Citation Tools Research Articles

English

The purpose of the article is to analyse the various features and functions of online citation tools with the help of specially designed evaluation checklist and rank them based on features/functions. A structured evaluation checklist contains 90 dichotomous questions (features/functions) and is categorized in nine broad categories. The findings of the study explore different features of online citation tools which reveal that EasyBib online citation tool has the highest score and is ranked ‘high’ among the studied sixteen online citation tools; BibMe, Citation Machine, Cite This For Me, Citation Maker, Bib Builder, CiteFast, and Make Citation are ranked ‘low’ while the remaining eight Online Citation Tools with ‘very low’ rank. Citation tools under study are lagging behind in exploiting the optimum potential of mobile apps and social networking site features and also lack information guides for effective use of online citation tools.

What do citation patterns reveal about the outdoor education field? A snapshot 2000–2013

This study considered what insights into outdoor education (OE) research and scholarship could be gleaned from citation indices and patterns. Citation indices have long been used as ranking tools in the physical sciences, and more recently have been used in humanities and social sciences. High citation measures indicate high research impact, although the converse is not necessarily true because research can have impact unrelated to citations, especially in a small practical field such as OE, and citation indices cannot be used for cross-discipline comparisons without considering variations in citation patterns between fields or disciplines. Citation data can also be used for purposes other than ranking. One aim of this article is to consider what OE citation patterns indicate about the distinctiveness of OE as a field. We wanted to use citation data to inform our understanding, as researchers, of the nature and structure of OE discourse. In particular, we made use of citation tools to look at not only which OE work had been cited but also where citation impact occurred. The study examined the most-cited OE research and scholarship published from 2000 to 2013. We attempted to answer the following questions: (1) What do citation patterns indicate about OE research impact outside the field? (2) Does where OE research is published predict where its citation impact, if any, will be? (3) Do citation patterns point to the existence of a single OE literature, or several? (4) Do citation impacts provide insight into how, if at all, the OE field progresses? Using Google Scholar data, Publish or Perish software, and searches for “outdoor education,” we obtained 1,446 articles or other sources. Using Zotero software, we reviewed and analysed these articles and works. We found strong support for an argument that OE discourse constituted a distinct research community clustered around the Australian Journal of Outdoor Education (now the Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education), the Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning, and the Journal of Experiential Education. Most published OE work is never cited, and a small number of well-cited works form patterns of citation. We were surprised by the number of theses in the citing works, and found that with the exception of a few articles any impact of OE research and scholarship outside of the OE journals, theses, or OE conferences, is highly diffuse.

Use of Online Citation Tools by Students and Research Scholars of Department of Library and Information Science, University of Delhi

This paper finds out the citation management and the needs of students of Department of Libary and Information Science, University of Delhi, and how online citation tools fit into their academic and research process. The results indicate that all the respondents are aware of online citation tools and using them occasionally. EasyBib was the popular online citation tool among respondents. The survey results show that most of the respondents learned the online citation tools through department’s website. The main purpose of using online citation tools was for their academic/research work. Most of the respondents were accessing online citation tools from the Delhi University Computer Centre. They had not received any formal training for creating online citations. Simplified and easy bibliography and automatic creation of references list are two major benefits of online citation tools. The most obvious impediment is that they have never used the online tools before. Meagre respondents wanted training in using online citation tools for creating efficient references. The findings of the study will not only help the Library and Information Science students about knowing what a citation is and understanding the concepts of citation styles and formatting, but also help citation-related competencies and skills in recognising citations and understanding their functions in research.

Plagiarism‐free inquiry project‐based learning with UPCC pedagogy

ABSTRACT(U)nderstanding plagiarism, learning about (P)araphrasing and related skills, generating proper (C)itations with an online citation tool and doing originality (C)heck with an online tool (UPCC) is a pedagogy developed by Chu and his colleagues (, ) to help students avoid plagiarism. The UPCC pedagogy incorporates teaching the ethical use of information, an important facet of information literacy, into inquiry project‐based learning (PjBL), a pedagogical approach that demands students to demonstrate high order information literacy. This study, adopting a mixed‐methods design, evaluates the effectiveness of UPCC by comparing the plagiarism behavior of two cohorts of junior secondary students in their PjBL projects with and without the implementation of the pedagogy. In addition, upon the completion of their projects, the 2015 cohort completed a survey that evaluates their knowledge of plagiarism, and assesses the extent to which they endorse the helpfulness of the UPCC in domains including instructional support; understanding plagiarism; paraphrasing, synthesizing and summarizing; generating appropriate citations; and originality self‐check. Students and teachers also participated in focus group interviews to further elaborate on their perceptions on the UPCC pedagogy. A trend in reduced plagiarism behavior was observed after the implementation of UPCC, and students expressed a generally positive perception on UPCC as an effective anti‐plagiarism pedagogy. Quantitative and qualitative data showed that students who had better knowledge of plagiarism held a significantly more positive perception on the effectiveness of UPCC than those who showed poorer understanding of plagiarism. This may indicate that further refinement of UPCC is needed to cater for learner diversity and enhance students' motivation.

Web-based Citation Management Tools: Comparing the Accuracy of Their Electronic Journal Citations

Many students struggle when citing sources in their research papers and have turned to web-based citation tools in increasing numbers. In order to test the accuracy of the citations generated by these products, a sample of student-selected electronic journal articles was collected and MLA and APA citations for these articles were created using EBSCO Discovery Service's Cite tool, EndNote Basic, RefWorks, and Zotero. Although EndNote Basic, RefWorks and Zotero's APA citation error rates were significantly lower than that of EBSCO Discovery Service, none of the programs was capable of generating an error-free MLA electronic journal citation.

Citation searching: a systematic review case study of multiple risk behaviour interventions.

BackgroundThe value of citation searches as part of the systematic review process is currently unknown. While the major guides to conducting systematic reviews state that citation searching should be carried out in addition to searching bibliographic databases there are still few studies in the literature that support this view. Rather than using a predefined search strategy to retrieve studies, citation searching uses known relevant papers to identify further papers.MethodsWe describe a case study about the effectiveness of using the citation sources Google Scholar, Scopus, Web of Science and OVIDSP MEDLINE to identify records for inclusion in a systematic review.We used the 40 included studies identified by traditional database searches from one systematic review of interventions for multiple risk behaviours. We searched for each of the included studies in the four citation sources to retrieve the details of all papers that have cited these studies.We carried out two analyses; the first was to examine the overlap between the four citation sources to identify which citation tool was the most useful; the second was to investigate whether the citation searches identified any relevant records in addition to those retrieved by the original database searches.ResultsThe highest number of citations was retrieved from Google Scholar (1680), followed by Scopus (1173), then Web of Science (1095) and lastly OVIDSP (213). To retrieve all the records identified by the citation tracking searching all four resources was required. Google Scholar identified the highest number of unique citations.The citation tracking identified 9 studies that met the review’s inclusion criteria. Eight of these had already been identified by the traditional databases searches and identified in the screening process while the ninth was not available in any of the databases when the original searches were carried out. It would, however, have been identified by two of the database search strategies if searches had been carried out later.ConclusionsBased on the results from this investigation, citation searching as a supplementary search method for systematic reviews may not be the best use of valuable time and resources. It would be useful to verify these findings in other reviews.

Does it Matter Which Citation Tool is Used to Compare the h-index of a Group of Highly Cited Researchers?

Does it Matter Which Citation Tool is Used to Compare the h-index of a Group of Highly Cited Researchers?

Citation analysis tools as workflow support for lawyers

The number of integrated services or tools designed to characterize value and enhance the output of legal practitioners’ workflow is growing, not least because information service providers need to differentiate between themselves and their nearest competitors. In addition, legal services are under pressure to provide a more efficient and speedy service to clients. Legal citation tools and checkers are one of the aids rapidly increasing in sophisticated functionality. This article briefly reviews some of the major citation tools available, and focuses on one in particular, LexisCheck, as an example of a tool that brings together most of the desired functionality of a true citation checker.

Citation Tools in Academic Libraries

In recent years libraries have seen an increase in the number and complexity of citation management programs like Zotero, RefWorks and Endnote, and with this an expanded role for libraries in support of citation and research management. But how should libraries best support citation management and the needs of users and how do the tools fit into information literacy programs? Penn State University librarians decided to take stock of the various tools and programs available for citation management and outline how these might be incorporated into reference and instruction settings. With an appointed Citation Tools Team, they researched tools and their uses, polled public service librarians and staff, and held workshops and discussion sessions to outline a set of best practices and to assess user, librarian, and staff needs. The result is a set of best practices for supporting, recommending, and teaching tools for the many aspects of citation management.

Rolling Out Zotero Across Campus as a Part of a Science Librarian's Outreach Efforts

As more information proliferates online, researchers often struggle to find an efficient way of managing their bibliographic data. Zotero presents an attractive alternative to proprietary citation tools as it is free, user-friendly, Web 2.0-compatible, and can be easily integrated with websites, online databases, catalogs, and repositories. Besides a brief review and comparative analysis of Zotero, the article highlights the science librarian's efforts to promote Zotero to students and faculty members in the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. While his initial outreach attempt was to target the scientific community on campus, the author found other library advocates within other campus units. Training writing tutors at the Learning Assistance Center turned out to be a very effective means of creating more library advocates and Zotero evangelists across campus.

Study in Grey and White: Measuring the Impact of the 8Rs Canadian Library Human Resources Study

Objective – To use the 8Rs Canadian Library Human Resources Study (the 8Rs Study) as a test case to develop a model for assessing research impact in LIS. 
 
 Methods – Three different methods of citation analysis which take into account the changing environment of scholarly communications. These include a ‚manual‛ method of locating citations to the 8Rs Study through a major LIS database, an enhanced-citation tool Google Scholar, and a general Google search to locate Study references in non-scholarly documents 
 
 Results – The majority of references (82%) were found using Google or Google Scholar; the remainder were located via LISA. Each method had strengths and limitations.
 
 Conclusion - In-depth citation analysis provides a promising method of understanding the reach of published research. This investigation’s findings suggest the need for improvements in LIS citation tools, as well as digital archiving practices to improve the accessibility of references for measuring research impact. The findings also suggest the merit of researchers and practitioners defining levels of research impact, which will assist researchers in the dissemination of their work.

Reward or persuasion? The battle to define the meaning of a citation

ABSTRACTThe history and development of the Science Citation Index (SCI) is an example of the power of users in defining and influencing the development of a new technology. The SCI was developed as a tool for the historian of science for the purpose of tracing the history of ideas, but it was appropriated by users for purposes for which it was unintended – as a tool for evaluating the literature, individuals, institutions, and countries. The development of a citation tool gave rise to a debate over what is actually measured by citations. The citation‐as‐reward camp views citations as indicators of quality and impact, whereas the citation‐as‐persuasion camp views citations as no more than rhetorical devices. While neither view can fully explain how authors use citations, citation‐as‐reward prevails as the dominant interpretation.

The Most Cited IEEE Software Articles

This paper identifies the most cited IEEE Software articles over its 25 year history. An emerging citation tool is the H-index, defined as the lowest rank at which the number of citations is greater than or equal to the rank. To compute the H-index, we first compute and rank each entity's (author's or journal's) number of citations; the paper with the most citations is ranked first, the one with second-most citations is second, and so on. For example, if the 30th-ranked paper has 30 citations, then its H-index would be 30.

From the Front Lines

This column addresses the impact of recent changes to APA style citation on the academic community, which widely uses this style to document its research. The author notes that these changes, especially the wholesale adoption of Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) for citing electronic journal articles, have caused frustration and confusion for users of APA style, and the problem is likely to worsen as more students and faculty realize what the new changes entail. The column also touches on the problems these changes will create for citation software and online bibliographic management tools like RefWorks, EndNote, and Zotero. Lewis concludes that the American Psychological Association needs to recognize the problems its new changes are causing and institute an interim measure for the millions who use APA style on a daily basis to document their research.--Editor A common question at academic library reference desks is how to properly cite a source in a specific citation style. Because students and faculty may use a variety of citation styles, libraries often keep copies of the most current versions of major citation styles at the reference desk. While librarians are not necessarily experts on all styles, they will usually be familiar with the styles most used at their institutions. If institutions offer subscription citation tools like RefWorks of EndNote, reference desk librarians will also receive numerous questions pertaining to the use of these tools and their rendering of particular citation styles. Not surprisingly, it is often reference librarians who teach classes or workshops on citation styles and citation tools at institutions of higher learning. Thus academic reference librarians are among the first to deal with the impact of citation style updates. A perfect example involves recent changes to APA style, which is widely used today by many disciplines in the academic community. In June 2007, the American Psychological Association (APA) released an update to its citation style entitled APA Style Guide to Electronic References. This twenty-four page pamphlet, available for purchase as a PDF from the APA website (www.apa.org), does not replace the fifth-edition (2001) manual, but rather revises and updates that section of the manual dealing with electronic resources. Because APA has not released a new edition of its manual and because this electronic addendum has restricted access even when purchased (e.g., libraries must purchase site licenses to post the electronic version and limit access to authenticating users), users of APA style have been slow to realize the changes and their ramifications. In addition, although the update addresses many new types of electronic content and technologies, the wording of the publication itself is at times ambiguous, confusing, and difficult for users to interpret. APA's most significant change to citing electronic resources is the application of the Digital Object Identifier (DOI). A DOI is a unique alphanumeric code that identifies a specific article or document and provides a persistent link to its location on the Internet. The intent of the DOI is to provide a consistent way for users to find articles and documents on an ever-changing Internet. In a very forward-looking move, APA made the inclusion of DOIs in citations the method of choice when citing scholarly journal articles accessed online. Now, instead of adding a retrieval date and URL of retrieval date and database name when citing journal articles accessed electronically, users are directed to include the DOI assigned to that article by an approved registration agency (see figure 1). While this change makes sense conceptually, in practice its implementation seems a bit premature. DOIs may well be the wave of the future, but right now not all articles have DOIs. Furthermore, many research databases do not yet include DOIs in their records of articles. At the same time, as many academic librarians will tell you, students at the college and university level currently access the majority of the journal articles used in their research papers from the myriad subscription research databases available through their institutional libraries. …

Assessing the Diffusion and Impact of Grey Literature Published by International Intergovernmental Scientific Groups: The Case of the Gulf of Maine Council on the Marine Environment

Although many governmental and intergovernmental organizations publish vast quantities of grey literature, the importance of the diffusion and impact of this literature are rarely studied. Evidence from an investigation of the grey literature output of GESAMP, the Joint Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Environmental Protection (sponsored by the UN and several of the UN-family of organizations), indicated that the literature reached scientific readers and was cited. To determine whether that evidence was representative of international intergovernmental bodies, another intergovernmental organization devoted to marine environmental issues, namely, the Gulf of Maine Council on the Marine Environment (GOMC) was studied. GOMC, an American–Canadian partnership, has been working since 1989 to maintain and enhance environmental quality in the Gulf of Maine. Through its own publications and others resulting from studies conducted under contract or in cooperation with other organizations, GOMC provides a complex publishing history for investigation. Over 300 publications were identified and over 500 citations were located after extensive searching using several citation tools. Citation patterns for GOMC publications mirror the findings of the study of GESAMP; grey literature is cited over lengthy periods, but grey literature tends to be cited primarily by other grey literature. Although digital alerting and access tools are increasing in number and coverage, a reliance on grey literature as the primary means of publication continues to pose hurdles for influencing scientific research, public policy, and public opinion. While grey literature is common to organizations such as GOMC and GESAMP, the impact of this literature can be muted because of the limitations of its dissemination and perceptions of its quality.

Some measures for comparing citation databases

Citation analysis was traditionally based on data from the ISI Citation indexes. Now with the appearance of Scopus, and with the free citation tool Google Scholar methods and measures are need for comparing these tools. In this paper we propose a set of measures for computing the similarity between rankings induced by ordering the retrieved publications in decreasing order of the number of citations as reported by the specific tools. The applicability of these measures is demonstrated and the results show high similarities between the rankings of the ISI Web of Science and Scopus and lower similarities between Google Scholar and the other tools.

Making your way through grey: Metadata, MARC, and user tools

Columbia International Affairs Online (CIAO) is the largest online collection of grey literature on international relations. Online since 1997, CIAO has grown to encompass both grey literature and published materials from over 200 contributing institutions. Currently the database contains over 10,000 papers and, as with anything of this magnitude, the challenge is not only continued growth in terms of content aggregation but also achieving successful user experiences and wider integration with other services. Our metadata is based on a small, controlled vocabulary that was developed in-house over the lifetime of the service. Pursuing an overhaul of CIAO's metadata for improved consistency has allowed for finer granularity in search results while also creating opportunities for the deployment of citation tools and rich cross-linking. In addition, the development of MARC records will allow for further integration with library resources and OPACs. This paper will discuss the impetus for the development of user and contextualization tools and our experiences in creating them. CIAO's Background CIAO is the largest library of international affairs content on the web. Originally funded by the Mellon Foundation, CIAO became self-sustaining through library subscriptions after three years of operation. CIAO was built in a partnership with Columbia's libraries, the University Press, and its academic computing and information systems group (AcIS). Subject specialists, computer scientists and librarians all had a hand in its initial development. Today, such expertise is drawn on to further realize the service's goals of promoting a wide range of grey and published literature in international affairs. Currently over 200 institutions partner with CIAO, primarily contributing working papers, conference proceedings, reports, books, policy briefs and journals. CIAO boasts more than 800 subscribers, among them government agencies, militaries, academic institutions and businesses. In any given month, over 2000 pages of material from dozens of contributors will be posted on CIAO. Such a large and mature repository poses significant challenges with regard to data management, archiving and customization. Many Organizations, Many Standards At CIAO’s inception in 1997 a variety of file formats were commonly in use. CIAO’s production staff was likely to receive files from Word, WordPerfect, Quark, and a smattering of non-standard text editors. In keeping with our desire to make CIAO usable to as extensive an audience as possible, all files were converted to faster loading html. Initially, CIAO adhered to HTML 2.0 specifications and when additional HTML specifications came out, adjustments were made to new, but not existing, content. Today the bulk of CIAO’s contributors deliver content in PDF (Portable Document Format) or Microsoft Word. For some of CIAO’s subscribers, particularly those overseas and from secure locations, low bandwidth continues to be an issue that we design around by producing HTML abstracts for the majority of PDFs. In addition, html abstracts afford us the opportunity to more comprehensively describe the content using our metadata. Where possible we add author and title information to the PDFs, allowing our search engine to take advantage of that metadata as it indexes the site.