CITATION ANALYSIS OF DISSERTATIONS … library science in ... Tirupati covering the period 2000-2007. ... (Statistical Package for the Social Science),

International Journal of Digital Library Services

44 | III JJJ OOO DDD LLL SSS

VVVooolll... 222,,, AAAppprrriiilll --- JJJuuunnneee,,, 222000111222,,, IIIssssssuuueee---222 wwwwwwwww...iiijjjooodddlllsss...iiinnn (((IIISSSSSSNNN:::222222555000---111111444222)))

CITATION ANALYSIS OF DISSERTATIONS SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE, SRI

VENKATESWARA UNIVERSITY, TIRUPATI

Dr. K.Kumar

Librarian, SVCET, Chittoor, Mail:[email protected]

T.Raghunadha Reddy

Librarian, SVCET, Chittoor, Mail:[email protected]

Abstract

Citations in Master’s degree dissertations submitted to the Department of Library and Information Science, Sri

Venkateswara University, Tirupathi during the period 2000 - 2007, were analysed for finding possible

relationships between citing, citing articles and bibliographic forms. Frequency and percentage distributions

(presented in charts, tables and graphs) and measures of central tendency were used to analyse data. Findings

showed that journals were the most utilized reference materials in the dissertations. Also, library science in

general had the highest number of citations followed by library management and cataloguing. The lowest

numbers of citations were from education, literature and social sciences respectively. The findings from this

study could serve as a user study with implications for collection, development and user services designing in

libraries.

Keywords: Citation, Library and Information Science, Dissertations.

Introduction

Citation analysis is a new technique used to measure quantitatively the value of

document through arranging the citations in some kind of rank or order. It is also used to

study the growth and structure of literature of any subject. This technique is helpful tool for

the library management in the selection and weeding of materials in the face of ever

expanding information environment. Citation analysis reflects on citation practices1.

“Citation analysis” refers to references in one text to another text with information on

where that text can be found. Citation analysis2 is useful for understanding subject

relationship, author effectiveness, and publication trends and so on. The first recorded

citation analysis was done by Gross and Gross (1927) who looked at citational patterns to

determine the journals to be subscribed to and back volumes to be acquired for the library of

Pamona College.




They studied the citation3 frequency in the reference given in the “Journal of The

American Chemical Society (Amudavalli 1977).From an application point of view, citation

analysis may be considered as a collaborative peer effort to analyze and promote the quality

of scholarly publication and research4. Citation analysis studies the patterns of citations in

documents, an objective method for gathering data about information needs5. Williams and

Fletcher6 explained citation analysis as a nonintrusive method of finding patterns in a specific

population’s use of research materials. Meho7 has observed that citation analysis is actually a

branch of information science in which researchers studied the way articles in a scholarly

field are accessed and referenced by others. It has been used for the purpose of scholarly

analysis and evaluation in several fields of human endeavour. In this study, citation analysis

is employed in studying masters’ dissertations submitted to the department of library and

Information science, Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupathi (2000-2008) with a view to find

out citation practice in the dissertations.

Review of Literature

In his essay on citation analysis, King8 pointed out that scientists are drowning in a

flood of information overload. Remarkably, thousands of scientific studies are published on a

daily basis. One method for tracking and evaluating research is citation analysis. Citation

analysis works because scientists leave an unmistakable trail behind them as they report their

work-a trail of footnotes. Today, a scientific publication is easily recognized by its footnotes,

endnotes and references to other scientific articles or books9. More citations were from the

books and periodicals than the other type of materials. Similar type of study was performed

by Koley10 & Sen (2003) covering 457 citations appended to 26 research articles published in

the four issues of the quarterly Indian Journal of Physiology and Allied Sciences. Of the

citations, 76.81% relate to journal articles, 18.59% to monographs, and the rest to conference

papers, theses, etc. A total of 4,012 citations in 70 postgraduate dissertations in education

were studied by Okiy11 (2003). Most students in education used more textbooks (60.3 per

cent), than other forms of library materials. Megnigbeto12 (2006) studied the citations of

dissertations of library and information science undergraduate students and found that the

number of citations to Internet resources was very low.

Rethlefsen13 (2007) analyzed citation of journal articles authored by Minnesota

Department of Health staff. Information on each cited reference was recorded, including

reference type, relative age of citation, and journal name. Journals were the most heavily




cited format (63%). Bhat & Sampath Kumar14 (2008) describes a citation analysis of research

articles from scholarly electronic journals published in 2000-2006. The analysis focused on

the extent to which scholars are using web-based sources in scholarly electronic journals.

Results of the study shows that 81.49% of articles published in selected 9 electronic journals

during 2000-2006 have web references. Out of 25,730 references 56.54 % of references are

print journal references and 43.52% of them are web references. 437 citations in 32 research

articles in two issues of the RMJ were collected by Javed & Shah15 (2008). The study

revealed that 49.52 % citations pertained to journal articles and rest to other resource types.

All the above studies except the last one reveals that journals are heavily cited and preferred

source of information. In the above studies citations of journal articles were analyzed. Other

studies have analyzed the citations of Doctoral dissertations or Masters' theses come up with

the following results.

Objectives

The specific objectives of the present study are to know

The distribution of citations in the major branches of library and information science.

The authorship patterns

Geographic scattering of cited journals

Language wise distribution of cited journals.

The chronological scattering of cited periodicals

The self citing rate and subject wise break-up of cited journals

Limitation of the Study

Citation analysis like any other study is not free from criticism. The following are some

of the limitations of citation.

The study is confined to the dissertations submitted to dept of library and information

science for the fulfillment of M.L.I.Sc.

The study is confined to only available dissertations in library and in the department.

The study is completely confined to the documentary

Citation and co-citation counts are just part of the available experimental data, thus

the assigning the relative weight age to citation is objectionable keeping in view the

totality of information.

Methodology

The research design adopted was a descriptive study sources of data used are dissertations

submitted for M.L.I.Sc degree in the department of library and information science, Sri




Venkateswara University, Tirupati covering the period 2000-2007. The sampling procedure

for the study was purposive since data was being collected specifying the target period 2000-

2007. Table1 shows that total populations of the dissertations total 91 M.L.I.Sc dissertations

(991 citations) were analysed (Figure 1).

Table 1 Sample Size

S.No Publications Year Wise Total 2000-2001 2002-2003 2004-2005 2006-2007

1 Journal Articles 87 (40.85)

98 (42.79)

103 (39.62)

109 (37.72)

397 (40.06)

2 Books 112 (52.58)

99 (43.23)

97 (37.31)

85 (29.41)

393 (39.66)

3 Web 0 12 (5.24)

36 (13.58)

56 (19.38)

104 (1049).

4 Conference proceedings, Seminars, workshops

3 (1.41)

11 (4.80)

23 (8.85)

39 (13.49)

76 (7.67)

5 Technical Reports 11 (5.16)

9 (3.93)

1 (0.38) 0 21

(2.12)

Total 213 (21.49)

229 (23.11)

260 (26.24)

289 (29.16)

991 (100)

(Figures in Parentheses indicate percentage)

Figure 1: Year Wise Publications of Citations

0.00

10.00

20.00

30.00

40.00

50.00

60.00

40.85

52.58

0.00 1.415.16

42.7943.23

5.24 4.803.93

39.6237.31

13.858.85

0.38

37.7229.41

19.3813.49

0.00

2000-2001 2002-2003 2004-2005 2006-2007




Data Analysis

The data received carefully edited tabulated and analyzed. To make the data analysis

statistically sound SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Science), necessary statistical

techniques (diagrams) are used.

Subject wise Distribution

The Distribution of citation appended to the Distributions of library and information

science in the major branches of library and information science is shown in table 2.

Table2: Distribution of citation in subject wise

S.No. Subject No. of Citations Percentage

1 Library Science-in-General 319 32.19 2 Library Management 126 12.71 3 Cataloguing 92 9.28 4 Information Retrieval Systems 34 3.43 5 Information Science 24 2.42 6 Academic Libraries 114 11.50 7 Generelia 25 2.52 8 Bibliometric 31 3.13 9 Engineering 13 1.31 10 Reference Service 64 6.46 11 Communication 11 1.10 12 Computer Science 32 3.23 13 Education 50 5.04 14 Literature 24 2.42 15 Social Sciences 32 3.26 Total 991 100

Distribution of citation in subject wise majority of citations is Library science-in-

General (32.19%) and Library management 12.71%, Academic Libraries 11.50% cited

articles are used the M.L.I.Sc Students dissertations (Figure 2).




Figure2: Distribution of Citation in Subject wise

Distribution of Subject wise Vs Authorship pattern

The Characteristics of subject literature consists of not only the basic publishing patterns,

but also the authors.

Table3: Distribution of Subject wise Vs Authorship pattern

S.No Subject Single Double Triple More than

Three

1 Library Science-in-General 279 (35.05)

38 (23.75) 0 2

(6.45)

2 Library Management 107 (13.44)

16 (10.00)

1 (25.00)

2 (6.45)

3 Cataloguing 83 (10.43)

4 (2.5)

3 (75.00)

2 (6.45)

4 Information Retrieval Systems

31 (3.89)

3 (1.87) 0 0

5 Information Science 15 (1.88)

6 (3.75) 0 3

(9.68)

6 Academic Libraries 89 (11.18)

22 (13.75) 0 3

(9.68)

7 Generelia 10 (1.26) 0 0 15

(48.39)

32%

13%9%

4%2%

13%

3%

3%

1%7%

1%3% 5% 2% 3%

Library Science-in-General

Library ManagementCataloguingInformation Retrieval SystemsInformation Science

Academic LibrariesGenereliaBibliometric

EngineeringReference ServiceCommunicationComputer Science

EducationLiteratureSocial Sciences




8 Bibliometric 21 (2.64)

8 (5.00) 0 2

(6.45)

9 Engineering 13 (1.63) 0 0 0

10 Reference Service 18 (2.26)

46 (28.75) 0 0

11 Communication 10 (1.26)

1 (0.63) 0 0

12 Computer Science 24 (3.02)

8 (5.00) 0 0

13 Education 49 (6.16)

1 (0.63) 0 0

14 Literature 20 (2.51)

4 (2.50) 0 0

15 Social Sciences 27 (3.39)

3 (1.87) 0 2

(6.45)

Total 796 (80.32)

160 (16.15)

4 (0.40)

31 (3.13)

Authorship has been analyzed to determine the percentage of single and multiple

authors. Table 3 shows the authorship pattern distribution of 991 citations according to the

number of authors in different subjects. It is evident form table 3 that 80.32% of citations are

contributed by single authors (Library Science - in-General); followed by 16.15% of citation

contributed by double authors (Library Science –in-General) and 0.40% of citation

contributed by triple authors (Cataloguing) finally 3.13% of citation contributed by multiple

authors (Generelia).

Distribution of Subject wise Vs Different Publications

The distribution of citations in different bibliographic forms in various branches of

Library Science is noted in table 4. Citations of various bibliographic forms are scattered

among multi discipliner viz., Engineering, Communication and Social Science etc.

Table 4: Distribution of Subject wise Vs Different Publications

S.No Subject Journals Books Web

Conference proceedings,

Seminars, workshops

Technical Reports

1 Library Science-in-General

70 (17.63)

169 (43.00)

42 (40.38)

26 (34.21)

12 (57.15)





35 (8.91)

7 (6.73)

3 (3.95) 0


40 (10.18)

7 (6.73)

6 (7.89)

2 (9.52)


20 (5.04)

9 (2.29)

5 (4.81) 0 0


11 (2.79)

4 (3.85) 0 0


45 (11.46)

15 (14.42)

1 (1.32) 0

7 Generelia 0 5 (1.27)

1 (0.96)

2 (2.63)

4 (19.05)


19 (4.83)

4 (3.85) 0 0

9 Engineering 7 (1.76)

6 (1.53) 0 0 0


15 (3.82) 0 0 0


1 (0.25)

9 (8.65)

1 (1.32) 0


21 (5.34) 0 0 1

(4.76)


7 (1.78)

5 (4.81)

25 (32.89)

1 (4.76)


4 (1.02) 0 4

(5.26) 0


6 (1.53)

5 (4.81)

8 (10.53)

1 (4.76)

Total 397 (40.06)

393 (39.66)

104 (10.49)

76 (7.67)

21 (2.12)

Distribution of Subject wise Vs Different Language

Table 5 shows the language distribution of 991 citations. Nearly all citations are in English

985 (99.39%), only limited number of citations are referred from Telugu, Sanskrit, Hindi Viz

0.30%, 0.10%, 0.20% respectively.

Table 5: Distribution of Subject wise Vs Different Language

S.No Branch English Telugu Sanskrit French

1 Library Science-in-General

89 (9.04) 0 0 0

2 Library Management 81 (8.22) 0 0 0

3 Cataloguing 79 (8.02) 0 0 0


73 (7.41) 0 0 0




5 Information Science 70 (7.11) 0 0 0


1 (33.33) 0 0

7 Generelia 65 (6.60)

0 0 0

8 Bibliometric 62 (6.29) 0 0 0

9 Engineering 58 (5.89) 0 0 0

10 Reference Service 56 (5.69) 0 0 0

11 Communication 67 (6.80) 0 0 0

12 Computer Science 63 (6.40) 0 0 0


1 (33.33) 0 1

(50.00)

14 Literature 51 (5.18) 0 0 0


1 (33.34)

1 (100)

1 (50.00)

Total 985 (99.39)

3 (0.30)

1 (0.10)

2 (0.20)

Distribution of Subject wise Vs Geographical

Geographical analysis of citation provides information about the countries active in the

subject field and their relative contribution. Table 6 shows the geographical distribution of

991 citations. One quarter or 33.6%, covering 333 citations are form India, and it certainly

stands first, followed by 266 citation covering 26.84% are from USA, while 228 citation

(23.01%) 98 citations (9.89%), 66 citations (6.66%) are from Nigeria, UK, China

respectively. Figure 3 shows as star marks in different countries citations.

Table 6: Distribution of Subject wise Vs Geographical

S.No Branch India USA Nigeria UK China

1 Library Science-in-General 27 (8.11)

22 (8.27)

18 (7.89)

14 (14.29)

11 (16.67)


30 (11.28)

24 (10.53) 0 0


21 (7.89)

18 (7.89)

12 (12.24) 0





39 (11.71)

23 (8.65)

20 (8.77) 0 0


17 (6.39)

15 (6.58)

13 (13.27)

11 (16.67)


15 (5.64)

13 (5.70)

11 (11.22)

10 (15.15)

7 Generelia 21 (6.31)

12 (4.51)

11 (4.82)

10 (10.20) 0


13 (4.89)

12 95.26)

11 (11.22)

12 (18.18)

9 Engineering 21 (6.31)

19 97.14)

13 (5.70) 0 0


21 (7.89)

16 (7.02) 0 0


18 (6.77)

14 (6.14) - -


10 (3.76)

14 (6.14)

8 (5.16)

6 (9.09)


19 (7.14)

16 (7.02) 0 0


14 (5.26)

13 (5..70)

9 (9.18)

7 (10.61)


12 (4.51)

11 (4.82)

10 (10.20)

9 (13.64)

Total 333 (33.60)

266 (26.84)

228 (23.01)

98 (9.89)

66 (6.66)




Figure 3: Distribution of Citation in Geographical

Ranked List of Journals

Journals are essential for research, but their increase demands that librarians study their

quality, usefulness and suitability to particular group of users. The raking list is a practical

tool to help select journals of maximum utility in relation to their coverage of new and

important literature in a particular subject area. Ranked list of periodicals are prepared based

on following criteria: a) Journal use studies b) Circulation statistics c) Inter Library Loan

data d) Citation analysis e) Questionnaires f) Comparative techniques.

Of the above mentioned methods, each method has got its own advantages and

disadvantages. In the present study, citation analysis has been used for preparing rank list of

periodicals in various branches of Library and Information science.

Table7: Rank list of cited journals in Library and Information science.

S.No. Journals Citations Cumulative Rank

1 Annals of Lib. Sci. & Documentation

46 (11.59)

46 (11.59) 1

2 Harold of Library Science 34 (8.56)

80 (20.15) 2

3 IASLIC Bulletin 31 (7.81)

111 (27.96) 3

4 Indian Library Association 27 (6.80)

138 (34.76) 4

5 Indian Librarian 21 (5.29)

159 (40.05) 5

6 Lucknow Librarian 16 (4.03)

175 (44.08) 6

7 Indian Library Management 12 93.02)

187 (47.10) 7

8 Journal of Documentation 9 (2.27)

196 (49.37) 8

9 Library Quarterly 9 (2.27)

205 (51.64) 8

10 Journal of Library Automation 9 (2.27)

214 (53.90) 8

11 Journal of Lib & Information Science

8 (2.02)

222 (55.92) 9

12 Cataloguing and Classification Quarterly

8 (2.02)

230 (57.93) 9

13 Collection Management 8 (2.02)

238 (59.95) 9

14 Library Journal 7 245 10




(1.76) (61.71)

15 Library Trends 7 (1.76)

252 (63.48) 10

16 Wilson Library Bulletin 7 (1.76)

259 (65.24) 10

17 Grandalya Jyothi 7 (1.76)

266 (67.00) 10

18 Delnet News Letter 7 (1.76)

273 (68.77) 10

19 Information Studies 6 (1.51)

279 (70.28) 11

20 Education for Information 6 (1.51)

285 (71.79) 11

21 Modern Librarian 6 (1.51)

291 (73.30) 11

22 Nissat News letter 6 (1.51)

297 (74.81) 11

23 Grandalaya Sarvaswamulu 5 (1.26)

302 (76.07) 12

24 Telecommunication 5 (1.26)

307 (77.33) 12

25 IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management

5 (1.26)

312 (78.59) 12

26 Technical Service Quarterly 5 (1.26)

317 (79.85) 12

27 Journal of Human Resources 5 (1.26)

322 (81.11) 12

28 Computer Networks 5 (1.26)

327 (82.37) 12

29 UNESCO Bulletin for Libraries 5 (1.26)

332 (83.63) 12

30 Journal of Indian library Association

4 (1.01)

336 (84.63) 13

31 Indian Library 4 (1.01)

340 (85.64) 13

32 Journal of Librarianship 4 (1.01)

344 (86.65) 13

33 Education Libraries Bulletin 4 (1.01)

348 (87.66) 13

34 The Library and Librarian 4 (1.01)

352 (88.66) 13

35 University News 4 (1.01)

356 (89.67) 13

36 Information Development 4 (1.01)

360 (90.68) 13

37 Information Today 3 (0.76)

363 (91.44) 13

38 Information Library Review 3 366 13




(0.76) (92.19)

39 Library Philosophy and Practice 3 (0.76)

369 (92.95) 13

40 American Documentations 3 (0.76)

372 (93.70) 13

41 Canadian Library Journal 3 (0.76)

375 (94.46) 13

42 DESIDOC Bulletin of Information Technology

2 (0.50)

377 (94.96) 14

43 British Journal of Academic Librarianship

2 (0.50)

379 (95.47) 14

44 ALA Bulletin 2 (0.50)

381 (95.97) 14

45 Advanced Technology Librarian 2 (0.50)

383 (96.47) 14

46 Information Technology and Libraries

2 (0.50)

385 (96.98) 14

47 Bulletin of Medical Library Association

2 (0.50)

387 (97.48) 14

48 Resource Sharing and Information Networks

2 (0.50)

389 (97.98) 14

49 OCLC Systems and Services 2 (0.50)

391 (98.49) 14

50 6 Journals have '1' Citation 6 (1.51)

397 (100) 15

Total 397 (100)

The ranked list of Journals in the field of library and information science is presented

in table 7.Titles are arranged in their decreasing order. It is evident from the table that the

journal articles of library science are scattered in 50 different periodicals. However most

cited journal by M.L.I.Sc student is Annals of library science and documentation, Which has

cited 46 items, more than 11.59% of total percentage of citation, followed by Harold of

library science at 34 (8.56%), IASLIC Bulletin 31 (7.81%). Indian Library Association 27

(6.80%), Indian Librarian 21(5.29%).

Conclusion

The present investigation is mainly intended to describe the characteristic features of

library and information science literature from 91 M.L.I.Sc dissertations covering 991

citations submitted to Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupathi. The Analysis of the study

renewals the following findings.




Frequency of citation found to be higher in dissertations of library science in general

(32.19%) than other branches.

The analysis of authorship patterns in library and information science renews that

80.32% of citations are contributed mainly by single authors. It seems that most of

the authors in library and information science are conducting research and publishing

books and articles individually.

Analysis on distribution of various bibliographical forms renews that journal articles

contributed highest number of citations accounting for 40.06% out of 397 citations.

The analysis of authorship pattern of journal articles renews that majority of citations

were contributed by single authors. Annals of Library Science and Documentation

are the most cited journals, followed by Harold of Library Science.

Most cited journals are form India, English Language predominates than other

regional languages viz., Telugu, etc.

Reference

1) Leydesdorff L. (1998). Theories of citation. Scientometrics. 43(1), 5-25.

2) Chikate R.V. (December, 2008). Citation Analysis of Thesis in Library and

Information Science submitted to university of Pune: A Pilot Study. Library

Philosophy and Practice.

3) Amudhavalli A. (1997). Impact of Electronic Publishing on collection

development. DESIDOC Bulletin of Information Technology. 17(1), 7-10.

4) Opcit Rousseau, R (2008).

5) Rethlefsen M.L. (2007). Citatation Analysis of Minnesota Department of Health

Official Publications and Journal Articles: A Needs Assessment for the R.N.Barr

Libray. Journal of the Medical Library Association. 95(3), 260-266.

6) Williams, V.K & Fletcher C.L. (2006). Materials used by Mater’s students in

Engineering and Implications for collection Development: a citation Analysis.

retrieved 4th September 2007, from www.ist1.org/ofwinter/refereed.html.




7) Meho, L.I. (2007). The Rise of Citation Analysis. retrieved 4th January 2008, from

www.sis.Indiana.edu/facuty/meho/physicsworld.pdf

8) King, C. (2007). Citation Analysis. Microsoft Students. from DVD Microsoft

Corporation: Redmond W A. 2006

9) Wouters, P. (1989). The Citation culture, Doctoral Thesis Netherlands, University of

Amsterdam. retrieved 5th January 2008, from

www.garfield.Library.upenn.edu/wouters/wouters.pdf

10) Koley S. (2003). Indian Journal of Physiology and Allied Sciences: An analysis of

citation pattern. Annals of Library and Information Studies. 50(1), 23-26.

11) Okiy, Rose B (2003). A citation analysis of education dissertations at the Delta State

University, Abraka, Nigeria. Collection Building. 22(4), 158-161

12) Megnigbeto E (2006). Internet-based resources citation by undergraduate students: A

case study of Library and Information Science students in Benin. International

Information and Library Review. 38 (2), 49-55

13) Rethlefsen, Melissa L (2007). Citation analysis of Minnesota Department of Health

official publications and journal articles: a needs assessment for the RN Barr

library. Journal of the Medical Library Association. 95(3), 260-266.

14) Bhat, S.V.R & Sampath Kumar, B.T (2008). Web citation behaviour in scholarly

electronic journals in the field of library and information science. retrieved October

28, 2008 , from Webology Web Site: http://www.webology.ir/2008/v5n2/a57.html

15) Javed M (2008). Rawal Medical Journal – An Analysis of Citation

Pattern. Rawal Medical Journal.33 (2), 254-257.




OPEN INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORIES IN SAUDI ARABIA: PRESENT AND

FUTURE PROSPECTS

Parvez Ahmad

Portal & E-Services Department Deanship of E-Transactions & Communication,

P.O. Box 2454, King Saud University, Riyadh-11451 Saudi Arabia. Email: [email protected]

Mohammad Aqil

(Reference Librarian), Deanship of Library Affairs University of Dammam,

P.O. Box 1282, Dammam, Saudi Arabia. Email: [email protected]

Mohammad Asad Siddique

(Head Librarian), Vice Rectorate for Graduate Studies and Scientific Research

Shaqra University, Shaqra, Saudi Arabia, E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to assess the scope, development, and future of Institutional Repositories (IR) in Saudi Arabia. This paper is based on the authors’ working experience at King Saud University Dspace repository project. To ensure the number of repository projects in Saudi Arabia the directory of open access repositories, (Open DOAR), Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR), and the websites of the existing universities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been browsed. There is a general lack of awareness with regard to Open Institutional Repositories in Saudi Universities and higher education institutions. Only four Universities i.e. King Saud University (KSU), King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Umm Al-Qura University, and University of Dammam have taken some initiatives in this regard. Though these universities have made commendable efforts there still lots of improvements and developments required with regard to Institutional Repositories. It is expected that this paper will encourage Saudi Academic organizations to take the initiatives in the development of open institutional repositories. No such study (Research type, Essay, View point) has been conducted so far in the context of Saudi Arabia. Keywords: Intuitional repositories, Open Archives, Saudi Arabia, OAI, Digital repositories, Digital libraries. INTRODUCTION An institutional repository (IR) is the collection of intellectual output of an institution, academic community etc. in formal or informal form such as Research papers, conference papers, workshop notes, books, book chapters, patents, lectures, class notes, theses, dissertations, project reports etc. organized and preserved for wider accessibility to the academic community and for generations to come. University-based Institutional Repository is a set of services that a university offers to the members of its community for the management and dissemination of digital materials created by the institution and its community members. It is essentially an organizational commitment to the stewardship of




these digital materials, including long-term preservation where appropriate, as well as organization and access or distribution (Lynch, 2003). Institutional repositories are still in an underdeveloped phase in Saudi Arabia; so far only four universities have taken initiatives in this area i.e. King Saud University (KSU), King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM), Umm-Al-Qura University (UQU), and university of Dammam. In addition, King Saud University launched a project called ‘Makhtota’ an Arabic term which stands for manuscripts. This is a database of more than eleven thousands rare and historical Arabic manuscripts. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Saudi Arabia) was founded by Abdulaziz bin Saud in 1932, although the conquests which eventually led to the creation of the Kingdom began in 1902 when he captured Riyadh. Saudi Arabia is the largest Arab country in the Middle East. The economy of Saudi Arabia is based on petroleum, and nearly 75% of government revenues coming from petroleum industry. Now the mind set of Saudi Arabian government has been changed, they are trying to overlap its economy to knowledge based from petroleum (Wikipedia, 2012). 1. EDUCATIONAL EXPENDITURE IN SAUDI ARABIA This is the era of Knowledge and Saudi Arabia is making very sincere and strong efforts to shift its economy from oil based to knowledge based. To realize this effort the Saudi government is spending billions of dollars on education to accomplish the vision of a knowledge based economy.

Continuing its emphasis on the education and manpower training, Saudi Arabia announced 2012 national budget a record SR690 billion ($184 billion), giving top priority to education and manpower training. The budget, which projected SR702 billion ($187.2 billion) in revenue, has allocated SR168 billion for education and manpower training alone (Arab News 2011).

Similarly Saudi Arabia planned to spend SR 580 billion ($154.7 billion) in its 2011 national budget. The budget dedicates 46 percent of total spending to education and training, health and social development, and infrastructure, with 25.9 percent of the entire budget designated for education and training alone. The government appropriated $40 billion (SR150 billion) to education and training in 2011. The 2010 National budget of Saudi Arabia included 137 billion Saudi riyals ($36.5 billion) for education which accounts more than 25% of the total of the national budget for manpower training, and represents a 13% increase from the 2009 fiscal-year. The budget includes the construction and development of four new universities in Dammam, Alkharj, Majma, and Shaqra, along with the completion of surrounding infrastructure around a number of existing universities and the establishment of new polytechnic colleges and vocational institutes (US-Saudi Arabian Business Council, 2011), and U.S. Department of State (2011).

1.1 King Abdullah Scholarship Program: This program provides the best opportunities to Saudi Nationals to pursue their Bachelor, Masters, and Doctorate degrees in the world renowned International Universities. This




Scholarship was initially started in the year 2005 for a period of five years but was graciously extended for another five years in 2010 by the Saudi King. The Scholarship gives an opportunity to study in the diversified fields of Knowledge such as Pure Sciences, Medical Sciences, Engineering, Computer Science, Management Sciences etc. So far 106065 Saudi students have been awarded this scholarship to pursue their higher education in USA, UK, Canada, France, Australia, India, China etc. (Ministry of Higher Education, 2011), (Arab News, 2011).

2. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY: The objective of the present study is to identify the

following factors with regard to Open IR in Saudi Arabia:

To identify the extent of IR development;

To reveal the present status of IRs and similar projects in Saudi Arabia;

To discuss the problems and solutions in exiting IR & similar projects;

To encourage the other universities for developing IR by stating the features of IR;

To show the future of IR in Saudi Arabia.

3. REVIEW LITERATURE Lagoze, Carl and Van de Sompel, Herbert (2001) described the recent history of the OAI – its origins in promoting E-Prints, the broadening of its focus, the details of its technical standard for metadata harvesting, the applications of these standard and future plans. The Open Archives Initiative (OAI) develops and promotes interoperability solutions that aim to facilitate the efficient dissemination of content. The roots of the OAI lie in the E-Print community. Barwick, Joanna (2007) provided a summary of his experiences to develop an institutional repository at Loughborough University, focusing on some of the key issues that was necessary to consider, the choices made and the challenges overcome. In this study author highlighted his experiences and challenges involved to develop an institutional repository. He gave direct insight into the different types of work involved in the setting up of an institutional repository and is an example of a system set up outside the boundaries of project funding. Laxminarsaiah, Ashalatha and Rajgoli, Iqbal Ahmad U. (2007) provided case study of ISRO HQ institutional repository and showed evidence on how the ISRO HQ IR was built from scratch and how different collections with numerous forms and formats can be accommodated using DSpace software. Many problems were faced during customization of metadata forms for different collections apart from Dublin Core metadata fields. DSpace allows workflow and customization as per institutional requirements. It supports community/collection based content and submission by different user communities. Cohen, Suzanne and Schmidle, Deborah (2007) fund in his case study that in less than two years from its inception, Digital Commons@ILR was launched and is now providing access to nearly 2,000 documents, including access to an online journal. Partnerships and collaborations have been an essential component in the success of this product. The need for staff support to build and sustain this institutional repository was and remains vital. Xia, Jingfeng and Opperman, David B. (2009) described the current practices of institutional repositories at master's and baccalaureate institutions (M&BIs) in the United States. Authors




focused include repository content composition, operational style, development history, and accessibility. The research studies a group of institutional repositories through the analysis of their content elements. The article also discussed important management issues and identifies challenges. This research can provide a valuable resource to other libraries of similar type and size for the planning and implementation of new repositories. Kamila, Kanchan (2009) In her paper she discussed about the concept of Institutional Repository (IR), its relevance, merits, software requirements and the current trends in India, with special reference to the initiatives at Burdwan University. She revealed the objectives of making Institutional Repository for Burdwan University are to organize and preserve Ph.D. theses, faculty publications, lecture notes, student’s dissertations, learning objects, PG level & NET/SET question papers, links to open knowledge objects, project reports etc. In some disciplines, institutional repositories may play significant roles in disseminating both unpublished and published research results. Koenig, Jack (Jay) and Mikeal, Adam (2010) conducted a case study on a devised method of collection organization within a DSpace repository using a Manakin theme and descriptive metadata. Author found the Manakin theme delivered the desired result of a browse interface that allowed the user to select and view subsets of items within a collection. Dspace’s rigid data model of communities and collections is not ideal. This new interface allows for the inclusion and proper display of such complex collections. Liu, Shu and Zhou, Yongli (2011) Described Colorado State University Libraries’ experience for developing an IR using DigiTool. Topics discussed are based on the processes and workflows, and include local customization; metadata and object ingest; implementation of handles; incorporation with web discovery; and management of statistical data. And they found the DigiTool, a powerful, complex, and relatively mature out-of-box IR platform that fulfills one’s needs to establish and maintains an IR, is considered. 4. METHODOLOGY This is an interpretive approach, based on more than three years’ working experience of authors in the Library and Information Science field in Saudi higher education sector.

5. DISCUSSIONS Authors discussed here some aspects, which are very important for developing IR in Saudi Arabia.

5.1 Why institutional repository? This is the era of information explosion; universe of knowledge is expanding tremendously as worldwide research and development is producing an enormous amount of scientific and scholarly information. It is one of the great challenges for information specialists, to control, organize, preserve this wealth of information, and make it accessible to the world wide academic community. Institutional repositories are one solution to this problem. The rationale for universities implementing IR’s rests on the various factors such as Knowledge organization & Management, Institutional visibility and prestige, ranking of university higher education, important in E-learning environment, etc. IR centralizes, preserves, and makes the scholarly publication of an institution widely accessible such as the literature regarding working papers, preprints, conference papers, presentations, white papers, classroom notes and lectures etc. which are not easily found through the formal means of publications. Open access Institutional Repositories are generously harvested by external search engines such as Google scholars, Yahoo, MSN etc. and are likely to gain greater exposure




and significantly higher citation impact in comparison to closed access or non OA articles (Harnad et al., 2004). Open access always remains helpful to an increase in citations, therefore, making an institution or organization’s research and development more visible to the global community and bringing honor and prestige to the organization and its scholarly community (Pinfield et al., 2002), and (Cullen and Chawner, 2010). The IR complements existing metrics for gauging Institutional productivity and prestige. Where this increased visibility reflects a high quality of scholarship……That derives in part from an institution’s status and reputation (Crow, 2002). IRs can also be of great benefit to the improvement of university ranking especially the ranking systems which emphasize web presence and visibility. For example, to measure the ranking of the universities, Webometrics considers the four important factors i.e. Size (Number of web pages), rich files (Number of documents), scholars (Number of papers), & visibility (Number of external links) (Cybermetrics Lab, 2011). Though it is not easy to split the components involved in the university ranking the cybermetrics lab decided to focus on repositories and comparing the success of OAI in the academic sector (Aguillo et.al., 2010). Institutional repositories can also play a very crucial role in higher education and in an E-learning environment. “There are tremendous benefits to a university in managing and sharing its e-learning resources and a central online repository can be a highly effective part of university management strategy (Hayes & Rothery 2008). Digital repositories offer an enormous scope for re-use of digital content such as learning materials…....teacher review how they deliver their courses and focus on how to improve the learning experience (Hayes, 2005).

5.2 IRs: a knowledge management tool As Saudi Arabia is making continuous efforts to realize the vision of the Knowledge based economy; this is the need of the hour for Saudi Academic organizations and institutions to manage, organize, and transfer the knowledge without loss in order to share it across the organizations and among the global scholarly community as well. In this respect, open Institutional repositories can play a vital role to manage and transfer the Institutional knowledge. It is very easy for the scholarly community to access the institutional knowledge & resources over the internet via open institutional repositories. The availability of knowledge repositories facilitates access to knowledge as well as its transfer among individuals and these repositories will increase the chances of transferring technologies to the society and return the investment (Ignat, and Repanovici, 2009). “In sum, institutional repositories offer a strategic response to systemic problems in the existing scholarly journal system—and the response can be applied immediately, reaping both short-term and ongoing benefits for universities and their faculty and advancing the positive transformation of scholarly communication over the long term” (Crow, 2002).

5.3 Software for IRs: There are many open source software available for the development of archiving system and Institutional repositories. Some which deserve mention are:

Dspace: DSpace was launched in November 2002 and jointly developed by the MIT library and HP. DSpace modestly describes itself as a groundbreaking digital repository system.

E-prints: E-prints is developed at the School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, UK in January 2001;

Fedora: Fedora was originally initiated and created at Cornell University in 1997;




Greenstone: Greenstone is developed and distributed as an international cooperative effort established in August 2000 among three parties: New Zealand Digital Library Project at the University of Waikato, UNESCO and the Human Info NGO.

Currently, DSpace is the most widely used software considering that 1000 organizations are currently using DSpace software in a production or project environment. DuraSpace took over supporting the DSpace project as on July 2009 the DSpace foundation ceased operations. Both the DSpace Project & Community are under the stewardship of DuraSpace, a not-for-profit organization. (http://www.dspace.org). Duraspace is based on the open source technology portfolio which includes the DSpace open access repository application and the Fedora open repository platform. There are many more open access software available and normally there is no direct cost involved. All the OAI softwares have got its own features, advantages, and disadvantages and usability; it is often hard to say which software is the best one. Therefore, the factors of software selection normally depend upon the specific requirements of an organization, worldwide use of the software, feedback from the existing users, user friendliness, availability of technical support etc. (Staples et. al., 2003), (Witten et al., 2001).

6. ANALYSIS OF IRS: CURRENT STATUS & CHALLENGES The authors analyzed here exiting IRs and similar kind of projects in Saudi Arabia.

7.1 King Saud University (KSU) Dspace Repository: King Saud University (KSU) is the institution for higher education in Saudi Arabia established in 1957 as Riyadh University. KSU has added a number diamonds to its crown, in terms of research activities and collaboration with world renowned universities. Every year it produces number of Research papers, thesis; conference papers, seminars, scientific symposium, and publications of scholarly journals, resulting in the emergence of valuable resources of knowledge which must be preserved, managed, and organized properly in order to optimize the worldwide use of these scholarly resources. Therefore, King Saud University initiated its Repository project in [December 2008?] (Registry of Open Access Repositories, KSU Repository, 2008). KSU Repository comprises near about nineteen thousand documents, which includes research papers, conference papers, theses / dissertations, etc. KSU repository is being developed on Dspace and customized as per the requirement of the university. As Dspace supports the multilingual environment KSU repository incorporated the English and Arabic language interface. The number of communities and sub communities has been created each representing a college/ department/research centers etc. The end users can browse the collection by communities, issue date (publication year), author, title, & subject. In addition, the simple and advance search interface is also very helpful to retrieve the desired documents. Suggestions for KSU institutional repository: Some improvements are needed in KSU repository:

In the subject or keyword metadata field, it does not use controlled vocabulary like LCSH, Sears list or thesaurus and that is likely going to affect the efficient retrieval.

Arabic interface does not have the Arabic documentation in the help section, so Arabic version documentation should be included in the help section to facilitate the Arabic user community.

The KSU repository should also include the browsing facility by ‘type of documents’.




It is also suggested to implement the social networking and web 2.0 tools such as twitter, facebook, google+, and RSS feed to keep the user community update about the activities of KSU repository.

Similarly a FAQ section, most viewed items, recently added items are some of the features worthy to be implemented in KSU repository.

Figure: 6.1

KSU has also taken another similar initiative to preserve and organize its valuable knowledge resources in digital formats:

7.2 Makhtota:

It is an online digital archive of very rare Arabic manuscripts initiated by King Saud University in the year [s.d.]. The name of the digital archive is “Makhtota” which means manuscript. This repository contains more than eleven thousand Arabic manuscripts which are very rare and accessible online. The user interface is bi-lingual (Arabic & English). An advanced search interface is available with metadata fields such as manuscript name, author name, author date, description, material description, subject, referrals, reproducer name, copy date, category no general no, & reference. Statistics section provides the information about the most viewed items and ‘items viewed today’ and may be helpful to user community. In conclusion this is a commendable effort but there is still lot many improvements required to make this project widely accessible and visible to worldwide scholarly community. Suggestions for KSU Makhtota Project: Some improvements are also needed in Makhtota:

A lot of mistakes (spelling, character recognition, grammar, etc.). Search results does not produce in alphabetical order neither there is such an

option available. Metadata fields are not based on the standard metadata schema such as Dublin

core, MARC etc. and also used terms are very vague i.e. author date, category no. general no. & reference etc. These fields are very confusing and user won’t be




able to get the desired results in case a user built his / her search query based on these fields.

In this regard, a how to search guide / help section might prove very helpful to user community.

Figure: 7.2

Figure 7.2a

7.3 KFUPM E-Prints: KFUPM e-Prints is the Institutional Repository of King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals initiated in [September 2007?] on the Eprint software (Registry of Open Access Repositories KFUPM e-Prints, 2007). KFUPM e-Prints comprises more than four thousand items which includes various types of resources such as articles, conference papers, books, patents, thesis, monograph, workshop documents etc. The types of documents included in KFUPM e-Prints are article, books, book section/chapter, conference/workshop, monograph, patent, teaching resources, thesis, and others to facilitate the accessibility of the collection. The entire collection is categorized and classified into thirty seven broad categories and sub-categories; this will also help in




accessibility and retrieval process. There are various ways to browse the collection such as browsing by year of publication or year in which it came into public domain, subject wise, author wise, department to which a particular item belongs, and browsing by the type of documents. It also has a very strong simple and advanced search interface where a user can build a query by using various search operators in order to retrieve a particular piece of information or document (KFUPM e-Prints). Suggestions for KFUPM E-Prints: It is suggested that KFUPM e-prints:

Should implement the social networking and web 2.0 tools such as twitter, facebook, google+, and RSS feed to easily distribute the content.

Similarly implementation of the Arabic interface would be of great importance as the primary user community is the native Arabic speaker.

Figure 7.3

7.4 Umm Al-Qura University (UQU) Reference Repository:

Umm Al-Qura Reference repository which is also registered on DOAR, ROAR, and referred by Nazim and Mukherjee (2011) is no more accessible publicly via its url i.e. eref.uqu.edu.sa. The authors could not found the reason for the non availability of UQU reference repository. In addition, following are some of the digital initiatives made by UQU and some are based on OAI philosophy and some are partially open or restricted to UQU community only. 7.4.1 Journal Articles: This database comprises the full text articles from the ten Arabic language journals published by Umm Al-Qura University. Most of the articles are in Arabic but there are articles which are published in English including the abstract in an alternate language (Arabic / English) to help native speakers. The bibliographic information such as Title, Author, Title of the Journals and Issue number is available to provide more details about the documents. Full text articles are also available and freely accessible, i.e. open to all.

7.4.2 Manuscript: The University has also built a very precious database of manuscripts to increase its efforts in digital archiving and encouraging the open access movement. The manuscript database of Umm Al-Qura University comprises 3093 pdf files, accessible online for the benefit of the scholarly community worldwide. The manuscripts in this database are




very rare and originally written by the renowned and famous Islamic scholars such as Imam Jalal-Al-Deen Suyuti, Imam Bukahri, who compiled the most authentic book of hadith ‘Sahih Bukhari’ (Tradition of the Prophet Mohammad), Ibn Arabi, and Imam Malik who is among the scholars of the four legal schools of Islamic thought, and so on. Therefore this database is very crucial and important from the perspectives of historical Islamic literature and scholars. The bibliographic details are available as access points such as Title of the manuscript, Copier of the manuscript, Manuscript no., Subject of the manuscript, and the number of pages etc.

7.4.3 Umm Al-Qura & Saudi University Dissertations: This database comprises a total 9463 Masters & P.HD Theses / Dissertations awarded at Umm Al-Qura University. The database comprises both English and Arabic titles. The Saudi University database is made up of 1401 documents of P.HD theses / dissertations from Saudi Universities. The bibliographic details are available to assist the end users in order to identify and retrieve the specific document such as Author, Title, Dissertation number, language in which the document is originally written or produced, College (where dissertation / thesis) submitted, and the degree (P.HD / Masters) for which theses / dissertations submitted. The other information accessible to assist the user community is also available such as Abstract both in English and Arabic, an Introduction of the thesis / dissertation, and Table of contents. This is not an open access initiative and therefore we will not go into further details. For the full text accessibility of the documents, users may directly contact the author or library deanship.

A common search interface is available to access and retrieve these databases at Umm Al-Qura University. A user can select the desired database, and Title or Author to build the keyword search query. The option to search an item by its specific number such as dissertation or manuscript number is also available to retrieve a specific document. But there is no search option to search all these databases simultaneously (figure 7.4).

Figure 7.4




7.5 University of Dammam Dspace Repository: Recently University of Dammam (UoD) has also initiated its Repository project on Dspace platform. Since it is in the trial and testing phase we will include no further details about UoD Dspace repository in this paper.

Various efforts made by the Umm Al-Qura University must be combined together in standard archiving software such as Dspace, E-Prints, or Open Repository to create professional and standardized Repository integrated with Metadata & other archiving standards. Similarly KSU Dspace Repository & Makhtota are the projects of King Saud University which include the resources from King Saud University only. Though these two projects (KSU Dspace repository and Makhtota) were started on different occasions and in different spans of time the purpose of both these projects is archiving the knowledge resources of King Saud University. Though Makhtota projects include only the Arabic manuscripts they can also be preserved in the KSU Dspace repository. It seems that the information and documents have become scattered between these two projects and therefore their accessibility is affected. Hence, the very purpose of organizing and archiving the information has been lost. The most effective solution to this problem is to create a centralized integrated platform / application to make all these databases more visible and widely accessible to the world scholarly community via a single window. In addition, the software platform on which, Makhtota, and Umm-Al-Qura University resources are archived need to be compatible with the International standards like Metadata Dublin core, OAI-PMH etc. 7. FUTURE PROSPECTS: There are currently 21 Government Universities, 24 Private Universities and Colleges, 12 Technical Colleges, 37 Colleges and Institutes for health, geographically distributed throughout the Kingdom primarily serving the higher education needs of the Saudi population. (MOHE Saudi Arabia, 2010) As the higher education sector is showing a consistently upward trend in the Kingdom, research and development work is burgeoning enthusiastically in Saudi Universities. The new scientific knowledge and ideas produced are required to be documented, preserved, and distributed for the long term use not only for the Saudi academic community but for the worldwide scholarly community. Open Institutional repositories can play an important role in organizing, storing, and making the scientific knowledge visible. According to (Swan and Carr, 2008), “The primary reason for establishing a digital repository is to increase the visibility of the institution’s research output by making it Open Access”

The future of IR’s seems to be very bright because of the growing number of higher education institutions as well as Research and scientific activities in Saudi Arabia. So far very few efforts have been made in the area open Intuitional repositories and digital archiving. There is an immediate need to think sincerely in this direction especially by the Saudi Research organizations, institutions, and universities and to find ways and possibilities for establishing Institutional repositories so that the knowledge and information produced in these organizations and institutions could be organized, preserved and shared broadly. “Higher education institutions have to manage their educational, research and associated assets more effectively and transparently than in the past” (Hayes, 2005). Moreover, all the universities working in the public and private sectors, and other government funded bodies such as public libraries, museums, and archiving centers can also find ways to set up consortia of an open digital repository by signing MoU’s and negotiating the other technical issues such as Intellectual Property Rights. Saudi Arabia must also think of launching a National digital repository by putting all the past and existing available




resources of Knowledge into one place. Therefore, the rest of the world would have greater accessibility of the available resources which is otherwise accessible to a very small population and /or may be on the verge of extinction. 8. CONCLUSION: There is a great need to market and propagate the idea of Institutional repositories among the Saudi Academic Organizations and institutions so that they may take initiatives in this important area. Moreover, faculty members, Research Scholars, Students, and the academic communities need to be made aware of the importance of Institutional repositories and benefits of archiving and publishing their research papers, Articles and other forms of academic documents in an institutional repository. Also, Saudi Universities, Research organizations, and other Institutes of higher education should be tasked with establishing IR projects. They should consider creating a collective think-tank for meeting the nation’s IR needs. A consortium might also be created, in which the institutional resources of all the Saudi Universities and Institutions may be archived in a single centralized repository and therefore all the Universities and Institutions would be able to access the resources of other organizations and institutions at a time from a single database. They should take immediate action in the area of IR in order to preserve vital resources which may be easily lost forever, and make the Institutional knowledge widely accessible to the existing scholarly community and for posterity. King Saud University also sponsored a project called Arab Repository which is basically a database of journals (full text and Abstract) published in the Arab world. The database includes more than twenty thousand articles. Since our study is restricted with the geographical location of Saudi Arabia, we will not discuss the further details of Arab repository project. References:

Abdul Ghafour, P.K. (2011), “Over 106,000 Saudis get King Abdullah scholarships”, Arab News, 13 March, available at: http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article316284.ece, (accessed on 25 November 2011). Aguillo, Isidro F. et al. (2010), “Indicators for a webometric ranking of open access repositories”, Scientometrics, 82 No 3, pp.477–486. Arab Repository, (2009) available at: http://www.arjournals.info/index.html (accessed on 15 April 2012). Barwick, Joanna (2007),"Building an institutional repository at Loughborough University: some experiences", Program: electronic library and information systems, Vol. 41 No. 2 pp. 113-123. Cohen, Suzanne and Schmidle, Deborah (2007), "Creating a multipurpose digital institutional repository", OCLC Systems & Services, Vol. 23 No. 3 pp. 287-296. Crow, Raym (2002), “The case of Institutional Repositories: a SPARC position paper”, SPARC Release 1.0, available at: http://scholarship.utm.edu/20/1/SPARC_102.pdf, (Accessed on 10 January, 2012).




Cullen, Rowena and Chawner, Brenda (2010), “Institutional repositories: assessing their value to the academic community”, Performance Measurement and Metrics, Vol 11 No 2, pp. 131-147.

Cybermetrics Lab (2011), “Ranking Web of World Universities”, available at: www.webometrics.info, (Accessed on 25 March 2012). Hanware, Khalil & Abdul Ghafour P.K. (2011) “SR690bn Saudi budget to spur growth”, Arab News 27 December, available at: http://arabnews.com/economy/article554176.ece, (accessed on 12 January 2012). Harnad, S. et al. (2004), “The Access/Impact Problem and the Green and Gold Roads to Open Access”, Serials Review, Vol 30 No 4, available at: http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/impact.html (accessed on 15 April 2012). Hayes, Sarah and Rothery, Andrew (2008), “Is there a role for online repositories in e-Learning?”, EUNIS 2008, Aarhus University, Denmark. Available at: http://eprints.worc.ac.uk/448/1/eunis2008erepsfinal.pdf, (accessed on 13 March, 2012). Hayes, Helen (2005), “Digital Repositories: Helping Universities and Colleges”, JISC, available at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/JISC-BP-Repository%28HE%29-v1-final.pdf, (Accessed on 15 January 2012). Ignat, Tiberius and Repanovici, Angela (2009), “Institutional Repository Marketing: From Research to Knowledge Transfer”, in Advances in Marketing, Management and Finances 2009 proceeding of the International Conference on Management, Marketing, and Finances 2009, Houston, USA, 2009, WSEAS Press, pp. 107-110, Available at: http://www.wseas.us/e-library/conferences/2009/houston/AMMF/AMMF15.pdf (Accessed on February 05, 2012). Kamila, Kanchan (2009), “Institutional Repository Projects in India”, 7th International CALIBER-2009, Pondicherry University, Puducherry, February 25-27. Koenig, Jack (Jay) and Mikeal, Adam (2010),"Creating complex repository collections, such as journals, with Manakin", Program: electronic library and information systems, Vol. 44 No. 4 pp. 393-402 King Saud University Repository, (2008), available at: http://repository.ksu.edu.sa, (Accessed on 13 April 2012). King Saud University Manuscript [Makhtota] (2011), available at: http://makhtota.ksu.edu.sa (accessed on 15 April 2012). KFUPM e-Prints, available at: http://eprints.kfupm.edu.sa/, (Accessed on 13 April 2012). Laxminarsaiah, Ashalatha and Rajgoli, Iqbal Ahmad U. (2007), "Building institutional repository: an overview", OCLC Systems & Services, Vol. 23 No. 3 pp. 278-286. Lagoze, Carl and Van de Sompel, Herbert (2001), “The Open Archives Initiative:Building a low-barrier interoperability framework”, JCDL, June 17-23.




Liu, Shu and Zhou, Yongli (2011), “Developing an institutional repository using DigiTool", The Electronic Library, Vol. 29 No. 5 pp. 589-608 Lynch, Clifford A. (2003), "Institutional Repositories: Essential Infrastructure for Scholarship in the Digital Age", ARL, No 226, pp. 1-7, available at: http://www.arl.org/resources/pubs/br/br226/br226ir.shtml (accessed on 02 March 2012). Ministry of Higher Education (2011), “Higher Education in Saudi Arabia”, available at: http://www.mohe.gov.sa/en/studyaboard/King-Abdulla-hstages/Pages/study-levels-academic-disciplines-a.aspx, (accessed on 10 February 2012). MOHE Saudi Arabia, (2010), available at: http://www.mohe.gov.sa/en/studyinside/aboutKSA/Pages/default.aspx, (accessed on 10 December 2011). Nazim, Mohammad and Mukherjee, Bhaskar (2011), “Status of institutional repositories in Asian countries”, Library Philosophy and Practice, available at: http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~mbolin/nazim-mukherjee.htm (accessed on 17 January 2012). Pinfield, Stephen et al. (2002) “Setting up an institutional E-print archive”, Ariadne, No 31, available at: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue31/eprint-archives/ (accessed on 30 March, 2012).

Registry of Open Access Repositories (2007), “KFUPM ePrints”, School of Electronics & Computer Science, University of Southampton, available at: http://roar.eprints.org/755/, (accessed on 12 March 2012). Registry of Open Access Repositories (2008),“KSU Repository”, School of Electronics & Computer Science, University of Southampton, available at: http://roar.eprints.org/3330/, (accessed on 12 March 2012). Swan, A. and Carr, L. (2008), “Institutions, their repositories and the Web”, Serials Review, Vol 34 No 1, available at: http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/14965/, (accessed on 15 January 2012).

Staples, Thornton et al. (2003), “Fedora Project: an open source digital object repository management system”, Dlib Magazine, Vol 9 No.4, available at http://www.dlib.org/dlib/april03/staples/04staples.html, (accessed on 27 March, 2012). U.S. Department of State (2011), “Background note: Saudi Arabia”, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, available at: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3584.htm (accessed on 15 January 2012). US-Saudi Arabian Business Council (2011), available at: http://www.us-sabc.org/custom/news/details.cfm?id=891 (accessed on 10 February 2012). Witten et al. (2001), “Greenstone: open source digital library software”, Dlib Magazine, Vol 7 No. 10, available at http://www.dlib.org/dlib/october01/witten/10witten.html, (accessed on 27 February, 2012).




Witten, et.al. (2005), “StoneD: A Bridge between Greenstone and DSpace”, Dlib Magazine, Vol. 11 No 9, available at: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september05/witten/09witten.html (accessed on 10 March 2012). Xia, Jingfeng and Opperman, David B. (2009), “Current Trends in Institutional Repositories for Institutions Offering Master's and Baccalaureate Degrees”, Serial Review, doi:10.1016/j.serrev.2009.10.003

Web References: http://www.eprints.org/, (accessed on 27 March, 2012). http://www.dspace.org, (accessed on 27 March, 2012). http://duraspace.org/faq.php#1.1 (accessed on 15 April, 2012) http://dspace.ud.edu.sa/jspui/ (accessed on 12 January, 2012) http://ksu.edu.sa/AboutKSU/Pages/default.aspx (accessed on 13 January, 2012) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Saud_University (accessed on 13 January, 2012)




SCIENTOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF RESEARCH OUTPUT ON NEUTRINO IN

INDIA

Jeyshankar, B

Assistant Professor, Department of Library and Information Science, Alagappa University, Karaikudi – 630 003, E-mail: [email protected]

Dr. P. Nageswara Rao

Librarian, Society for Electronic Transactions and Security (SETS), MGR Knowledge City, CIT Campus, Taramani

Chennai - 600 113. E-mail: [email protected]

P. Arivunithi

Students (M.L.I.Sc), Department of Library and Information Science, Alagappa University, Karaikudi – 630 003, E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

This paper describes the results of a Scientometric study of literature on Neutrino research published in India.

The main objectives of this study are to examine Relative Growth Rate (RGR), Doubling Time (DT), Time

series, the authorship pattern, degree of collaboration and core journals. The article in the SCOPUS database

covering the period 1966-2011 have been considered for this study. The results of the study indicate that there is

an increasing trend towards collaborative research in India.

1 Introduction

Quantitative measurement of publications, citations and other parameters have been

largely applied and used in evaluating scientific research. Scientometric analyses of literature

in various disciplines have been carried out by using primary journals or secondary sources to

examine the quantitative aspects of literature growth in a particular field of knowledge.

Scientometric analysis of Scientometric publications is an important aspect of

research endeavour in information science. It could be attributed to the fact that Scientometric

studies are used to identify the pattern of publications, authorship, citations, secondary

journal coverage and so on. These factors can give an insight into the dynamics which

consequently lead to better information handling and management.

2 Concept of Neutrino

A neutrino is an electrically neutral, weakly interacting elementary subatomic particle

with half-integer spin. The neutrino (meaning "small neutral one" in Italian) is denoted by the

even by the standards of subatomic particles. Their mass has never been measured accurately.




Neutrinos do not carry electric charge, which means that they are not affected by the

electromagnetic forces that act on charged particles such as electrons and protons. Neutrinos

are affected only by the weak sub-atomic force, of much shorter range than

electromagnetism, and gravity, which is relatively weak on the subatomic scale. They are

therefore able to travel great distances through matter without being affected by it. Neutrinos

are created as a result of certain types of radioactive decay, or nuclear reactions such as those

that take place in the Sun, in nuclear reactors, or when cosmic rays hit atoms.

3 Objectives of the Study

The study has been designed with the following objectives:

i) To examine the growth of literature on Neutrino published during 1966-2011 in

India.

ii) To study the authorship pattern and the extent of collaborative research.

iii) To determine the degree of collaboration and

iv) To identify the core journals on the subject of neutrino.

4 Methodology

A sum of 1322 records in Neutrino research covered a period from 1966 to 2011 in

India. The data was downloaded from the SCOPUS which is the most comprehensive and

leading bibliographic database providing access to the world‘s scientific and technical

literature in physical sciences. In all 1322 records were obtained for the period of study. MS

Excel 2007 was used for analyzing the data. The investigation being fairly analytical, data

have been divided into specific subdivisions and discussed in the light of the objectives

identified in this study. The design of the analysis includes the following categories like

Relative growth rate, doubling time, authorship pattern, forms of publications, core journals

and so on.

5 Scientometric indicators used

The following Scientometric indicators have been used in the study:

5.1 Relative Growth Rate and Doubling Time

The changes in the size of literature over specific period may be termed as growth of

literature. Gupta and Karisidappa1 suggested approaches in understanding knowledge growth,

which are Qualitative and Quantitative. The qualitative approach suggests structural or

descriptive models of knowledge growth and a quantitative approach is relied on




summarization statistics to describe observed behaviour and use of the Bibliometric /

Scientometric techniques. In this section the study focused on the growth pattern of articles in

MAP from 1991-2006. The relative growth rate was calculated for the articles and the

doubling time (Dt) against each year study was also determined. The values of relative

growth rate (RGR) and Dt for publication are represented in Table 2.

Doubling time is the time required for each doubling of a Quantity in exponential

growth. It has been directly related to Relative Growth Rate. It is the time required for articles

to become double of the existing amount.

Calculations for the doubling time:

New value=initial value*2t /T double where

T double=doubling time

t=time elapsed since the initial value at time t=0.

5.2 Time Series analysis

Social and economic research data is obtained relating to a phenomenon over

a time period. Such data are called time series. Here the time series is a set of

ordered observations of a quantitative variable taken at successive points in terms of

years. Time series analysis on neutrino literature has been calculated to measure

the trend of the neutrino growth and to predict the feature patterns. A straight-line

equation is adopted as statistical measure to fore cast the trend pattern studied by

Daya Sridhar2.

Straight line equation is: Y c=a +b X

5.3 Co-Authorship Index (CAI)

Co-Authorship Index (CAI) is obtained by calculating proportionately the Publication

by single, two and multi authored papers. To study how the CAI pattern changed during the

period 1999-2003 by using CAI suggested by Garg and Padhi3 .

Nij /Nio

CAI = ---------*100




Noj /Noo

Where,

Nij =Number of papers having authors in block i

Nio =Total output of block i

Noj = Number of papers having j authors for all blocks.

Noo =Total number of papers for all authors and all blocks

CAI=100 indicates that a countries co-authorships effort for a particular type of

Authorship correspondents to the world average.CAI>100 reflects higher than Average co-

authorship effort and CAI <100 shows lower than average Co-authorship effort by that

country for a given type of authorship pattern.

5.4 Degree of Collaboration

The Degree of Collaboration of authors by year wise is shown in Table 7. Extent or

degree of collaboration can be ascertained by the formula by K.Subramanian4. His

mathematical formula ascertained in calculating author’s degree of collaboration in a

discipline. The degree of collaboration among authors is the ratio of the number of

collaborative publications to the total number of publication published in a discipline during

certain period of time.

The degree of collaboration (collaboration coefficient) among authors is measured

mathematically as;

Nm C=

Nm + Ns Where,

C= degree of collaboration

Nm= number of multi authored papers

Ns= number of single authored papers

6 Analysis and Discussion

6.1 Growth of Neutrino research output

Table 1 reveals the frequency distribution in Neutrino research Output in India. A

total of 1322 research papers were published during the period before 1966-2011. The




analysis shows the increasing trend in 1966 -2011. More number of papers published after

2007. Table 1 Year-Wise Frequency Distribution in

Neutrino Research Output

Fig-1 Distribution in Neutrino Research Output

6.2 Relative Growth Rate and Doubling Time

The table 2 and figure 2 and 3 shows the Average Growth Rate and the doubling time

(DT) of neutrino research literature in India. The growth rate is found to be at a maximum

during the year 1967-1971 and the minimum during the period1987-1991. The average

growth rate works out to be 7.09. And also it is found that the average doubling time is 15.79

years. This is an indication that research on neutrino will double once in every 10 years.

1.44 2.19 3.25 4.84 5.75 4.467.56

19.82

19.06

31.62

before 1966

1967 -1971

1972 -1976

1977 -1981

1982 -1986

1987 -1991

1992 -1996

1997 -2001

2002 -2006

after 2007

Sl. No Year No. of Research Output Per cent

1 before1966 19 1.44 2 1967 - 1971 29 2.19 3 1972 - 1976 43 3.25 4 1977 - 1981 64 4.84 5 1982 - 1986 76 5.75 6 1987 - 1991 59 4.46 7 1992 - 1996 100 7.56 8 1997 - 2001 262 19.82 9 2002 - 2006 252 19.06 10 after 2007 418 31.62

Total 1322 100




Table 2 Relative Growth Rate and Doubling Time

Fig-2 Relative Growth Rate of Neutrino Research in India

Figure-3 Doubling Time

6.3 Time Series Analysis

Social and economic research data is obtained relating to a phenomenon over a time

period. Such data are called time series. Here the time series is a set of ordered observations

00.5

11.5

22.5

33.5

before 1966

1967 -1971

1972 -1976

1977 -1981

1982 -1986

1987 -1991

1992 -1996

1997 -2001

2002 -2006

after 2007

Sl. No Year No. of

Records Cumulative RGR Doubling

Time 1 before 1966 19 19 2.94 0.24

2 1967 - 1971 29 48 0.93 0.75

3 1972 - 1976 43 91 0.64 1.08

4 1977 - 1981 64 155 0.53 1.30

5 1982 - 1986 76 231 0.40 1.74

6 1987 - 1991 59 290 0.23 3.05

7 1992 - 1996 100 390 0.30 2.34

8 1997 - 2001 262 652 0.51 1.35

9 2002 - 2006 252 904 0.33 2.12

10 after 2007 418 1322 0.38 1.82

Total 1322 4102 7.09 15.79




of a quantitative variable taken at successive points in terms of years. Time series analysis on

Neutrino literature has been calculated to measure the trend of the Neutrino growth and to

predict the future patterns. Table 3 Research Output Trend: Time Series Analysis

Sl. No Year Count(Y) X X2 XY 1 before 1966 19 0 0 0

2 1967 - 1971 29 1 1 29

3 1972 - 1976 43 2 4 86

4 1977 - 1981 64 3 9 192

5 1982 - 1986 76 4 16 304

6 1987 - 1991 59 5 25 295

7 1992 - 1996 100 6 36 600

8 1997 - 2001 262 7 49 1834

9 2002 - 2006 252 8 64 2016

10 after 2007 418 9 81 3762 Total 1322 45 285 9118

Table 3 reveals the estimated growth and the dip of the output. A straight-line

equation is adopted as statistical measure to fore cast the trend pattern suggested

by Daya Sridhar.

Straight line equation is: Y c=a +b X

1322=10a+45b

38367=9706a+285b

a=3.11 b=28.69

Estimated literature in 2015 is when X=2015-1966=49

=3.11+28.69*49=1405.92

Estimated Literature in 2020 is when X=2020-1966=

3.11+28.69*54=1552.37

From the above projections, it can be inferred that the future trend on Neutrino will have an

increasing trend in the year 2015 and may gain to an increasing trend in 2020.The pattern of

growth of Neutrino output also show similar differences in the calculation and the estimated

trend.

6.4 Types of Documents




Table 4 displays the type of documents found in the collected records. It is evident

that the journal is the most preferred medium of all the forms. The largest number of the

journal used indicates a continued trend of relying primarily on this form of publications. Of

the total research literature output in Neutrino, 90.32 per cent is in the form of articles

followed by 7.34 per cent in the form of reviews article while other types perform a poor

show with negligible numbers.

Table 4 Form –wise distribution

6.5 Authorship pattern

The literature of any subject reflects not only basic publishing pattern but also the

characteristics of the author themselves. Authorship pattern can be deciphered in areas like

Author productivity, collaborative or multiple authorship, author choice in the form of

publications. An analysis of literature output from Table 6 Indicates the authorship pattern.

To find the authorship pattern, the entire data was divided into seven blocks as single,

two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten and more than ten authored publications as

shown in Table 5. The results presented in Table 5 show that two authored publications were

highest with 31.69%. and three authored publications were second highest with 22.92%.

Nine and ten authored papers at 0.23% were the lowest.

Sl. No Year Articles Conference Papers Erratums Letters Notes Reviews Short

Surveys Total

1 1966 and Before 19 0 0 0 0 0 0 19 2 1967 - 1971 29 0 0 0 0 0 0 29 3 1972 - 1976 39 0 0 1 0 2 1 43 4 1977 - 1981 62 0 0 0 0 2 0 64 5 1982 - 1986 72 0 0 1 1 2 0 76 6 1987 - 1991 59 0 0 0 0 0 0 59 7 1992 - 1996 99 0 0 1 0 0 0 100 8 1997 - 2001 253 4 1 0 0 4 0 262 9 2002 - 2006 215 31 0 0 0 3 3 252 10 2007 and After 347 62 0 2 1 5 0 418

Total 1194 (90.32 %)

97 (7.34%)

1 (0.08%)

5 (0.38%)

2 (0.15%)

18 (1.36%)

4 (0.30%)

1322 (100%)




Table 5 Authorship Pattern

6.6 Pattern of Co-Authorship Index (CAI)

For calculating the co-authorship index for authors, countries have been replaced with

block. For this study, the authors have been classified into ten blocks. Vs. Single, Two, and

multiple authors and period of the study has been divided into 10 blocks as 1966-2011. Table 6 Co-Authorship Index

Sl. No Year Single

Author CAI Two

Authors

CAI Three Authors CAI More than

Three Authors CAI Total

1 before 1966 11 271.41 2 33.21 2 45.93 4 87.52 19 2 1967 - 1971 14 226.31 12 130.56 2 30.09 1 14.34 29 3 1972 - 1976 13 141.73 18 132.08 8 81.17 4 38.67 43 4 1977 - 1981 20 146.50 33 162.69 5 34.09 6 38.97 64 5 1982 - 1986 23 141.87 36 149.45 12 68.89 5 27.35 76 6 1987 - 1991 11 87.40 27 144.39 9 66.55 12 84.55 59 7 1992 - 1996 15 70.32 41 129.36 18 78.53 26 108.09 100 8 1997 - 2001 62 110.94 77 92.73 64 106.58 59 93.62 262 9 2002 - 2006 42 78.13 70 87.64 75 129.85 65 107.23 252 10 after 2007 71 79.63 103 77.75 108 112.73 136 135.26 418

Total 282 419 303 318 1322

Table 6 reveals that the result of co-authorship index and it is observed that the value

of CAI for two authored papers is the highest and for single authored papers was lowest,

which indicated that the collaborative research is increasing in the field of Neutrino research

Authors Before 1966

1967-1971

1972-1976

1977-1981

1982-1986

1987-1991

1992-1996

1997-2001

2002-2006

After 2007 Total

1 11 14 13 20 23 11 15 62 42 71 282 (21.33%)

2 2 12 18 33 36 27 41 77 70 103 419 (31.69%)

3 2 2 2 5 12 9 18 64 75 108 303 (22.92%)

4 3 0 0 5 2 4 9 26 30 67 14 8 (11.20%)

5 0 0 2 1 0 0 1 4 15 21 42 (3.18%)

6 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 4 5 13 (0.98%)

7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 2 4 (0.3%)

8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 (0%)

9 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 1 3 (0.23%)

10 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 3 (0.23%)

More than 10

1 0 0 0 1 8 14 28 14 39 105 (7.94%)

Total 19 29 43 64 76 59 100 262 252 418 1322(100%)




in India. With regard to the multiple authored publications with more than single authors, the

co-authorship has shown fluctuation trend.

6.7 Degree of Collaboration

The degree of collaboration for different years is calculated as per the equation

proposed by Subramanian and is presented in Table 7. The degree of collaboration over the

years varies from 0.42 to. 0. 85. And also it reveals that the degree of collaboration in

authorship trend works out to be 0.42 and above. Thus the degree of collaboration gives a

picture of extent of collaborations among the authors. The average has been arrived at 0.77. Table 7 Degree of Collaboration

Sl. No. Year 1 au 2 au 3 au More than three

Degree of Collaboration Total

1 1966 and Before 11 2 2 4 0.42 19 2 1967 - 1971 14 12 2 1 0.52 29

3 1972 - 1976 13 18 8 4 0.70 43

4 1977 - 1981 20 33 5 6 0.69 64 5 1982 - 1986 23 36 12 5 0.70 76

6 1987 - 1991 11 27 9 12 0.81 59 7 1992 - 1996 15 41 18 26 0.85 100

8 1997 - 2001 62 77 64 59 0.76 262

9 2002 - 2006 42 70 75 65 0.83 252 10 2007 and After 71 103 108 136 0.83 418

Total 282 419 303 318 0.77 1322

6.8 Preferred journals by the scientists of Neutrino Research

The concept of core journals has been derived from Bradford’s Law. It describes how

the literature on a particular subject is scattered in the journals. According to Garfield

“Bradford’s Law is one of several statistical expressions, which try to describe the workings

of science by mathematical means”. This law is considered as the best known of the entire

Bibliometric concept.

The journals are ranked based on their frequency of occurrence along with comparatively

higher productivity count. The ranked list of journal titles is provided in the following tables

and consecutively for every unit of time period of the study.

The data in table 8 reveals the highly preferred journals by the scientists of Neutrino.

Out of the 1322 articles, 376 articles have been published in “Physical Review D - Particles,

Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology”, 205 in “Physics Letters”, and 66 in “Pramana - Journal




of Physics” and so on. The most of the Neutrino researcher preferred foreign journals to

Indian journals.

Table 8 Core Journals in Neutrino Research

Sl. No. Name of Journal Total

1 Physical Review D - Particles, Fields, Gravitation Cosmology 376 2 Physics Letters 205 4 Pramana - Journal of Physics 66 5 Modern Physics Letters A 55 6 Physical Review Letters 50 7 AIP Conference Proceedings 47 9 Nuclear Physics B 32 10 Journal of High Energy Physics 25 11 Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics 24 12 International Journal of Modern Physics A 22 14 Astrophysics and Space Science 21 15 Physical Review C - Nuclear Physics 18

9. Conclusion

This study clearly indicates that there is an increasing trend towards collaborative

research in the field of neutrino in India. The publications in journal articles (90.32 %) are

high in this field when compared to the publications in the conferences. The study reveals the

Indian scientist has strong base in neutrino research. The core journals indicate that

researchers are selective in publishing their research results in highly specialized and high

impact factor journals. However, majority researchers find Indian journals as an easier

channel for publication of their research results.

References

1. Gupta B.M. and Karisiddappa, (1997). “Nature and collaborative profile of

theoretical population genetics specialty” Scientometrics 39.3 294-314.

2. Daya Sridhar (2010) Bibliometric Analysis Of Research Literature Output In

Medicinal And Aromatic Plants From 1991 To 2006, Thesis Submitted to the

Bharathidasan University, Guided by A. Ganesan, Bharathidasan University,

Thiruchirapalli- Feb -2010.

3. Garg, K.C and Padhi, P (1999). Scientometrics of laser research literature as viewed

through the Journal of Current Laser Abstracts. Scientometrics, 45 (2): 251-268.

4. Subramanianm K, (1983). Bibliometrics studies of research collaboration: A review,

Journal of Information Science, 6 35-37.