Analysis of the citation of Web-based information resources by UNISA academic researchers

Abstract

The Web is a powerful, dynamic and flexible information resource interface that fundamentally alters the academic’s research practices and interaction with information due to the additional avenues available to retrieve research and scholarly information. There is a surge in global knowledge production and a massive expansion in scholarly research output. The growth in the availability of fee- and free-based Web information resources, and the ease of access, has led to a phenomenal increase in the use of these information resources. Today’s researcher has virtually unlimited access to a greater number and variety of information resources than ever before (Noam 1997). The Web, as an online information repository, has greatly facilitated information accessibility. As the vastness of the Web grows, so does the potential for accessing previously inaccessible, unpublished and Web-exclusive information in newsgroups, portals, blogs, bulletin boards, electronic archives and Web sites. Hundreds of electronic journals, newsletters and magazines are now 'born digitally' on the Web. The abundant and mobile digital information is automatically pushed to academics via networks, creating an overflow of information (Christensen 1997:6). As the size of the Web continues to expand, the variety of high quality scholarly information resources proliferates. An overwhelming amount of information is available on both the Web (electronic) and in the academic library (print and electronic), resulting in an information content overlap between the two sources. There is a major shift in academic libraries from ownership to access and the focus has been adjusted from the physical size of collections to electronic access. Academic libraries are purchasing access to electronic databases and replacing many print reference and periodical collections with Web-based access for users because the cost of access is more affordable than ownership. In the pre-Web era, trained professional librarians conducted most of the literature retrieval by using online databases and acting as an intermediary and custodian of information. The development of Web search engines spawned a self-service culture where empowered academic end-users execute their searches independently on the Web. Before the dawn of the digital era, the academic operated in a simple linear mode when seeking information in a physical printed world. The Web added an additional dimension to information seeking, performed in a networked virtual electronic mode with open access and a systems environment. The academic is now confronted with a mixed environment of print and e-sources when searching for information and needs to make a format choice between printed physical sources or electronic Web sources. The Web contains a growing amount of peer reviewed scholarly full-text documents available on open access mediums. Open access channels include firstly electronic, refereed open access journals, secondly research or subject specific archive (e-print) servers, thirdly institutional repositories of individual universities (electronic theses and dissertations) and finally self-posting on authors’ home pages (De Beer 2005). Academics are forced to incorporate the new technologies in the research activities of seeking, disseminating and citing of information. As the content of the Web continues to deepen, it becomes an increasingly critical resource for academics. The Web is the largest electronic information resource in the world and cannot be ignored as an information gathering tool (Bane and Milheim 1995:1). There is a high Internet penetration rate among academics in the tertiary education sector in South Africa. Goldstuck (2004:60) estimates that there are in the region of 400000 academic Internet users at higher education institutions in South Africa. Approximately 85% of all