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891 Advanced Topics: Scholarly Communication and Informetrics
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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MILWAUKEE SCHOOL OF INFORMATION STUDIES
891 Advanced Topics in Library and Information Science: Informetrics and Scholarly Communication
Syllabus Spring 2011 DRAFT
Instructor: Dietmar Wolfram Office: Bolton Hall, Room 538 E-mail: [email protected] Fax: 414-229-6699 Phone: 414-229-6836
Meeting Times: This is a Web-based course. The mode of instruction and communication will be primarily asynchronous. There will be selected synchronous aspects of the course involving Adobe Connect or other similar tools. Meeting times for synchronous components will be determined based on class member and presenter availability.
Office Hours: TBA
DESCRIPTION:
Provides advanced treatment of scholarly communication, the quantitative study of information production and use, informetric data modeling, research assessment, and applications in information studies scholarship and practice.
3 credits
PREREQUISITES: Grad st; Foundations course in library and information science (e.g., L&I Sci 501); Research methods or statistical methods course for the social sciences (e.g., L&I Sci 591); or permission of the instructor.
OBJECTIVES: Upon completion of the course, students will be able to:
Understand and analyze developments in scholarly communication and informetrics
Assess the role of library and information science in the process of scholarly communication
Analyze regularities in the way information is produced and used Synthesize and apply informetric techniques to the analysis of recorded
discourse Critically evaluate information resources and activities relevant to scholarly
communication Apply quantitative techniques to the assessment of research and scholarship
ALA COMPETENCIES: This course addresses the following ALA competencies:
Concepts and issues related to the lifecycle of recorded knowledge and information, from creation through various stages of use to disposition.

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The application of information, communication, assistive, and related technology and tools consistent with professional ethics and prevailing service norms and applications. (Note: This is relevant to the application of cybermetric methods and data collection).
The fundamentals of quantitative and qualitative research methods. The central research findings and research literature of the field.
METHOD: Lecture/Discussion
Students with special needs should contact the instructor as early as possible for accommodations.
TEXT Required: De Bellis, N. (2009). Bibliometrics and citation analysis. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow
Press. ISBN: 97800-8108-6713-0
Readings also will be assigned from sources available through traditional or electronic reserve at the UW-Milwaukee Golda Meir Library or publicly on the Web.
There are required readings for each week plus suggested readings for those interested in learning more about the specific topics.
COURSE SCHEDULE AND READINGS:
Week 1/24 Overview - The Study of Information Production and Use, History and Current Status
Required:
De Bellis, N. (2009). Bibliometrics and citation analysis. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. Read Chapter 1.
Bar-Ilan, J. (2008). Informetrics at the beginning of the 21st century - A review. Journal of Informetrics, 2(1), 1-52. Note: This is a long review article. Browse to become familiar with the different areas of informetrics.
Suggested Additional Readings:
Borgman, C. L., & Furner, J. (2001). Scholarly communication and bibliometrics. In M. Williams (Ed.), Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (Vol. 36, pp. 3-70). Medford, NJ: Information Today. (This is a long review article. Scan for key concepts).
Brookes, B. C. (1988). Comments on the scope of bibliometrics. In L. Egghe & R. Rousseau (Eds.) Informetrics 87/88: Select Proceedings of the First International Conference on Bibliometrics and Theoretical Aspects of Information Retrieval (pp. 29-40). Amsterdam: Elsevier. Available through the University of Hasselt repository: http://uhdspace.uhasselt.be/dspace/bitstream/1942/827/1/brookes29.pdf.
Wilson, C. S. (1999). Informetrics. In M. Williams (Ed.), Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (Vol. 34, pp. 107-247). Medford, NJ: Information Today. (Another long review article).

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1/31 Scholarly Communication
Required:
Johnson, P. (2009). Fundamentals of collection development and management. 2nd Ed. Chicago: American Library Association. Read Chapter 9 Scholarly Communication pp. 304-335.
Price, D. J. d. S. (1986). Little science, big science. New York: Columbia University Press. Read Chapter 3 Invisible Colleges and the Affluent Scientific Commuter, pp. 56-81. (This is an updated edition of the classic 1963 work).
Barjak, F. (2006). The role of the Internet in informal scholarly communication, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 57(10), 1350-1367.
Crane, D. (1975). Invisible colleges: diffusion of knowledge in scientific communities. 2nd Ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Price, D. J. d. S. (1986). Little science, big science. New York: Columbia University. (The whole book).
2/7 Classic Informetric Laws
Required:
De Bellis, Chapter 4
Pao, M.L. (1986). An empirical examination of Lotka's law. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 37(1), 26-33.
Price, D. J. d. S. (1976). A general theory of bibliometric and other cumulative advantage processes. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 27, 292-306.
Brookes, B. C. (1977). Theory of the Bradford law. Journal of Documentation, 33(3), 180-209.
Egghe, L. (1988). On the classification of the classical bibliometric laws. Journal of Documentation, 44(1), 53-62.
Nicholls, P. T. (1986). Empirical validation of Lotka's Law. Information Processing & Management, 22(5), 417-419.
Nicholls, P. T. (1989). Bibliometric modeling processes and the empirical validity of Lotka's Law. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 40(6), 379-385.
2/14 Citation Analysis I
Required:

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De Bellis, Chapters 2 & 3
MacRoberts, M. H., & MacRoberts, B. R. (1989). Problems of citation analysis: A critical review. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 40(5), 342349.
Cronin, B. (2001). Bibliometrics and beyond: Some thoughts on web-based citation analysis. Journal of Information Science, 27(1), 1-7.
Bornmann, L., & Daniel, H.D. (2008). What do citation counts measure? A review of studies on citing behavior. Journal of Documentation, 64(1), 45-80.
Davenport, E., & Snyder, H. (1995). Who cites women? Whom do women cite?: An exploration of gender and scholarly citation in sociology. Journal of Documentation, 51(4), 404-410.
Garfield, E., & Sher, I. H. (1963). New factors in the evaluation of scientific literature through citation indexing. American Documentation, 14(3), 195-201.
Hyland, K. (2003). Self-citation and self-reference: Credibility and promotion in academic publication, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 54(3), 251-259.
Kessler, M. M. (1963). Bibliographic coupling between scientific papers. American Documentation, 14(1), 10-25.
MacRoberts, M. H., & MacRoberts, B. R. (1996). Problems of citation analysis. Scientometrics, 36(3), 435-444.
Meneghini, R., Packer, A.L., & Nassi-Cal, L. (2008). Articles by Latin American authors in prestigious journals have fewer citations. PLoS ONE, 3(11). Available: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0003804
Nicolaisen, J. (2007). Citation analysis. In B. Cronin (Ed.), Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, (Vol. 41, pp. 609-641). Medford, NJ: Information Today.
Vaughan, L., & Shaw, D. (2003). Bibliographic and web citations: What is the difference? Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 54(14), 1313-1322.
2/21 Citation Analysis II Co-citation Analysis and Impact Factors
Required:
De Bellis, Chapters 5 & 6 (some of the content of Chapter 5 will also be useful in Week 6).
Garfield, E. (2006). The history and meaning of the journal impact factor. JAMA-Journal of the American Medical Association, 295(1), 90-93.
Merton, R. K. (1968). The Mathew Effect in science. Science, 159, 56-63.

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Craig, I.D. et al. (2007). Do open access articles have greater citation impact? A critical review of the literature. Journal of Informetrics, 1(3), 239-248.
Thompson, J.W. (2002). The death of the scholarly monograph in the humanities? Citation patterns in literary scholarship. Libri, 52(3), 121-136.
Zhao, D.Z. (2006). Towards all-author co-citation analysis. Information Processing & Management, 42(6), 1578-1591.
Seglen, P.O. (1997). Why the impact factor of journals should not be used for evaluating research, British Medical

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