Social structures in science from the perpective of bibliometrical data of PhD abstracts: a pilot project of the CBD

Dr. Birutė RailienėWroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of

SciencesNew Directions in Digital History of Science. July 17,

2014, Berlin, Germany

• A dissertation as a document provides data on new knowledge, but also – encodes important scientometrical information

• A dissertation record may expose a scientific relation of research-advising both in personal and institutional levels within the certain scientific area

• Research project was inspired by the rich experience of PhD bibliographical tradition in Lithuania– Printed bibliographies– Card catalogues– E-library for records maintained after 1996– Participation in Networked Digital Library of

Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD)– Investigation of scientific schools

Pilot project aims to:

• analyze possibilities and quantities to register retrospective data on PhD abstracts

• explore bibliographical description practices in selected PhD bibliographical indexes

• explore PhD cataloguing practices in selected databases

• suggest a change in cataloguing practice, which will facilitate data scrapping

Expectations

• History of science – identify scientific schools • Science policy – encourage (including

financial) informal social structures of science at national, institutional levels

• Scientific school at individual level – a creator of scientific school deserves recollection, which also inspires followers in the future

Methodology

• To analyze possibilities and quantities to register retrospective data on PhD abstracts

• Due to vast amount of entries the manual survey of databases was excluded

• The research-advise contribution is an optional field in a document description

• Institutional contribution is an mandatory field in a document description

Field of survey

• MARC format of PhD abstract description includes subfield (043.3)

• Possibility for classification

PhD issues on WWW

• DART-Europe is a partnership of research libraries and library consortia who are working together to improve global access to European research theses.

• DART-Europe is endorsed by LIBER (Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche), and it is the European Working Group of the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations(NDLTD)

• http://www.dart-europe.eu/About/info.php

PhD issues on WWW

• NDLTD, an international organization dedicated to promoting the adoption, creation, use, dissemination, and preservation of electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs).

• http://www.ndltd.org/

PhD issues on WWW

• OnlinePhDProgram.org

• http://onlinephdprogram.org/thesis-dissertation/

• http://www.academicjoy.net/phdcandidate-Theses.html

International guidelines

• NDLTD, an international organization dedicated to promoting the adoption, creation, use, dissemination, and preservation of electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs).

• ETD-MS v1.1: an Interoperability Metadata Standard for Electronic Theses and Dissertations

http://www.ndltd.org/standards/metadata

ETD-MS v1.1

• This document should be used as a guideline to develop a faithful cross-walk between local metadata standards and a single standard used for sharing information about ETDs

Variety of records at NDLTD

Difficulties for global search

• Vocabulary differences• Classification systems• Institutional coverage• Language

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I

• This multidisciplinary database is the world’s most comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses from around the world, spanning from 1743 to the present day

• http://search.proquest.com/pqdt?accountid=146284

Conclusions

• PhD abstract is a formal source to indicate the teacher-pupil communication link

• Research-advising is one of main formal links in scholarly communication (together with co-authorship and citation)

• Research-advising links