bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The impact of computer usage on scholarly communication among social scientists
Authors: Costa Sely , Meadows Jack
Published: December 2004

An examination has been made of the effects of using information technology on the communication of research by social scientists in Brazil. Two disciplines were studied - economics and sociology - via both interviews and a questionnaire survey. A small sample of UK social scientists was also interviewed.

The results indicate that major changes in communication habits are occurring. These are already well advanced for informal communication and are beginning to appear for formal communication. Differences have been found between economists and sociologists, with the former more active in their use of electronic facilities. Along with such discipline-related differences, the developments also appear to be influenced, in part, by pressures from the research community and from the institutional environment. One significant impact of information technology seems to be an increasing democratisation of the international research community.
A highly visible scientist - Jack Meadows
Authors: Brittain J. Michael
Published: December 2004

The results of a bibliometric study of the publications of Meadows are reported; in particular, the cumulative growth in the number of publications and citations received over a 40-year period is documented. Citations made to two articles and a monograph are examined in detail, particularly the ‘context’ of citations, in order to explain the reasons authors appear to have for citing his work. There is a brief discussion of the methodology of identifying and categorising ‘context’ of citations, as this is an area of bibliometrics relatively unexplored.
Are structured abstracts more or less accurate than traditional ones? A study in the psychological literature
Authors: Hartley James
Published: December 2004

Background: Recent studies of structured abstracts in medical journal articles have shown that they do not always reflect accurately the work that is reported in more detail in the subsequent text. It is not known, however, whether or not structured abstracts fare better or worse than traditional ones in this respect.

Aim: The aim of this study was to compare the accuracy of traditional and structured versions of the same abstracts prepared for publication in psychology journals.

Method: Thirty traditional abstracts - originally written to accompany articles submitted for publication in journals published by the British Psychological Society (BPS) - were compared with the 30 structured ones that the authors were required to submit when their papers had been later accepted for publication. The abstracts were examined to see whether or not they contained data that were inconsistent with the corresponding data in the subsequent articles.

Results: Few inaccuracies were found and there was no evidence that these structured abstracts fared any better or worse than the traditional abstracts in this respect. The structured abstracts contained more information and were, therefore, more informative, but they were no more inaccurate than the traditional ones. However, there were examples of what might be called ‘selective reporting’ in both types of abstract and both styles contained information that could have been provided more clearly.

Conclusions: This study suggests that there are few inaccuracies in abstracts published by the BPS and few differences between traditional and structured abstracts in this respect. The difference between these results and those obtained in the medical field most probably reflects the nature of the abstracts in these different disciplines.
A review of library and information service job advertisements: what do they tell us about work in the Irish library sector?
Authors: Cullen John
Published: December 2004

Over the past fifteen years, analyses of employment advertisements have generated data on employment conditions and skill requirements for job seekers in the library and information sector. This paper analyses library and information job advertisements in the two most comprehensive appointment sections in Irish national daily newspapers over 1999 and demonstrates that a small but steady number of positions are advertised in both organs. Skill requirements vary, but experience in communications, management and information technology is essential for advancement and a professional qualification in library and information studies is essential. Most positions advertised were for work in academic and public libraries, mainly in locations on the east coast of Ireland (especially Dublin).
The information market in Nigeria
Authors: Adeloye Anthony
Published: December 2004

This paper presents a brief overview of some recent developments in the information market in Nigeria, particularly in the areas of information technologies. It identifies the two main actors of the information market: those who supply the information (the supply side) and those who demand information (the demand side). While the paper points to some of the problems and challenges facing the actors in the market, particularly the lack of efficient telecommunications networks, it notes, however, that there have been some notable achievements. The paper concludes that Nigeria has the resources to exploit and use various technologies associated with an efficient information market.
How French research scientists are making use of electronic journals: a case study conducted at Pierre et Marie Curie University and Denis Diderot University
Authors: Mahé Annaïg , Andrys Christine , Chartron Ghislaine
Published: December 2004

There have been few studies to date on how French research scientists are using electronic journals in their work. Under a national programme for document digitisation in higher education and research, a qualitative study was conducted at the Jussieu Campus in Paris among 25 researchers and doctoral students and nine documentalists. The main disciplines covered were physics, chemistry and biology, with some representatives from mathematics, computer science and earth sciences. A user typology was built up, and several of the findings agree substantially with those in the (mainly Anglo-Saxon) literature, which demonstrate the importance of factors such as the discipline concerned and the immediate working environment of researchers, including equipment, local practice, and the resources that are promoted or made available. Other more subjective factors also need to be taken into account.
Features of DESCRIPTION META tags in public home pages
Authors: Craven Timothy C.
Published: December 2004

A random sample of 628 Web pages registered with Yahoo! was analyzed for use of META tags and specifically the DESCRIPTION tag; 357 contained META tags and 163 used the DESCRIPTION tag. Some of the descriptions greatly exceeded typical length guidelines of 150 or 200 characters. A minority duplicated exactly phrasing found in the visible text; most repeated some words and phrases. Noun phrases were slightly more common than complete sentences. Content usually related to responsible corporate bodies and their products and services; information about the page or site itself was included in about one-third of descriptions.
Using heterogeneous linguistic knowledge in local coherence identification for information retrieval
Authors: Chan Samuel W.K.
Published: December 2004

This paper proposes a novel approach to automatic text segmentation without a full semantic understanding. In order to analyse the linguistic bonds and determine the degree of coherence that a text may exhibit, the tremendous diversity of textual relations in a discourse network is represented. A corpus of mutual linguistic knowledge that captures the similarity of meaning and causal relations is encoded in the discourse network, which is then subjected to a cluster algorithm. As a result, segments in the text are segregated into clusters according to their textual similarity. Topic boundaries in a text can be identified by observing the shifts of segments from one cluster to another. The experimental results show that the combination of the heterogeneous knowledge is capable of addressing the topic shifts. Comparison with a related method demonstrates that the algorithm is closely related to the topic boundaries. Given the increasing recognition of text structure in the fields of information retrieval in unpartitioned text, this approach provides a quantitative model and an efficient tool in text segmentation.
New informetric aspects of the Internet: some reflections - many problems
Authors: Egghe L.
Published: December 2004

This paper poses more problems than it solves: it investigates the new (virtual) world of the Internet and the challenges that it offers for informetric analysis. The paper studies five different aspects. First of all, there is the increasing problem of data gathering in the Internet. The second topic is the Internet version of the informetric laws: are the same types of classical distributions valid or not? The third topic deals with scientometric aspects: can the clickable buttons (hyperlinks) in Web pages replace the role of classical references in scientific papers? It also contains a study of the Web impact factor and a discussion on ageing. The fourth topic discusses information retrieval (IR) aspects of search engines. It studies aspects of probabilistic IR as applied in these engines and poses the question of quantitative evaluation of IR (Web analogues of recall and precision). Lastly, aspects of complexity are discussed. The fractal nature of the Internet is highlighted and a modest attempt to measure it is given.
A review of the status of 20 digital libraries
Authors: Meyyappan N. , Chowdhury G. G. , Foo Schubert
Published: December 2004

Recent proliferation of research in digital libraries has given rise to a number of working digital libraries around the world. These digital libraries have been defined, designed and developed differently and therefore the experience that one might have from one particular digital library might not be the same with other digital libraries. Current status of 20 digital libraries around the world: twelve from the USA, three from the UK, two from Australia, one from New Zealand, one from Singapore and one from Canada, has been reviewed. Various features of these selected digital libraries were collected from their home pages, journal articles and the information published on the World Wide Web. The parameters used to study the chosen digital libraries include: contents, type of library, organisation, user interface, access, information retrieval, search features, output format and links to other Internet resources. While some of the chosen digital libraries cater for specific subject or document format, others play the role of digital as well as virtual libraries, giving access to the local digital collection as well as remote collections accessible through the Web. While most of these digital libraries have been developed for use in-house or by authorised users, some digital libraries are globally accessible. The chosen digital libraries differ in terms of the information search and output facilities; very few have the facility to store search histories. Only four digital libraries have books in electronic form: National Library of Canada in general area, GUTENBERG in subject-specific area and SETIS and Carnegie Mellon University in special collection areas.

The review confirms that while digital libraries to date have been quite useful, there is need for further improvements in terms of user interfaces and information facilities. Additionally, this study reveals that two different types of digital libraries are likely to emerge in future. The first are subject- and document-specific digital libraries that will cater for specific subjects and types of information, like digital video, maps, photographs and paintings, theses, and so on. The second are hybrid libraries that will link the traditional libraries with its online public access catalogue (OPAC), CD-ROM and online databases to the world of digital libraries and virtual libraries or gateways. The provision of personalised information services is an emerging trend in digital libraries to provide the next higher level of functionality to support users’ specific information needs and preferred search and retrieval strategies.
A study of the use of CD-ROM databases in Nigerian academic libraries
Authors: Oduwole A. A.
Published: December 2004

This study investigates the use of CD-ROM databases in academic libraries in Nigeria. The impact of CD-ROM databases on library development in Nigerian academic libraries is discussed. A questionnaire was sent to ten academic libraries in Nigeria, identified from preliminary studies on their CD-ROM database collections and use. High cost of subscriptions to CD-ROM databases was ranked highest as the major constraints to CD-ROM use. Other constraints include: high cost of acquiring personal computers, CD-ROM drives, printers and other peripherals; unavailability of identified documents found in CD-ROM databases in the institutions’ libraries; lack of computer education; shortage of manpower. The most commonly used bibliographic database on CD-ROM is AGRIS and CAB Abstracts. The study recommends joint ventures with CD-ROM producers/vendors and inclusion of substantive abstracts in CD-ROM databases as ways of improving the use of CD-ROM databases in academic libraries in Nigeria.
Reduction of duplicate scientific journal titles in Greek libraries: an economic assessment
Authors: Tsimpoglou Filippos
Published: December 2004

In 1983, the National Hellenic Documentation Centre started the development of the Union Catalogue of Periodicals in the Hellenic Scientific and Technological Libraries. The union catalogue was developed in a database form. Today (January 2000), the union catalogue includes 206 Hellenic scientific, technological and medical libraries, two of which are located in Cyprus. These libraries belong to a wide range of organisational and institutional types, such as universities, hospitals, research institutions, private companies and commercial banks, covering all scientific and technological fields. The total national collection of serials amounts to 22,790 unique titles, which correspond to 57,790 subscriptions. The overlapping coefficient is at 2.53 (= subscriptions per unique journal title). The annual cost comes to 25,195 million Euros (1 Euro = 328 drachmas). A macroeconomic approach is attempted, to investigate the upper and lower levels of savings that could be realised by reduction of overlapping subscriptions. While library budgets have been continuously cut during recent years, under certain conditions, a reasonable and coordinated reconstruction of the individual libraries’ collections could save every year 20%-50% of the total subscription cost and therefore expand the national collection by the same percentage. Two important steps towards these directions were the development of the Hellenic Interlibrary Loan Network and the Hellenic Academic Library Link.
Conceptions of information literacy: new perspectives and implications
Authors: Webber Sheila , Johnston Bill
Published: December 2004

The authors identify some key definitions of ‘information literacy’ and initiatives concerned with imparting information literacy skills. They identify limitations in taking an approach to information literacy which assumes that it can be boiled down to a list of skills. Alternative conceptions of information literacy are described. Previous research has identified a lack of information on how students experience and define information literacy. The authors describe the student response to a one-semester credit-bearing class in information literacy, taken by business students at the University of Strathclyde, and relate it to two models of information literacy. They go on to discuss two issues in the light of previous developments and their own research: appropriate pedagogic methods for educating for information literacy and information literacy as a discipline in its own right. They conclude by identifying further areas for research and by recommending that information scientists should lead the way in defining this growing area.
Evaluating consumer website logs: a case study of The Times/The Sunday Times website
Authors: Nicholas David , Huntington Paul , Lievesley Nat , Wasti A.
Published: December 2004

Information professionals have featured strongly in the evaluation of the use of commercial online hosts and online public access catalogues, but not so strongly in the evaluation of the use of websites. This paper describes a piece of research that was conducted on The Times/The Sunday Times websites, to determine the most appropriate methods for evaluating use and to establish what forms of analysis could best be derived. A database of one million subscribers and three months’ worth of logs, constituting 65 million lines of data, were obtained and the data were analysed using parsing techniques and the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. There were problems associated with the analysis, largely because of the difficulties in establishing the identity of Web users, determining what actually constitutes use and measuring the time spent online.

Men in their 30s were the sites’ most numerous subscribers. The majority of subscribers were foreign and came from commercial organisations. Use varied considerably from hour to hour and day to day and from country to country: in the UK, midweek lunchtimes proved very popular. On average, a user conducted 2.35 sessions over the survey period, spent 15 minutes on a search session and 0.5-2.1 minutes on reading a page. Commercial organisations and Americans were the heaviest users and news pages proved to be the most popular.
Building competitive skills in small and medium-sized enterprises through innovation management techniques: overview of an Italian experience
Authors: Libutti Luciana
Published: December 2004

The paper reports on the work and the results of the IMTIC (Innovation Management Techniques for Industry Clusters) Project supported by the European Commission’s Innovation Programme.

The purpose of the project was to make industrial small and medium-sized enterprises aware of the possibilities offered by innovation management techniques (IMTs) in planning and implementing long-term business strategies.

IMTs were presented and outlined to a number of industrial clusters in five Italian regions in the areas of: (i) marketing of innovation, (ii) Technology Watch (TW), (iii) Technology Search (TS), (iv) management of intellectual property rights and (v) quality management.

The Institute for Studies on Research and Scientific Documentation (ISRDS) of the National Research Council (CNR) of Italy was one of the subcontractors for the project. The main task assigned to ISRDS/CNR was to set up the methodological framework for two innovative techniques: TW and TS.

In particular, the methodological process for setting up TW and TS is described. Monitoring by ISRDS of the project phases and the control of the results are also described.
Webometric analysis of departments of librarianship and information science
Authors: Thomas Owen , Willett Peter
Published: December 2004

This paper describes a webometric analysis of the linkages (or ‘sitations’) to websites associated with departments of librarianship and information science (LIS). Some of the observed sitation counts appear counter-intuitive and there is only a very limited correlation with peer evaluations of research performance, with many of the sitations being from pages that are far removed in subject matter from LIS. Our conclusions are that sitation data are not well suited to the quantitative evaluation of the research status of LIS departments and that departments can best boost their web visibility by hosting as wide a range of types of material as possible.
Incorporating the results of co-word analyses to increase search variety for information retrieval
Authors: Ding Ying , Chowdhury Gobinda G. , Foo Schubert
Published: December 2004

This research aims to incorporate the results of co-word analysis into information retrieval as a means to increase search variety for end users in the domain of information retrieval. Relevant data were first collected from Science Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index for the period 1987-1997. The results of co-word analysis on the data were compared with similar data obtained from three thesauri: Library and Information Science Abstracts thesaurus, Library of Congress Subject Headings and Thesaurus of Information Technology Terms. The differences detected between them indicate that the search variety may be increased by combining co-word analysis with the use of traditional thesauri. Subsequently, the results of co-word analysis were compared with each other for two different periods (1987-1991 and 1992-1997). The changes among them were identified, implying that co-word analysis may be used directly to identify dynamic changes in its chosen domain area, thereby providing better up-to-date information to aid the information search process.
A critical review of the application of citation studies to the Research Assessment Exercises
Authors: Warner Julian
Published: December 2004

The Research Assessment Exercises (RAE) conducted in the UK have attractedvarious types of published response. These include citation analyses and a review of the public reception of the RAE 1996, which included a brief critique of the citation studies.

This paper develops the critique. Largely unexplored issues in the theory or assumptions of bibliometrics, e.g. the level of citation which corresponds to a quantum of research quality, are found to emerge in the studies. A weak, and unsatisfactorily treated, correlation between citation aggregates and research quality for individual entities is revealed. The proposal to replace informed peer review by citation analysis is regarded as highly unrealistic.

Productive uses for citation analysis in research evaluation are suggested. A historically rare instance of correlation between rankings derived from citation aggregates and from real world peer review has been revealed by the studies. The future value of citation analysis could be to inform, but not to determine, judgements of research quality.

A combination of methods is advocated for future studies of the RAEs. Information science must attend to considerations of value, as well as using established techniques, if it is to avoid marginalisation.
Stemming and n-grams in Spanish: an evaluation of their impact on information retrieval
Authors: Figuerola Carlos G. , Gómez Raquel , de San Román Eva López
Published: December 2004

At some stage, most of the models and techniques implemented in information retrieval use frequency counts of the terms appearing in documents and in queries. However, many words, since they are derived from the same stem, have very close semantic content. This makes a grouping of such variants under a single term advisable. Otherwise, dispersal occurs in the calculation of frequency of these terms and it also becomes difficult to compare queries and documents. On the other hand, there are notable differences between different languages in the way of forming derivatives and inflected forms, so that the application of specific techniques can produce unequal results according to the language of the documents and queries. A description is given of tests carried out for documents in Spanish, which involved some stemming techniques widely used in English, as well as the application of n-grams, and the results are compared.
Bibliometrics and beyond: some thoughts on web-based citation analysis
Authors: Cronin Blaise
Published: December 2004

The idea of a unified citation index to the literature of science was first outlined by Eugene Garfield [1] in 1955 in the journal Science. Science Citation Index has since established itself as the gold standard for scientific information retrieval. It has also become the database of choice for citation analysts and evaluative bibliometricians worldwide. As scientific publication moves to the web, and novel approaches to scholarly communication and peer review establish themselves, new methods of citation and link analysis will emerge to capture often liminal expressions of peer esteem, influence and approbation. The web thus affords bibliometricians rich opportunities to apply and adapt their techniques to new contexts and content: the age of ‘bibliometric spectroscopy’ [2] is dawning.
Internet technologies in the Himalayas: lessons learned during the 1990
Authors: Akhtar Shahid , Gregson Jon
Published: December 2004

The Himalayan region is characterised by mountain communities that have many of the poorest and isolated peoples in the world. These communities suffer from poor infrastructure and lack of access to basic resources and services, including relevant information. Since the mid-1990s, Internet technologies have been used increasingly in different parts of the Himalayan region, in an attempt to address problems of information access and sharing and of communication among and between communities. The overall objectives of using these technologies in mountain areas have been to bring about an improvement in the quality of life and to seek to avoid increasing marginalisation of mountain communities through a widening ‘information gap’ between the richer, ‘connected’ urban populations and the poorer isolated rural communities.

There is growing interest on the part of various players, including governments, private organisations and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), to promote the use of the Internet and related information and communication technologies. Among the international NGOs, the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) plays a unique role in the Himalayas, as it has a mandate to specifically serve communities in mountain areas and it works throughout the region, in Afghanistan, North Pakistan, North India, Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar.

This paper traces the history of Internet usage in the Himalayas and introduces the issues and problems faced in implementing projects and other initiatives to promote usage. Specific reference is made to examples arising from some of ICIMOD’s projects; lessons learned from these experiences are highlighted.
Gateway to Electronic Media Services (GEMS)
Authors: May Wong Oi , Al-Hawamdeh Suliman
Published: December 2004

With the dawning of the digital age, many libraries around the world have begun to revamp their collections so as to accommodate more e-resources as well as other digital materials. However, as library resources become more virtual, many issues will have to be taken into consideration. For instance, in order to build a digital library, library administrators will have to deal with intellectual property and copyright issues. In most cases, librarians will have to negotiate for licensing terms in order to be able to deliver information to patrons at the lowest possible cost. This study reports on the implementation of a digital library in Nanyang Technological University (NTU). The digital library aims to deliver information resources campus-wide and make these resources accessible via a single point, any time and anywhere. The NTU digital library initiative is examined, with emphasis on the services and facilities provided.
An effective World Wide Web image search engine
Authors: Lu Guojun , Williams Ben , You Chooneng
Published: December 2004

Effective World Wide Web image retrieval systems are required to locate relevant images as more and more images are used in HTML documents. There are two general approaches to image retrieval: one is based on text descriptions and the other on image contents (low-level features, such as colour and texture). They have their respective strengths and weaknesses. In this paper, we describe how to improve text-based and content-based image retrieval techniques and to integrate these two types of techniques in one system to take advantage of their complementing strengths. Our experimental results show that the integrated approach has higher retrieval performance than either the text-based or the content-based techniques used by themselves.
Links between information construction and information gain. Entropy and bibliometric distributions
Authors: Lafouge Thierry , Michel Christine
Published: December 2004

The study of the statistical regularities observed in the field of information production and use has confirmed the existence of important similarities. Thus, the existence of regularities and measurable ratios allow the prevision and the concept of laws. In the 1950s, Shannon and Weaver [13] modelled the information circulation theory. The entropy hypothesis of this theory is that the more ranked a system is, the less information it produces. Theoretical studies have tried to formalise the connection between the bibliometric distribution and the entropy. In this paper, we try to extend previous results linked with ‘the least effort principle’ and the analytical slope of a bibliometric distribution. In the first and second parts, we recall some statements about entropy and bibliometric distributions and, after that, we describe different links between them.
Establishing metrics for the evaluation of touch screen kiosks
Authors: Nicholas David , Huntington Paul , Williams Peter
Published: December 2004

Public touch screen information systems or kiosks have become a popular way of delivering consumer information and much of the user activity is automatically recorded in electronic log files. Fortunately for the information professional, log files are a significant source for understanding the information seeking behaviour of consumers., Surprisingly, however, there has been no discussion in the literature on what metrics are available for their evaluation. This paper seeks to address this problem and examines the metrics that can be generated from touch screen kiosk logs. The research reported here forms part of a Department of Health funded study, which is evaluating the use and impact of 70 health kiosks located in medical and other locations throughout the UK [1]. The way that kiosks function and the contents of their log files are described. Metrics are discussed in the context of the data generated from a touch screen health kiosk in Wakefield. Aggregate use, user numbers and descriptive statistics generated on age, gender and pages viewed are examined. An examination of the distribution of time-based variables, such as session time, found them to be highly skewed; in consequence, robust estimates were generated and compared. A metric for depth of session was developed by grouping users according to their patterns of use and a method for assessing kiosk ‘utilisation’ is proposed.
Incorporating window-based passage-level evidence in document retrieval
Authors: Xi Wensi , Xu-Rong Richard , Khoo Christopher S.G. , Lim Ee-Peng
Published: December 2004

This study investigated whether document retrieval can be improved if documents are divided into smaller sub-documents or passages and the retrieval score for these passages are incorporated in the final retrieval score for the whole document. The documents were segmented by sliding a window of a certain size across the document and extracting the words displayed each time the window stopped. A retrieval score was calculated for each of the passages extracted and the highest score obtained by a passage of that size was taken as the document’s passage-level score for that window size. A range of window sizes was tried.

The experimental results indicated that using a fixed window size of 50 words gave better results than other window sizes for the TREC-5 and TREC-6 test collections. This window size yielded a significant retrieval improvement of 24% compared to using the whole-document retrieval score (using the traditional tf*idf weighting scheme with cosine normalisation). However, combining this window score and the whole-document retrieval score did not yield a retrieval improvement.

Using a variable window size (ranging from 50 to 400 words) yielded a retrieval improvement of about 5% over using a fixed window size of 50. Different window sizes were found to work best for different queries. If the best window size to use for each query could be predicted accurately, a maximum retrieval improvement of 42% could be obtained.

Subsequent work suggests that the usefulness of passage-level evidence in document retrieval depends on the weighting scheme and type of normalisation used in the retrieval method.
A network expert system management system for multiple domains
Authors: Killingsworth Brenda L. , Hayden Michael B. , Schellenberger Robert
Published: December 2004

In an increasingly competitive global business environment, the fast pace of technological change, widely dispersed expertise and strong competition demands proactive decision-making by today’s corporations. Global information management has become increasingly important, as businesses strive to leverage their information resources for competitive advantage. Innovative expert systems that enhance and speed up the decision-making process are one avenue for improving an organization’s competitive position. However, most expert systems are designed as stand-alone products and, as such, they do not reflect actual decision-making within an organization. This paper discusses a design that extends the concept of a hierarchical expert system management system into a network of expert systems from multiple domains. This model is designed to bring the best source of knowledge to the decision-making process. Further, it is intended to use these resources to quickly make adjustments to the rapidly changing business environment. The model is less restrictive, thus making it suitable for use in self-directed team environments. Furthermore, these concepts also provide support for dynamic organizational change. An illustration is provided to show how such a network of expert systems can assist a manager attempting to identify principal labour needs within an organization.
Toward hypermedia support for information relationship management
Authors: Chiu Chao-Min , Bieber Michael
Published: December 2004

The overall research goal of this project is to provide hyper-media functionality to information systems (ISs) not enhanced with hypermedia with minimal or no changes to the ISs. ISs dynamically generate their contents and thus require some mapping mechanism to automatically map the generated contents to hypermedia constructs (nodes, links and link markers) instead of hypermedia links being hard-coded over static contents. No systematic approach exists, however, for identifying information relationships and building mapping rules to infer useful links that give users direct access to the ISs’ primary functionality, give access to meta-information about IS objects, give access to relationships among information objects and enable annotation and ad hoc (user-declared) linking. This paper contributes a procedure for analyzing ISs and building mapping rules that supplement ISs with hypermedia support, which results in new ways to view and manage the IS’s knowledge and information relationships.
Mapping the scholarly development of strategic management
Authors: Martinsons Maris G. , Everett James E. , Chan Kathy
Published: December 2004

In an effort to move from speculative to scientific discourse, a key meta-issue in strategic management is addressed by systematically tracing the intellectual development of this sub-discipline. The flow of scholarly knowledge is mapped over time by combining multivariate statistics and other techniques. Observed citation frequencies are fitted to a chi-square model of importance, receptivity and similarity, while cluster analysis is employed to map changes in journal relationships over time. The results contradict at least one widely espoused and previously uncontested assertion, by revealing that the strategic management sub-discipline has evolved from a receptor to a transmitter of interdisciplinary knowledge and entered the mainstream of social science. The study demonstrates the potential to shed objective light on the social construction of knowledge and to address important issues in other scholarly disciplines.
From laboratory to information explosions... the evolution of chemical information services at ISI
Authors: Garfield Eugene
Published: December 2004

This paper presents an autobiographical account of Eugene Garfield’s involvement in chemical information systems. It traces his personal evolution from laboratory chemist transformed into an information scientist who combined his knowledge of structural linguistics and information technology into an algorithmic system for identifying molecular formulas in the literature.

Recognizing the shortcomings of traditional abstracting and indexing systems like Index Medicus and Chemical Abstracts, he launched Current Contents, Index Chemicus and Science Citation Index, which were designed to provide timely, weekly and highly specific retrieval of chemical information.

The experience in locating and coding the steroid literature for the US Patent Office led to a variety of chemically-basedservices dealing with new compounds and intermediates, as well as graphical presentation of chemical formulas and reactions

The Index Chemicus Registry System was the first to use the Wiswesser line notation, which became a standard in the pharmaceutical field. This eventually led to Current Chemical Reactions Database and Reaction Citation Index.
Input-friendliness: motivating knowledge sharing across intranets
Authors: Hall Hazel
Published: December 2004

The value of an intranet for knowledge management (KM) is largely dependent on the calibre of the content and tools that it provides to its users and its ultimate application in business operations. For many organisations, there is a particular dilemma regarding the development of internally produced intranet resources for KM applications. Employees will not feel encouraged to provide content until they believe that what they provide will be used and they will not use an intranet if it does not provide useful content. This paper considers strategies for making intranets ‘input-friendly’: how can organisations extract the content needed to add to the body of internally produced resources from their employees? The discussion explores factors that encourage intranet contributions. These include enabling conditions such as the provision of appropriate tools, the development of organisational KM culture and reward systems. The paper makes reference to studies drawn from the academic literature in business studies, information systems, organisational science and sociology, as well as to practice in case study organisations.
Fostering knowledge management through the creative work environment: a portable model from the advertising industry
Authors: Ensor John , Cottam Angela , Band Christine
Published: December 2004

Within the knowledge-creating organisation, building communities of practice and allowing people to form social networks in order to disperse information is critical in order to foster creativity and innovation. It is argued that in order to exploit explicit knowledge and build an effective community of practice, there needs to be a work environment that encourages information sharing, creativity and innovation. The main approach of this research was to explore senior management’s perceptions of the positive and negative factors that foster or hinder the social work environment. A conceptual model designed by Amabile et al. [5] was used as a framework for a series of qualitative interviews with senior managers within the UK advertising industry. This research found that UK advertising agencies are organised in a manner that allows them to strongly reinforce the work dimensions that foster a social/creative work environment and, therefore, effectively utilise explicit knowledge. The factors that usually hinder the creative working environment of an organisation were largely lacking in these agencies. The findings support the argument that this highly creative industry does replicate best practice and can be seen as a benchmark for other organisations. However, it is argued that the advertising industry may be more applicable as a benchmark for other service-based industries and knowledge-based organisations, particularly in the new economy, rather than large production-orientated industries.
A bibliometric analysis of IOLIM conferences 1977-1999
Authors: Clausen Helge , Wormell Irene
Published: December 2004

Since 1977, the International Online Information Meeting (IOLIM) in London has been the most important conference for users and producers of electronic information. The organiser of the conference is Learned Information Europe Ltd, a UK-based commercial organisation. In order to measure the impact of these conferences on the library and information science literature in general, a concept of conference impact factor (CIF) is explored for the first time. Following the pattern of journal impact factor (JIF), the study presents a methodology for exploring the characteristics of a core international conference and measuring its impact. The study used the online citations databases in DIALOG, as well as the CD-ROM version of Library and Information Science Abstracts. Through statistical and bibliometric analysis, the paper provides quantitative information about geographic distribution of members of Organising Committees, Referee Panels, authors, delegates and citations. Knowledge export of the conference is measured by the subject categories of citing journals. A list of the top most cited papers of the Proceedings is presented, as well as the names of the citing authors and titles of the journals. Via time series, the study highlights trends and developments reflected by IOLIM.
Transparency and teledemocracy: issues from an ‘e-consultation’
Authors: Whyte Angus , Macintosh Ann
Published: December 2004

Transparency is a term common to distributed computing, communications studies and other fields that information science draws upon. Its everyday uses and connotations are carried over into these domains, coalescing around some common issues relevant to knowledge management. Transparency is also a common term in political theory and practice and one that has been associated with teledemocracy: the application of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to support democratic processes. For example, ‘greater transparency’ is commonly used to justify the use of ICT by governments to consult with the governed; the topic of the work in progress reported here.

Transparency is an abstract benefit, perhaps more so than ‘knowledge management’ itself. It promises gain for all, but risks being lost between expectations first raised by political and managerial ‘spin’ and then deflated by the same corporate forgetting what it is meant to address. The paper explores some of this dangerous territory, reflecting on how everyday notions of ‘transparency’ relate to two current issues in knowledge management and social informatics: firstly, the design of systems to promote shared awareness of activity and identity; secondly, the study of ICTs to illuminate the invisibility of the ‘social infrastructure’ that they depend upon.

The paper briefly reviews uses of the term ‘transparency’, drawing on literature from the fields mentioned above. The aim is to delineate dimensions of transparency that may help designers, policy makers or citizens to evaluate what can or should be made transparent in the interplay between technology and due political process. Ethnographic methods were used to document outcomes of an ‘electronic consultation’ project that contributed to a Government consultation of eleven to eighteen year olds in Scotland. A website ‘ econsultant’ was developed and its usage monitored online and offline, including in events leading up to a ‘Scottish Youth Summit’. Using brief extracts from field notes, the website itself and audio and video transcripts of the site in use, the paper will show how those participating in the consultation collaboratively shared and managed awareness of their activities and identities. Reflecting on what was made visible through the e-consultant site, and wha was hidden by it, the realised and potential ‘transparencyenhancing’ effects of this and similar prototypes will be discussed. The discussion focuses on the roles of intermediaries and social infrastructure in the project, illustrating the trade-offs between transparently simple design and transparency of information in the collaboration between consultants(those doing the consulting) and consultees (those consulted). Finally, indications are given of the direction the authors’ ongoing research.
Concept-based searching and browsing: a geoscience experiment
Authors: Hauck Roslin V. , Sewell Robin R. , Ng Tobun D. , Chen Hsinchun
Published: December 2004

In the recent literature, we have seen the expansion of information retrieval techniques to include a variety of different collections of information. Collections can have certain characteristics that can lead to different results for the various classification techniques. In addition, the ways and reasons that users explore each collection can affect the success of the information retrieval technique. The focus of this research was to extend the application of our statistical and neural network techniques to the domain of geological science information retrieval. For this study, a test bed of 22,636 geoscience abstracts was obtained through the NSF/DARPA/NASA funded Alexandria Digital Library Initiative project at the University of California at Santa Barbara. This collection was analyzed using algorithms previously developed by our research group: concept space algorithm for searching and a Kohonen self-organizing map (SOM) algorithm for browsing. Included in this paper are discussions of our techniques, user evaluations and lessons learned.
Bridging the digital divide with low-cost information technologies
Authors: James Jeffrey
Published: December 2004

Although there are many requirements that need to be met if the digital divide between rich and poor countries is to be narrowed, this paper focuses on just one aspect of the problem; namely, the need for low-cost information technologies that are suitable to the conditions prevailing in the latter rather than the former. It is argued that there are, in fact, already many more such technologies than most people realise, mainly because what information about them that does exist tends to be highly fragmented. What is needed, accordingly, is an institution charged with the function of registering and disseminating all the fragmentary information about low-cost information that is currently available.
A Web-based registry of low-cost information technologies for developing countries
Authors: James Jeffrey
Published: December 2004

The paper seeks to explain why no registry of low-cost information technologies for developing countries exists. It advances a set of policy proposals and a suggestion for a dedicated new website.
Knowledge management in pursuit of learning: the Learning with Knowledge Cycle
Authors: Rowley Jennifer
Published: December 2004

This paper suggests that knowledge and learning are closely intertwined. An overview of some of the key differences between the respective concepts of the learning organisation and knowledge management forms a basis for exploring the link between these two concepts. Both concepts are under evolution. A model that contributes to the formation of an ontology for analytic discussion, and the implementation of knowledge management, the Learning with Knowledge Cycle, is proposed. The stages in this Cycle are: knowledge creation and construction, knowledge articulation, knowledge repository updating, knowledge access, knowledge use and knowledge revision. The Cycle represents the learning process within organisations and is applicable to both tacit and explicit knowledge. All stages in the Cycle contribute to effective organisational learning. Examples of the knowledge-based activities that contribute to each stage in the Cycle are given. Knowledge management is concerned with the facilitation of the activities that support each of the stages in the Cycle.