted the difficulties with referencing errors. Questionnaires were sent to 10 researchers to investigate their awareness of PBMS, the kinds of bibliographic sources they use and the frequency that they reference the sources. A questionnaire, sent to eight libraries in the country ascertained their use of PBMS and whether PBMS reduced referencing errors. These libraries provided a representative sample of the use of PBMS at both historically “White” and “Black” institutions. A questionnaire to editors of journals and an online database investigated the incidence of referencing errors in academic publications and measures to prevent the errors. An interview with a vendor of PBMS revealed the extent of PBMS sales to higher education institutions and the capabilities of the PBMS. A head-to-head comparison, using selected criteria relevant to the study, was done of the five PBMS. The response rate on the questionnaires was 100%. Researchers indicated that they were not aware of PBMS, and were therefore not using any. In higher education, the majority of the libraries used PBMS, and these libraries reported that PBMS had reduced referencing errors. Editors responded that papers submitted for publication do contain referencing errors, but that adherence measures such as peer reviews, referencing guidelines and academic accreditation prevented referencing errors in published research. Data from all the research instruments led to the recommendation of using a combination of two PBMS programs at the UoT. The study has shown that there are software programs available to reduce referencing errors in research at the UoT, through the use of PBMS.

This dissertation examined how previous information literacy training, law student gender, age, and previously obtained education affects first, second, and third year law students selection of information sources, their understanding of common knowledge, and their decision of whether or not to give attribution to these sources. To examine these factors, this study implemented a paradigm called the principle of least effort that contended humans in general tended to complete the least amount of work possible to complete presented tasks. This study sought to discover whether law students follow this same path of completing the least amount of work possible to finish presented tasks, and whether this behavior affects information source selection, citation, and understanding of common knowledge. I performed six focus groups and crafted and disseminated an online survey to examine these factors. Via this data collection, it was discovered that law students do exhibit some differences in understanding of citation and citation behavior based on age and their year in law school. They also exhibited some differences regarding common knowledge based on their year in law school, where they received their information literacy training, and where they attend law school. Yet, no statistically significant differences were discovered regarding where one attends law school and citation and source selection. Further this study revealed law students do follow this paradigm and seek the path of least resistance to accomplish law school assignments.

Thesis (M. A. (Information Studies)) -- University of Limpopo, 2021 / The study investigated the awareness towards the and utilisation of Reference Management Software (RMS) by postgraduate students in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Limpopo, South Africa. The aim of the study was to examine the awareness and usage of RMS among postgraduate students in the Faculty of Humanities. The study sought to fulfil the following objectives, namely: to describe the types of RMS available for use in university libraries; to determine awareness of RMS by postgraduate students in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Limpopo; to measure the extent to which postgraduate students in this faculty use RMS when writing academic papers; to identify the purposes for which the postgraduate students use RMS; and to identify postgraduate students’ perceptions regarding the use of RMS Quantitative research orientation though a survey research design were adopted in the study. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to 320 respondents and a total number of 244 questionnaires were returned and a response rate of 76% was achieved. The findings of the study show that most of the respondents (59%) were aware of the RMS. Most of the postgraduate students became familiar with the software through attending library training. However, the study found that the usage of RMS was low as 45% postgraduate students indicated that they have used RMS before whilst, 55% indicated that they have never used the RMS before. RefWorks remains the most popular used software among postgraduate students. Most of the respondents’ reason for using RMS amongst others was because they have received training, and some mentioned the fact that it was the only RMS they were familiar with. The study also found that the respondents use RMS to cite sources for assignments, research and papers, as well as to create reference list and collect and organise citations. The study revealed that the respondents like RMS because it assists and improves referencing. The study recommends for an intensified library training by academic librarians so that students should know advanced features of the RMS.

M.Phil / Citing is the process by which scholars give recognition to research used by another academic researcher. Citation resources are tools used by academic scholars for keeping track of who did what research and the impact of the research within the discipline. Citation analysis is therefore an attempt to measure the impact and contribution of a study to the body of knowledge and research. Citation tracking and citation analysis is facilitated by making use of information resources which specialize in citations and tools for conducting citation analysis. The citation resource by The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), Web of Science (WOS), was traditionally the citation tool of choice of academics for more than 40 years. The arrival in 2004 of Scopus, a fee-based citation resource, and Google Scholar (GS), a citation resource available for free and accessible via the Web, presented WOS with competition. The prolific growth of the citation resources created new opportunities for academics in citation tracking and citation analysis. The question of which citation resource to use in the process of tracking citations and conducting citation analysis posed a challenge to librarians and information professionals at academic institutions. It became essential to establish which citation resource was not only most relevant to use for which subject discipline, but which was the most cost-effective with the advent of shrinking library budgets. Therefore the need arose for citation resources to be compared with the aim of establishing whether the newcomers Scopus and GS are substitutes for or complementary to the traditional WOS. The objectives of this study included comparing WOS, Scopus and GS in order to determine whether evaluation criteria existed for citation resources, to define scholarly environmental sciences journals within a South African context, to determine which citation resource presented the most comprehensive citation coverage of the South African scholarly environmental sciences journals, to determine whether GS could be considered a substitute for the fee-based citation resources WOS and Scopus, and to determine how the content of the exported data for the journal sample population compared in terms of content completeness and quality. The research study consisted of a detailed literature review, followed by an empirical component using a comparative research design and the technique of purposive non-probability sampling in order to define the sample population for the study. The South African scholarly environmental sciences journals internationally accredited during the period 2004-2008 were chosen as the sample target population. The study consisted of a pilot study and three measuring instruments that were compiled based on the literature review. The results of the macro-level evaluation established that Scopus surpasses both WOS and GS. On the other hand, the micro-level evaluation concluded that WOS surpasses Scopus and GS. The content verification process conducted determined that Scopus and WOS both surpass GS. These findings were presented at the 12th Annual World Wide Web Applications conference in September 2010. The study was able to establish that GS is not a substitute for WOS and/or Scopus for the South African scholarly environmental sciences journals. In addition, it was concluded that GS can be used as a supplementary citation resource to the fee-based citation resources WOS and Scopus. It was further determined that the citation resource Scopus can be considered a substitute for WOS, which was traditionally the citation resource of choice of academic researchers.

This dissertation consists of three essays in applied microeconomics on the economics of science. The first chapter contribute to the understanding of fairness and recognition in innovation systems. The second and third chapters study the effect of government policies and university relocation on science and education outcomes respectively. The first paper, coauthored with Zihao Li, studies gender difference in innovation recognition using patent citations. We propose a method to quantify under-citation, by constructing a “should-cite” list for each of over 1.5 million patents based on textual similarity, using state-of-the-art natural language processing technique. We find that female-authored patents are approximately 12% more likely to be under-cited than male-authored patents. Additionally, male inventors are far more likely to under-cite patents written by female inventors. Our findings are consistent with the testable implications of taste-based discrimination but not statistical discrimination. Welfare analysis shows that past under-citations negatively impact future patenting activities, especially for female inventors. The second paper, coauthored with Elliott Ash, Mirko Draca and David Cai studies the impact of a large-scale scientist recruitment program – China’s Junior Thousand Talents Plan – on the productivity of recruited scholars and their local peers in Chinese host universities. Using a comprehensive dataset of published scientific articles, we estimate effects on quantity and quality in a matched difference-in-differences framework. We observe neutral direct productivity effects for participants over a 6-year post-period: an initial drop is followed by a fully offsetting recovery. However, the program participants collaborate at higher rates with more junior China-based co-authors at their host institutions. Looking to peers in the hosting department, we observe positive and rising productivity impacts for peer scholars, equivalent to approximately 0.6 of a publication per peer scholar in the long run. Heterogeneity analysis and the absence of correlated resource effects point to the peer effect being rooted in a knowledge spillover mechanism. The third paper studies the long run effect on local education outcomes of the temporary exodus of Chinese universities in the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945). During the war, over 80% of China’s universities, along with the top tiers of China’s educated talents were forced to relocate to inland underdeveloped areas during the war. We find that the large inflow of educated elite intellectuals and universities increased local supply of secondary schools by 6.6% during and after the war period, indicating the effect cascades to lower tiers of education. However, such trend does not persist into the People’s Republic of China (PRC) era and we find limited effect on local education outcomes in the long run. We discuss the salience of locational fundamentals and education policies in explaining the absence of persistence.