Communication and information-seeking behavior of PhD students in physicists and astronomy

Jamali, Hamid R. Communication and information-seeking behavior of PhD students in physicists and astronomy., 2006 . In ASIST Annual Conference, Austin, Texass, 3-8 November 2006. [Conference paper]

[img]
Preview
PDF
Jamali&Nicholas-ASIST.pdf

Download (60kB) | Preview

English abstract

As a part of a wider doctoral research, this paper deals with the communication and information-seeking behavior of research (PhD) students in physics and astronomy. Based on a qualitative case study of PhD students in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at University College London, this study seeks to derive behavioral patterns in information-seeking activities of PhD students. The study aims to investigate the intradisciplinary differences in information-seeking activities of physicists and astronomers. The findings show the high reliance of PhD students in physics and astronomy on electronic journals and their low use of libraries. The findings reveal differences in the information-seeking patterns of students who conduct theoretical research and those of whom are involved in experimental research. The research highlights the need for the study of small subject communities within academic disciplines instead of studying users in a broad subject area such as physics as one single domain.

Item type: Conference paper
Keywords: Physics, astronomy, information behavior, research students
Subjects: C. Users, literacy and reading. > CB. User studies.
Depositing user: Dr Hamid R. Jamali
Date deposited: 15 Feb 2011
Last modified: 02 Oct 2014 12:18
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10760/15359

References

Abdoulaye, K. (2002). Information-Seeking Behaviour of African Students in Malaysia: a research study. Information Development, 18(3), 191-196.

Barry, C. A. (1995). Critical Issues in Evaluating the Impact of IT on Information Activity in Academic Research: Developing a Qualitative Research Solution. Library and Information Science Research, 17(2), 107-134.

Bates, M. J. (2002). Speculations on browsing, directed searching, and linking in relation to the Bradford distribution. In H. Bruce, R. Fidel, P. Ingwersen, & P. Vakkari (Eds.) Emerging Frameworks and Methods: Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Conceptions of Library and Information Science (CoLIS 4), July 2 1-25, Seattle, WA. Libraries Unlimited, Greenwood Village, 137-149.

Barrett, A. (2005). The Information-Seeking Habits of Graduate Student Researchers in the Humanities. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 31(4), 324–331.

Boyce, P., & Daltero, H. (1996). Electronic publishing of scientific journals. Physics Today (January).

Brockman, W. S., Neumann, L., Palmer, C. L. & Tidline, T. J. (2001). Scholarly work in the humanities and the evolving information environment. Retrieved October 30, 2003, from http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub104/contents.html.

Brown, C. M. (1999a). Information literacy of physical science graduate students in the information age. College and Research Libraries, 60(5), 426-438.

Brown, C.M. (1999b). Information seeking behavior of scientists in the electronic information age: Astronomers, chemists, mathematicians, and physicists. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 50(10), 929–943.

Brown, C. M. (2001). The Coming of Age of E-Prints in the Literature of Physics. Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, 31 (Summer). Retrieved July 22, 2005, from http://www.istl.org/01-summer/refereed.html

Callinan, J. E. (2005). Information-seeking behaviour of undergraduate biology students: A comparative analysis of first year and final year students in University College Dublin. Library Review, 54(2), 86 - 99.

Case, D. O. (1991). The collection and use of information by some American historians: a case study of motives and methods. Library Quarterly, 61(1), 61-82.

Dixon, A. (1999). The twelve ages of electronic journals. Vine, (111), 3-9.

Ellis, D., Cox, D., & Hall, K. (1993). A comparison of the information seeking patterns of researchers in the physical and social sciences. Journal of Documentation, 49(4), 356-369.

Ellis, D., & Haugan, M. (1997). Modelling the information-seeking patterns of engineers and research scientists in an industrial environment. Journal of Documentation, 53(4), 384-403.

Fidzani, B. T. (1998). Information needs and information-seeking behaviour of graduate students at the University of Botswana. Library Review, 47(7), 329-340.

Fox, J. W. (200?). From Lander to Massey: History of physics, space science and astronomy at University College London, 1826 - 1975. Retrieved October 30, 2005, from http://www.phys.ucl.ac.uk/department/history/BFox1.html

Fry, J. (2004). The cultural shaping of ICTs within academic fields: corpus-based linguistics as a case study. Literary and Linguistic Computing, 19(3), 303–319.

Fry, J. (2006). Scholarly research and information practices: a domain analytic approach, Information Processing and Management, 42(1), 299–316.

Fry, J., & Talja, S. (2004). The cultural shaping of scholarly communication: explaining e-journal use within and across academic fields. In Proceedings of the American society for information science and technology annual meeting on managing and enhancing information: cultures and conflicts. Providence, Rhode Island, 13–18 November, 2004.

Gorman, G. E., & Clayton, P. (2005). Qualitative research for the information professional: a practical handbook (2nd ed. ed.). London: Facet.

Guerrero-Bote, V. P., Reyes-Barragan, M. J., Moya-Anegon, F. and Herrero-Solana, V. (2002). Methods for the Analysis of the Uses of Scientific Information: The Case of the University of Extremadura (1996–7). Libri, 52(2), 99–109

Hagstrom, W. O. (1970). Factors related to use of different modes of publishing research in four scientific fields. In C. E. Nelson & D. K. Pollock (Eds.), Communication among scientists and engineers (pp. 85-124). Lexington, Massachusetts: Heath Lexington Book.

Hjørland, B. (2002). Epistemology and the socio-cognitive perspective in information science. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 53(4), 257–270.

Hjørland, B., & Albrechtsen, H. (1995). Toward a new horizon in information science: domain-analysis. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 46(6), 400–425.

Institute for the Future. (2002). E-Journal user: report of Web Log data mining. Retrieved April 25, 2000, from http://ejust.stanford.edu/logdata.html

Jankowska, M. A., Hertel, K., & Young, N. J. (2006). Improving Library Service Quality to Graduate Students: LibQual+™ Survey Results in a Practical Setting. Portal: Libraries and the Academy, 6(1), 59–77.

Kelly, R. A. (1997). Digital archiving in the Physics literature: author to archive and beyond- the American Physical Society. The Serials Librarian, 30(3-4), 163-170.

Langer, J. (2001). Physicists in the new era of electronic publishing. Learned Publishing, 14(2), 131-137.

Majid, S., & Tan, A. T. (2002). Usage of information resources by computer engineering students: a case study of Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Online Information Review, 26(5), 318-325.

Nelson, D. (2001). The uptake of electronic journals by academics in the UK, their attitudes towards them and their potential impact on scholarly communication. Information Services & Use, 21(3-4), 205-214.

Nicholas, D., Huntington, P., Rowlands, I., Jamali, H. R., & Haynes, J. (2005). An investigation of physicists' information seeking behaviour, publishing practices, and views on the scholarly publishing system: with special reference to the Institute of Physics and its journals, Report of an international survey. London: University College London, CIBER.

Nicholas, D., Huntington, P. and Watkinson, A. (2003). Digital journals, big deals and online searching behaviour: a pilot study, Aslib Proceedings, 55(1/2), 84-109.

Nicholas, D., Huntington, P. and Watkinson, A. (2005). Scholarly journal usage: the

results of deep log analysis, Journal of Documentation, 61(2), 248-280.

Palmer, C. L. (1999). Aligning studies of information seeking and use with domain analysis. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 50(12), 1139-1 140.

Rusch-Feja, D. & Siebeky, U. (1999). Evaluation of Usage and Acceptance of Electronic Journal. D-Lib Magazine, 5(10), Available: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/october99/rusch-feja/10rusch-feja-full-report.html

Singleton, A. (1997). Journal and the electronic programme of the Institute of Physics. The Serials Librarian, 30(3-4), 149-161.

Smith, E. T. (2003). Changes in faculty reading behaviours: the impact of electronic journals on the University of Georgia. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 29(3), 162-168.

Talja, S., & Maula, H. (2003). Reasons for the use and non-use of electronic journals and databases: a domain analytic study in four scholarly disciplines. Journal of Documentation, 59(6), 673–691.

Tenopir, C. (2002). Online Serials heat up. Library Journal, October 1, 37-38.

Tenopir, C. (2003). Use and users of electronic library resources: a overview and analysis of recent research studies. Report for the Council on Library and Information Resources, Retreived October 30, 2005, from www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub120/pub120.pdf

Tenopir, C., & King, D. W. (2002). Reading behaviour and electronic journals. Learned Publishing, 15(4), 259-265.

Tenopir, C., King, D. W., Boyce, P., Grayson, M., & Paulson, K. (2005). Relying on electronic journals: reading patterns of Astronomers. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 56(8), 786-802.

Tomney, H., & Burton, P. F. (1998). Electronic journals: a study of usage and attitudes among academic. Journal of Information Science, 24(6), 419-429.

Valauskas, E. J. (1997). Waiting for Thomas Kuhn: First Monday and the evolution of electronic journals. First Monday, 2(12). Retrieved July 22, 2005, from http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue2_12/valauskas/

Washington-Hoagland, C., & Clougherty, L. (2002). Identifying the Resource and Service Needs of Graduate and Professional Students The University of Iowa User Needs of Graduate Professional Series. portal: Libraries and the Academy, 2(1), 125–143.

Whitmire, E. (2002). Disciplinary differences and undergraduates' information-seeking behavior. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 53(8), 631 - 638.


Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item