Should there be a shift from printed to electronic collections?

citation analysis of engineering theses

Besa Hysa (Author), Primož Južnič (Mentor)

Abstract

This paper presents a study that examined the current trend in the use of information resources among academic environment in engineering sciences. In this study our analysis focused on 129 engineering theses' bibliographies submitted between 2008 and 2011 years at Electrical Engineering and Information Technology Faculties (Polytechnic University of Tirana-Albania). The samples were chosen in Bachelor (67 diplomas), Master (50 theses) and Doctoral (12 dissertations) programs among five engineering field.: Computer Engineering (37 theses), Telecommunication (38 theses), Electonics (36 theses), Electrical (9 theses) and Automation of Industry (9 theses). We studied: (1) the format of information source used by engineering students in their thesis/dissertation reference list; (2) the type of errors related to citation/references in the theses reference list. In order to obtain more information and clearer picture about the current trend in the use of information resources, there was conducted a web-based survey with the academic staff. The findings of a citation analysis of 2745 bibliographic references support the hypothesis that the information resources used in final work of engineering' students are moving toward electronic format, (54%) of information sources. This study also examined the composition of ''loss citations'' and found a relatively low amount (5%) of missing citations that pointed to electronic resource. Also, the growing trend of access to electronic sources among graduate students and academic staff at Electrical Engineering Faculty and Information Technology Faculty help us to answer our research question and say: ''There should be a shift from printed to electronic collections''. This study serves as a new guideline for library collection policy.

Keywords

visokošolske knjižnice;elektronski viri;Albanija;zbirke;upravljanje;bibliografija;študenti;profesorji;magistrske naloge;

Data

Language:	English
Year of publishing:	2012
Typology:	2.09 - Master's Thesis
Organization:	UL FF - Faculty of Arts
Publisher:	[B. Hysa]
UDC:	001.8:004(496.5)(043.2)
COBISS:	49345122
Views:	962
Downloads:	1036
Average score:	0 (0 votes)
Metadata:

Other data

Secondary language:	English
Type (COBISS):	Master's thesis/paper
Thesis comment:	Mag. delo, Univ. v Ljubljani, Filozofska fak., Oddelek za bibliotekarstvo, informacijsko znanost in knjigarstvo, regionalni program
Pages:	62 f.
ID:	8890094