Module 3: Evaluating Information

Module 3: Evaluating InformationAdvanced Information Literacy

Lara Skelly

“If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.” - Frank Zappa

Looking at things from the perspective of thesis/dissertation writing Search Strategy Information Sources & Tools Evaluating Information Bibliographic Referencing Social, Economic & Legal Issues

Advanced Information Literacy

Today

Learn about impact factors and h-indices Identify top authors and journals in your field Know what other factors can be used to evaluate

information

AimsModule 3: Evaluating Information

The impact factor (IF) of an academic journal is a measure reflecting the average number of citations to recent articles published in the journal. It is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field, with journals with higher impact factors deemed to be more important than those with lower ones. (Wikipedia 2014)

Impact factors

There are several providers of impact factors The impact factors differ between them because

they each have different base content Two that CPUT has access to:

Google Scholar Scopus

Finding impact factors

Impact factor: Google Scholar

Click on ‘Metrics’ to see journal impact factors.

Impact factor: Google Scholar

Publications are listed by the h5-index, which is an impact factor. Search for journal in your field to spot your top journals.

Impact factor: Scopus

Click ‘Analyze Journals’ to see the impact factor.

Impact factor: Scopus

This is an example of the analysis of two journals that have the word ‘information’ in their titles.

The h-index is the impact factor for an academic. An h-index of 10 means that the academic has at

least 10 publications that have each been cited at least 10 times.

It can differ greatly by discipline, so cross discipline comparisons should be avoided.

It also depends on which database you are using to calculate the h-index.

H-Index

Finding H-Index in Scopus

By clicking on an author’s name in Scopus, you can get to the author summary page. There you can find the h-index.

Look at the author: is he/she from a reputable organisation? Does he/she give the full credentials?

Look at the date: is it too old? Remember that ‘old’ differs by discipline.

Look at the source: is it from a good journal or a good website?

Is the information accurate? Are there spelling mistakes or mistakes in the referencing? Are there references?

Finally, is the author biased? Or is he/she representing the facts objectively?

Evaluating Information

Identify the top 10 journals in your field Who are the top 5 authors in your field

Exercise 4

(Basic) CPUT Online Information Literacy modulehttp://www.cput.ac.za/dev/library/information_literacy/index.html

Wikipedia. 2014. Impact Factor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_factor Accessed 25 June 2014.

This presentation was based on one created by Janine Lockhart.

Thank you!

Bibliography and acknowledgements