Citation Analysis of Engineering Graduate Student Theses Indicates Students Are Using More Electronic Resources

• Main Author: Heather MacDonald
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Alberta 2016-12-01
• Series: Evidence Based Library and Information Practice
• Subjects: Graduate students; citation analysis; South Africa; evidence summary
• Online Access: https://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP/article/view/28062

A Review of: Becker, D. A., & Chiware, E. R. T. (2015). Citation analysis of masters' theses and doctoral dissertations: Balancing library collections with students' research information needs. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 41(5), 613-620. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2015.06.022 Objective – To determine the citation pattern of graduate students’ theses and dissertations. Design – Citation analysis. Setting – An institutional repository at a South African university of technology. Subjects – 201 Engineering Master’s theses and Doctoral dissertations. Methods – A random sample of Master’s theses and Doctoral dissertations from the Faculty of Engineering were analyzed. The theses and dissertations were drawn from the institutional repository covering the period 2005-2014. References were checked for format of the cited items including journal, book, conference proceeding, online item (resource with a URL other than a journal, book or proceeding), and other (anything not in the first four categories). The date of all journal articles was recorded. Journal titles were analyzed in terms of country of origin, language, availability in the library, and online access. Data were categorized by department to determine if there were any differences in the use of materials by department. Data were also analyzed by degree level.