Scientific and research work and academic periodicals

84 ALBANIAN MEDICAL JOURNAL 2 - 2013

ALBANIAN MEDICAL JOURNAL

Scientific and research work and academicperiodicals

Izet Masic1, Enes Kujundic2

1

University of Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina;2

University of Zenica, Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Corresponding author:

Prof. Izet Masic, MD, PhDAddress: Faculty of Medicine, University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 71000, Sarajevo,Cekalusa 90;E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]

Abstract

The revolution in information-communication technologies has led to the appearance of a realtide of different types of information sources that are offered in digital form. These new resources,far more than it was the case with tradit ional sources (books - handwritten and printed,contributions in scientific periodicals, archives and museums holdings, etc.), placed membersof the scientific and research community at a serious dilemma: Which sources to choose, how toevaluate and use them in a useful manner in scientific research?This paper discusses aspects of the influence of modern information technology in scientificresearch. It also provides a review of the most important products

and sources

of knowledgenecessary for scientific research, issues of information preservation, digital libraries, e-books,and information resources in the digital environment, databases and the use of sources ofscientific information. Finally, it discusses how to validate the results of professional scientificwork through the procedures of statistical processing, analysis, interpretation, technical andlinguistic preparation and review, evaluation and impact of the dissemination of knowledge invarious scientific publications.

Keywords:

ICT, IMRAD, publications, quot ing literature, review of the art icles.

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ALBANIAN MEDICAL JOURNAL 2 - 2013

1. IntroductionScience and technology have a crucial role in thedevelopment of modern societies and scientificresearch and, if based on ethical principles, they cancertainly provide answers to many questions thatmodern humankind faces in daily life (1-3).Production and exchange of knowledge about mostcurrent issues of human existence are determinedby the relevant scientific communication that isestablished and implemented by the relevantscientific publications which, in addition to thebooks, are usually represented by scientific journalsand contributions to the scientific meetings (4-6).Reliability and soundness of scientific knowledge ofscientists/ researchers should be important to them,to their professional community and, of course, tothe society where they belong. Communicatingwithin the communities, the authors/ researchersdescribe the results which they reached by theirresearch activities, and submit their scientific andprofessional articles for publication in peer-reviewedscientific journals. In this way, they are opening thedoor for a potentially successful scientific, or possibleacademic career. In doing so, individual contributionsto the scientific knowledge constitute a subject ofinterest and evaluation by peers in the context oftheir scientific work. Authors of scientificachievements should be able to convince theinstitutions in which they work and the members oftheir professional community, especially those whoare otherwise referred to as reviewers (peer reviewers),about the quality and, in some cases, verifiability ofthese practical achievements (7-10).Options for objective authentication of one soriginal contribution to science are nowhere moreobvious, nor have larger implications, as in the typesand extent of the sources used by other authors. Thisconclusion is equally valid in specific scientific fieldssuch as literary criticism, but also the latest scientificachievements in the field of e.g. biomedical research.Hence, the knowledge of sources of scientificinformation, methods of their evaluation andmethodology of their use is crucial for any seriousscientific research and publication of itsresults. Scientists are of course aware that science isgoing on and exist within a broader socialenvironment, although undoubtedly influenced bythe inherited historical context. The social

environment determines its substance, theorientation and the appropriate ranking of methodsof each individuals scientific achievement.Traditionally, societies have imposed canons ofconduct and rules of the game to the scientificactivities. Specifically, scientific knowledge is stilllargely generated from processes that are, at least inthe initial phase, mainly individual. Thus, research andscientific work is commonly performed and islargely dependent on the creativity and skills oftalented individuals. From this point of view, someof the basic characteristics that differentiateprofessionals with scientific ambitions should beidentified and acknowledged. A distinction shouldbe made between professional papers/ reports andscientific articles. Professional papers commonly referto pieces of work that do not have obviouspretense of research and do not deal with scientificproblems. The primary goal of a professional paperis to familiarize the readers with facts and findingsthat are not new to science, but nevertheless transferknowledge and enable the acquisition of knowledgeto certain professional communities. Conversely,scientific papers/ articles basically aim to solve ascientific question, with the use of scientificapparatus, style of expression and argument, andtheir manner of presentation provides a solid basisfor ensuring that they are treated as scientificcontributions to a certain scientific field.According to the complexity of the topic and thetime required for its development, scientific paperscan be classified into several categories: one canspeak about the debates - or studies, monographs,contributions in journals, papers at scientificconferences, critical reviews, or peer reviews.Infrequently, journalistic contributions communicatealso some important innovations in science andtechnology, especially if published in reputablejournals such as Science, or Nature.Scientific activity during the last couple of decadesreceived additional incentives by the progress madein information science and technology whichoffered a series of many innovative opportunitiesto scientists, researchers and scholars in general fornew areas of activity, particularly in synergicinterpenetration of science, culture and art.Information technology, particularly through variousdigital resources enables implementation of creative



industry ideas that involves combining text, images,sound and performance.

2. Journals and other forms ofpublications for presentation of thescientific research resultsJournals are among the most important products andsources of information necessary for scientificresearch and represent an important link forprogress in science (1,2). Communication ofknowledge that occurs as a result of the latestscientific research is achieved mainly throughreputable scientific journals in printed or electronicform. In order to ensure adherence to qualitystandards and scientific validity, scientific journalscontain articles that are in the process of acceptancefor printing after having undergone a strict reviewprocess. Careers of many university professors andresearchers in academic institutions largely dependon a positive outcome of the evaluation of theirpublished articles. This evaluation is an importantpart performed on the basis of the assumption thatthese papers were published in reputable periodicals,especially those referenced and indexed in inter-national databases.Contributions to the journals are usually in a formataccording to the general scheme IMRAD (I-Introduction; M-Methods or Material and Methods;R-Results; A-and; D-Discussion and Conclusion),recommended by the International Commission ofMedical Journal Editors (ICMJE) (11). These articlesbegin with an abstract, which is a summary of thepaper. The introduction describes the previousresearch as a basis for writing the text, includingconsideration of similar studies by other authors.Materials and methods used, or the part that relatesto experimentation, contains specific details on howthe survey was carried out. Results and discussiondescribe the outcome and implications of theresearch work, while concluding remarks are placedin the context of the current work and suggestpotential future research directions.The starting point for determining the relevance ofa published paper and material for evaluation andbibliometric analysis often is the assumption that thearticle was published in a respectable scientificjournal. However, recent studies of several authorsdrew attention to the fact that other forms of

literature are subject to evaluation and citation too.In the case of social and humanistic sciences, it hasbeen demonstrated that contributions to periodicalsrepresent 50% of the most cited documents.Important content, including scientific discoveries ofthe first order, may be published in other kinds offormats, such as contributions to scientific meetings,not only in journals or monographic publications (6).Although important, especially for computer scienceand technology, the problem with this kind ofliterature involves its relatively rapid agingcompared to other types of scientific sources.Methodological frameworks and processes ofscientific research and in particular the resultsdisclosed to undergo evolutionary criteria, includingthe determination of the impact factor, are usuallyapplied.

3. Digital libraries and theirestablishmentAt the end of the second and beginning of the thirdmillennium, new media for the exchange ofknowledge and its storage in the database appearedwhich become possible by the advent of digitallibraries in the areas of science and business, in thesocial and humanistic sciences, biomedicine, as wellas several other areas. These new circumstancesimply also necessary obligations for preciseunderstanding of the role of heritage institutions(libraries, museums, archives, galleries) in creatingconditions (normative, technological and financial)for the development and growth of digitaldepository of knowledge.Even during the last months of the Second WorldWar, there have been indications of what wouldlater gain worldwide promotion and importanceunder the name of the digital library. Specifically,Vannever Bush, a professor at the Massachusetts-Institute of Technology (MIT), in the Atlantic Monthlyjournal in July 1945 published an article titled AsWe May Think in which he outlined the basic ideaof the need for fresh innovative methods in the useof technology to organize and made availableknowledge and information at a much moreefficient and more cost-effective way than before.As a support to this effort, he planned a system,which he called the Memex. This idea was relyingsolely on barcode microfilm and preceded the

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earliest example of an electronic computer andforerunner of the later of such devices in the formof machines constructed in the UK 1943 under thename Colossus to be used during war time tobreak the coded messages.Later, the need for relevant information, particularlyabout the scientific content, was one of the maindriving motives for building the global informationinfrastructure. Technology for creation, distributionand storage in a digital environment eventuallyunderwent profound changes including status andactivity, not just a library but also institutions suchas archives, galleries, museums and mediathek. All thishad a strong influence on the acceleration of theprocess of acquisition and distribution of know-ledge which is mainly taking place nowadays inschools and universities. This is inspired by thetransformation of scientific institutions and types ofacademies of science, other scientific institutions andinternational professional associations, whosenormative and professional activities are focused onresearch and development. The convergence pointof these changes is currently referred to as digitallibrary - a term commonly used to describe theadvancement of information technology enabling insight intomemory organization .The first phase in this process, one can safely say,involved a revolutionary change in the field ofinformation science during the Nineties of theTwentieth Century, characterized by rapid infor-mation-technology innovations that have enabledonline access to the catalogs of library collections,although it also has not led to a solution for the issueof access to their contents as well as traditionalmemory depositories.The earliest project of Virtual Library (12) which,in fact, is the oldest catalog of the World Wide Web,was invented in 1991 by Tim Barnes-Lee, workingat the European Organization for Nuclear Research- CERN in Geneva. Currently, Tim Berners-Lee isthe Director of Consortium of worldwide network- W3C (13). W3C achieves its mission primarily bycreating Web standards and guidelines and mostdirectly assists in the implementation of a virtuallibrary, striving to survive all the hardships thataccompany these kinds of innovative ideas. Unlikecommercial actors, this work is done by a looselybound group of professionals - volunteers, who

compile pages of key links for particular areas ofhuman knowledge. Eventually, this initiative gainedconsiderable reputation as a relevant guide in eachsegment of the network. The subject areas withnarrower thematic units available through this serviceinclude: agronomy, business and economics,information technology, communications and media,education, engineering, humanities, library science,international relations, law, recreation, regional studies,natural science, social science and religion. Shortlyafter the appearance of a virtual library, there werenumerous initiatives whose primary goal was justpublishing the original texts in electronic form andensuring their availability in the form of full text.Until now, there have been implemented suchpursuits, in addition to valuable critical editions ofmedieval sources, old and rare books and manus-cripts, cabinets and contemporary authors in variouslanguages, books, referential works, journals andtraining materials. For the preparation of this kindof materials, publishers combine the expertise ofdistinguished scholars in specific subject areas ofknowledge, including experts in copyright, librariansand information consultants. Thanks to such archives,a far larger number of members of the academiccommunity and interested members of the publicin general can effectively access collections of textswhich, until recently, was very hard to reach.To the experts engaged in these tasks, computersserve in at least five different categories of activitiesto provide access to information resources ofgeneral type, such as online library catalogs,bibliographies, dictionaries, and encyclopedias suchas Wikipedia (14). These machines offer thepossibility of retrospective conversion of manus-cripts or printed sources, in a machine-readableformat, opening up space for publication of theresults of these authors in the Internet. They makepossible the creation of specific tools such asdatabases, special browsers, enabling the extractionof summaries - a part from much more compre-hensive sources, as well as creating conditions forcomputer-based research and testing of a givenmodel.Using computers to test scientific hypotheses basedon the availability of complex and voluminousdatabases has led to new discoveries and impro-vements, not only in the natural and technical



sciences. The Internet is to researchers a disciplinesuch as the study of language, literature, history, legaltheory, philosophy, comparative religion, ethics, artcriticism, archeology and those aspects of socialsciences which have humanistic content have openeda number of opportunities to access new knowledgein areas that until recently were thought to be quiteresistant to any form of technology-basedinnovations (3,4).With the arrival of a tide of new digital media andservices, in addition to their classic role as depositorymemory stored primarily on paper, libraries arereformed in order to become more able toaccommodate the new system that is the digitalformats in which the content is currently stored.The term digital library serves as a convenient andclearly catchword to indicate the electronic collection -which includes a richer content and provides agreater access for concepts such as databases orinformation system retrieval. Just starting from thestandpoint of one librarian, an American researchernamely Donald I. Waters has made a workingversion of the definition of digital libraries: Digitallibraries are organizations that provide the use of resources,including professional staff that selects, organizes, provides anintellectual approach, explains, distributes, preserves itsintegrity and ensures durability of collections of digital articlesso that they are ready and economically available for use ofone or more communities

(3).Teufik-Tefko Saracevic from Rutgers University hasstated that The digital library deals with documents ofhuman knowledge in the form of electronic and networkedenvironment . At the same time, Saracevic remindedthat this technological innovation has induced theneed for clarification of a number of issuesincluding an understanding of objects in digitallibraries in various formats, including non-textmaterial and its presentation: the metadata,cataloging, indexing, conversion, digitizing,organizing voluminous collections, collectionsmanagement, compression, security, archiving,interoperability, standardization, computer-humaninteraction, the discovery of information, searching,retrieval, reading, natural language processing,reliability, metrics, performance, evaluation, social,legal and economic issues, the impact on scientificresearch, education and other areas, and the impacton diverse beneficiary populations (4).

Under these new conditions and new technologicalpossibilities, the idea of continuity and maintenanceof information sources which is often accumulatedfor centuries, with special care for what we callcultural heritage, is preserved despite the technology,or perhaps thanks to it. Thanks to innovationsoccurring in the wake of new digital media, therehas been a revitalization of certain subject areas inthe social sciences and in the humanities, not to speakof medicine and engineering, and the like. On theother hand, despite a relatively painless landing to theworld of chips and bytes, members of the ITprofessional community in the new library envi-ronment now use the database orientation with anemphasis on the organization of resources andaccess to online resources rather than the shelvingthe books and binding the journals published overthe years.Digital library, as a collection of information that isdigitalized and organized to customer preferences,offers tools and features that traditional librariescould not provide. Resources of digital librariesprovide browsing options by different keywords,can be accessed from any geographical point on theplanet and the respective sources can be copiedwithout any errors. However, these types of librariesinevitably draw the attention of its customers on theregular problems that normally accompany theprocess of finding information, their delivery andtheir preservation for the future. Nevertheless, digitalinformation certainly occupies less space than paper-based information, which greatly helps libraries toreduce the price of their services. They can supplyinformation on the reader s desk, their contents canbe searched by keywords, without physically goingto the library and can provide access to informationthat is not degraded on the way from rottingmaterial on which is written, whether it is aboutwords, sounds or images, movies, or still pictures.Another important fact that should be mentionedin connection with the digital technology consists ofan easier access to different parts of the textbook,its use simplifies writing, the book facilitates archivingits content - in fact, archiving is greatly facilitated interms of the letter, image, and sound. At the sametime, one gets a lighter and more efficient way ofpreparing and publishing the final book in printedform (hard copy). There is a frequently asked

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question in professional circles: What is the purposeof a book, if nobody reads it, and what is the purpose of alibrary including its contents if no one uses it?! . Even theemotional reasons based motivation keepingdocumentary evidence for the future may give wayto the harsh logic contained in the question: Who isactually using this k ind of materials nowadays? .Remaining free readers, we will have even fewerreasons in the future to deal with traditional librariesleading to even more justifications for ignoringtheir existence.On the other hand, the buzz word from time totime in public places on the information saturationcan be justified only if we are talking about massproduction of information on new media that hasno goals. The owner of the information certainlygave it a role: either it educates, makes one awareof, or informs. Therefore, the issue of digital libraryshould be approached with due respect, but alsowith caution and concerns about its usefulness andits added value or, as pointed out by Teufik-TefkoSaracevic, one should take care on its relevance

(5).An additional argument by this author states that Inevaluating digital libraries, as, after all, in the evaluation ofany system or process, sets the following serious questions, whichobviously affect the final result: Where to begin to evaluatethe digital library, which is valued? Where is the end? Whereare the limits? What is involved? What is excluded? To whatenvironment or context to concentrate on? These questionsdefine the construct of a digital library ...Michael Leske quite whimsy lists the conditions thatare required to build a digital library stating that: Youneed to enter content into it, you need to be able to take contentout of it, and you have to be able to pay for it

(6).As for the software for building of digital libraries,especially bearing in mind the cost of its creationand technological accessibility, here is an opportunityto draw attention to two early examples of freelyavailable software like Greenstone (15) and DSpace (16).The purpose of the Greenstone software was toallow especially university institutions and otherpublic institutions to build their own digital librarywithout much cost. Complete Greenstone interfaceis available in English, French, Spanish, Russian andKazakh language and it is possible for volunteers toprovide translations into other languages.The DSpace project, about which much more canbe found at: www.dspace.org (17), is also a freely

accessible digital depositary system that is used fordifferent purposes of digitization. It is developedby a common effort of experts from libraries ofMIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) inBoston and specialists of Hewlett-PackardLaboratories. DSpace is adaptable for the processingof different types of digital material, including text,images, videos, and other formats. This initiativeprovided support to the community of intellectualproperty in the digital environment and in 1998 itwas founded the International DOI Foundation (18)and through the development and promotionsystems it was materialized the DOI system (DigitalObject Identifier - identifier for digital objects as acommon infrastructure for managing digitalcontent). The Foundation was registered inWashington as a non-profit organization and iscurrently managed by an Executive Committeewhich includes elected members of the Foundation.DOI system is processed as a formal standard bythe International Organization for Standardization(19).

4. Electronic booksAn electronic book (e-book, eBook, digital book, oreven: e-edition) is a book published in digital form,consisting of text, images, or both, and that isreadable by computers or different electronic devices(e-reader) like Amazon Kindle, Apple iPad, Nook,or Sony eBook Reader. This innovation is theproduct of the first order information revolutionof the late Twentieth and early Twenty-first Century.Form and manner of usage resembles the classicalbooks, but its text is not printed on paper, but indigital form written in the memory of computerequipment belonging to a networked world. Thisnew kind of books are usually ordered online anddelivered electronically into the memory of e-readeron customer order.Access to e-book is available via the Internet forwhose profile and functioning is particularlyinterested the Internet Society. It is a non-for-profitinternational professional organization with morethan 150 organizations and 16,000 individualmembers and it truly represents Whos who

of theinternational Internet community. Basic guidelines forwhich the organization is committed include thefollowing principles: standards, public policy,

http://www.dspace.org



education and training, and membership. It is activein the field of freedom of expression andcensorship, taxation, government policy towards theInternet and across the spectrum of intellectualproperty rights (20).On the path of a new application of digitaltechnology in publishing particularly illustrativeexample is the Guttenberg project, which waslaunched in 1992 by Michael Hart, representing theearliest publisher of electronic books freely availableon the internet. Implementation of the project iscarried out based on the efforts of many volunteers(21). On the other hand, ibiblio (22) claims to be acollection of all collections

in the Internet that is thedepository of freely available information includingsoftware, music, literature, linguistics, art, history,geography, biography, science, political science,cultural studies and the like. Google pack (23) providesthe ability to access online books that are in the publicdomain - that is not under copyright protection. Inthe case of the United States, usually it involvesbooks printed before the year 1923.With the numerous advantages of this form ofbooks, there are also some disadvantages whichinduce also resistance, because a fair number ofreaders of a new medium find it clumsier the e-reading compared with the classic books and eventhe quality of the screen to read text does notprovide the satisfaction that is actually obtained byflipping paper pages. However, a number ofpublishers in this field are growing and, currently,there are more and more companies dealingspecifically with the issue of the scientific literature(such as Elsevier, Springer, IOS Press, or JohnWilley).Collection and archiving of digital material througha system of compulsory copies (legal deposit) has been thesubject of legal regulation especially in the moredeveloped parts of the world because, when suchmaterials cannot be collected, a significant part ofthe national scientific, technical and artisticproduction would be lost. Collecting these items,however, delivers a range of complex problemsincluding a significant number relating to the status,integrity and durability of the recorded text, images,audio, and movies. Such publications appear in twobasic forms. The first is a static electronicpublication in the form of a CD-ROM that is

distributed as a separate unit and fixed and, generally,their manufacturers can no longer change the content.On the other hand, there are dynamic electronicpublications such as online databases and electronicjournals and books that are not distributed separatelyin form and substance, fixed units. In this case, thedistribution is done through a subscription or acontractual arrangement that allows access to themanufacturer or publisher at any time to change thecontents of its database for updating, adding ordeleting existing records. Keeping this in mind, thefollowing question arises: Should such a publicationstore copy the entire database at regular intervals or meetthe requirement for mandatory deposit copies (legal deposit)?What happens, for example, if the database update stops that is, the publisher ceases its activity and the like? .From the standpoint of the Council of Europe,electronic publishing is practically bridging thedifference between publication in the traditionalsense and archival materials as such. The publication:Electronic Publishing, Books and A rchives (Strasbourg,Council of Europe, 1999) contains an overview ofactivities with a focus on making connections andopportunities for cooperation in this field betweeninstitutions and organizations within member states.It points to joint work and cooperation with otherinternational professional organizations such as theIPA (International Publishers A ssociation), IFLA(International Federation of L ibrary A ssociations),EBLIDA (European Board for Libraries, Information,Documentation and A rchives A ssociation), and ICA(International Council of A rchives). Based on the rulesof this document, it is not difficult to conclude thatthe national libraries or other institutions areresponsible for preserving the memory of a society- ignoring the audiovisual and electronic publications,in fact, neglecting their responsibility to collect andpreserve the national heritage in the field ofinformation materials. As the time passes, this failurewill be difficult to catch up hence, there is an urgentobligation of libraries to establish an effective andprompt communication with the database creators,publishers, and storages of such materials anddevelop a strategy and effective practices ofcollecting, storing and facilitating the availability ofsuch materials.Electronic publishing has significant consequencesfor bibliographic work when processing this type

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of material. Hence, there was an emergence of theInternational Standard Bibliographic Description forElectronic Resources-ISBD (ER) (Munich, KG Saur,IFLA , UBCIM Publications, 1997), which of courseis available in electronic form. Other institutionsinclude the International A ssociation of Scientific, Technical+ Medical publishers - STM (24), the International Councilfor Scientific and Technical Information (International Councilfor Scientific and Technical information - ICST (25), theInternational Federation of publishers in the field of science(IFSP) and the International DOI Foundation, whoseDOI system provides support for identifyingcontent objects in the digital environment (26).However, information and technological innovationsthat have contributed to the revitalization ofpublishing in the modern world also sparked anumber of complex issues, not only on the technicalaspects of digitization, archiving and disseminationof this kind of material, but also on the legalregulation of issues of copyright protection. In hisbook Understanding Digital Library, the Americanauthor Michael Leske stated that Legal issues arisingout of intellectual property are the most serious problem facedby designers of digital libraries

(1).Implementation of the Google company libraryproject (27) put to the test many actors involved inthe creation and publication of a book, especiallyfrom the standpoint of copyright protection. As aresponse to this dilemma, several Companyrepresentatives have publicly expressed their opinionthat their ultimate goal is as follows: In cooperationwith publishers and libraries, to create a comprehensive,searchable, virtual catalog of all books in all languages thatwill help users discover new books and publishers new readers .In 2008, the Amazon has marketed a new productcalled the Kindle, which is even a more expandedhorizon of possibilities of reading digitized books,newspapers, blogs and similar. Basically, the Kindleis a compact electronic device that provides accessto content of about 115,000 books that areotherwise in paper format available to customersthrough Amazons sales network.In connection with the emergence of e-books, theinevitable question certainly involves the intellectualproperty rights, which touches upon two majorgroups of rights: the first consists of copyright andits related rights. It is basically a set of legal normsregulating relations in respect to the copyright of

products, which are legally protected intellectualcreations in the field of literature, science and art.The second group consists of industrial propertyrights that govern and protect intellectual creativityin the field of technology (2).The World Intellectual Property Organization - WIPO,based in Geneva, focuses its activities on promotingthe use and protection of works of the humanspirit. These works consist of intellectual properties,beyond the boundaries of science and technologyand enrich the world of art. Standards, recommen-dations and guidelines of the organization can befound at the following web address: www.wipo.int/Scite/ standrads/ standards.htm/ (28), whereasfurther information on the issue of copyright lawcan be found at: www.wipo.int/ copyright/ en/ (29).

5. Classification of recordedknowledgeSince knowledge outside the human brain is storedin organized manner in libraries, archives, galleries,museums and most recently in various digitaldepositories. Obviously, these diverse resourcesshould be organized with the help of a system ofclassification. Thus, in addition to the long-established institutions for storing the knowledge ofthe traditional type, there have been developeddifferent means of accessibility of their contentthrough databases to which people have onlineaccess (4). This approach can be free-of-charge andmay be conditional on the completion of previousclauses such as subscription, for example.Organizations that integrate these activities and makethem actually possible are commonly referred to asdigital libraries, whose activities are based on elementssuch as: terminology, structure and complexity, acommon function that is the one usually performedby traditional libraries.As a form of classification and structure in e.g.Bosnia and Herzegovina, in most libraries it is usedjust the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC), whichcovers the whole domain of human knowledge -the universe of information, or perhaps some partof it.

5.1. Classification of scientific research inFrascati guide

For the classification of scientific research, for more

http://www.wipo.int/

Scite/standrads/standards.htm/

http://www.wipo.int/copyright/en/



than four decades, it is used the Frascati Manual ofthe Organization for Economic Cooperation andDevelopment (OECD), based in Paris. Thisdocument established a general methodology forcollecting statistical data on research and deve-lopment. The first version of the manual, from1963, was created on the basis of agreed conclu-sions of the expert group of the OECD and theNESTI group of national experts on scientific andtechnological indicators, relying on the basicdocument prepared by Christopher Freeman. Thesixth edition of the manual was published in Parisin 2002 (1).

5.2. Information resources in the digitalenvironment

To accomplish their scientific goals, scientists andresearchers today, including applied researches thatalso need laboratories, there are essential informationresources whose convergence point is no longer justa library, because this type of work can beperformed at home or from the office. Intellectualresources used by researchers in the information anddocumentation process consist of units that makethe media, the data on these media and the meaningattributed to these units (1,4).These resources are usually divided into primary,secondary and tertiary resources. Primary infor-mation includes direct (original) research results ofscientific work, i.e. new knowledge and newinterpretations of familiar ideas and facts. Theycomprise also artistic (literary, musical, artistic) works,the scientific method, the value-based interpretationand evaluation.The documents with the primary informationinclude: articles in journals, doctoral dissertations,master s theses and other papers of a similar kind,patent documents, technical reports, paperspresented at scientific and professional meetings,works of art, photographs, movies, musicalperformances of various kinds, museum objects,autobiographies, letters, correspondences, conver-sations and interviews, original news, officialpublications, archives, and so on. Secondaryinformation consists of resources that providecontent description and/ or location of informationsources (2,3). They can appoint brief informationaltools for finding relevant information. Scientifically

relevant information is a set of data that havepassed, based on the scientific method, practicalauthentication of the offered facts. In anenvironment in which the availability of the resultsof scientific and technical research by differentthematic profiles is more global and less local,members of the academic community areincreasingly accepting the necessity for a selectiveapproach in the selection of different types ofinformation sources, which can bypass the need todetermine their relevance to the theme that wouldultimately allow the growth process of knowledgewithout which social progress is hardly achievable.Experts of the Library of the University of Illinoishave prepared a series of instructions for their userson how to critically evaluate their sources. In thesehypothetical questions there are provided adequatedetails as follows (5):· What is the scientific source?Scientific sources (also known as academic orreviewed sources) are written by authors/ experts ina specific field of science and serve to other usersinterested in a specific area providing the mostupdated knowledge, discoveries and news on aparticular scientific area.· What is a review?When the source is reviewed it means that it is beingexamined by a group of experts (usually two) of agiven field of knowledge to give their professionalopinion and suggest possible corrections before themanuscript is submitted for publication in the journalor proposed for presentation in a scientificconference (7).The question How do I know whether the source is of ascientific nature?

seeks to clarify the following facts:· Authorship: Involves the list of authors, whetherthe authors references are clearly displayed andwhether they are relevant to the topic in question.· Publishers: Concerns the publisher of information,whether it is an academic institution or a publisher,scientific or professional association, and the purposeof the publication.· Content: What is the reason for dissemination ofthe information and hence publication of the articleat hand? Does it have quoted sources? Does thequoted sources include reliable resources in a givensubject area? Are there (in the case of naturalsciences, or technology) maps, charts, tables or

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bibliographic entries? Are the authors claimssupported by the evidence? Are the conclusionsbased on the presented evidence, and the scopeoffered by the information source?· Timeliness and freshness of the information: Is the dateof publication clearly indicated? Is the reliability ofthe offered data and information crucial to theinvestigation in question? (1).On the other hand, the Modern Language A ssociation,headquartered in New York, in its instructions forevaluation of the contributions on the topic ofdigital humanities and digital media puts emphasison the following: Digital media is transforming literacy,science, education and services, while also opening up newavenues for research and communication and creating somethingthat can be called networked academic community. Today,information technology is an integral part of the intellectualenvironment for a significant number of trainers in the fieldof humanities, but for those who are directly taking part inthe implementation and development of new media. This createsnew challenges and opens the door to new possibilities. Digitalmedia have expanded and forms and ways to document thecontents of humanities and thus includes images, audio,statistics, kinetic attributes as animation and many other formsof preservation and presentation of content that is collectivelycalled multimedia .

6. Terminology standardsIn the area of terminology, there are two types ofstandards: technical standards and terminologystandards. The technical standards are also knownas specification and terminology standards in thestrictest sense. Technical standards define thecharacteristics of agreed specification forterminological products, services, processes, orsystems. Unlike these, the terminology standards aswell as standards for the measurement areconsidered to be fundamental norms. They specifya common set of vocabulary that will be used in aparticular standard, or a related group of standards (5).

6.1. Thesauruses

Thesaurus is commonly defined as a vocabulary thatincludes systematically distributed approved terms(controlled vocabulary) of a subject area, or ascientific discipline in the treasury of humanknowledge or experience. This list of terms is veryuseful for indexing and search procedures in

information sources. Thesauruses are now oftenused online and CD-ROM databases search,therefore, in the activities of access to knowledge.They are used most often for a specific subject area,for example, in education, social sciences, and thelike (4).

6.2. Indexes

The definition of indexes by the Society of Indexers(30) corresponds to the description published by theBritish Standards Institute stating the following: Theindex is a systematic arrangement of entries made availableto help the user find the information in the document (BritishStandard, ISO 99: 1996). This document can be abook, a copy of a journal, newspapers, video, film,computer disk, or any other source of information.In the area of natural sciences and medicine, apopular example includes the Index Medicus, probablythe best known and most comprehensive index ofmedicine in the world. A similar thematic orientationhas the Excerpta Medica, or the Index to DentalLiterature and International Nursing and they make acollective database known as MEDLINE whichcontains more than 5000 indexed and abstractedjournals. A comprehensive description ofapproximately 20 online biomedical databases hasbeen already provided by Izet Masic and waspublished in the journal: A cta Informatica Medica (1).

6.3. Abstracts

Formally, the abstract is generally a summary of thepaper in a scientific journal or other periodicalpublications and is placed at the beginning or at theend of the text. This summary is usually withoutvaluable judgment, interpretation or criticism andmay also contain bibliographic references that referto the original document. Abstracts which can bedescriptive or informative, otherwise, help the reader(before reading the entire article) to decide whetherit is useful or not, and allows it to become familiarwith the key elements of the text without going intotoo much detail. Abstract collections can be usedto search and select the source for the preparationof professional or scientific research (1).Introductory remarks, whose title is usually a prefacewhich precedes the main body of the document,mainly help users to get acquainted about the origins,purpose and use of the part contained in the



document, as well as facts on the recognition byothers who have helped the author. This part of thedocument can be written by someone other thanthe author. Introduction has a similar purpose, exceptthat it takes place in a concise way more concernedwith the content of the work itself, but thecircumstances under which it was composed. Accessto materials is possible, depending on the interestsof users also through a list of illustrations, tables,maps and other illustrative materials with theindicator of the material on which the document islocated. A list of these materials usually comes afterthe main text in the form of a table of contents .Access to a specific part of the document can beobtained through key words or key phrases, which isnow a common practice thanks to computertechnology. This type of approach is possible, ofcourse, in the case of texts which are stored in theInternet in digital form.

6.4. Methodology for the preparation, writing andpublishing of scientific papers

There are opinions that the fluent expression andwriting in general creates a natural talent and thatliteracy as such cannot be learned, as there are peoplewho believe that literacy is a matter of respect forthe rules of grammar. However, in addition tonatural talent and knowledge of spelling rules, fora good literacy it is also essential to master a line ofpatience and hard work in order to develop a senseof meticulousness. It involves the art in the first placeof thinking clearly and logically and the ability toexperience and materialize this kind of intellectualityinto a proper written form. The writing should beintrinsically easy for a good author. Autonomy increating sentences and construction of own abilityis one of the prerequisites of good literacy. Abilityto correctly read and thorough understanding ofreading, especially reading of well-known authors,regardless of the time in which they have published,is precious to enrich ones own written expression.Existing examples of scientific writing should befollowed and researchers should record their ownmental development through tracking every thoughtthat is considered even remotely creative and highlyinnovative (4).Results of reports and essay writing usually consistof a description, a form of written composition

that can occur even in elementary school, so theyshould be differentiated from the literary and artisticworks. For this kind of written work, it is importantto note the characteristics and details that are essentialbuilding blocks of every description. Narration orstorytelling is also one of the common themes ineducational institutions where writing is particularlyimportant to emphasize, in addition to thechronological display of events and the vitality ofthe story while the narrative literature papersrepresent only one aspect of artistic creation of thecontent.It should be distinguished the presentation of awork, or activities of a person, a description of anevent, or a representation of a set of reports aboutit, display of some social phenomena, or emotionalexpression or discussion of a particular topic.Discussion is the most common form of writtencomposition. It is generally subordinated to allknowledge, logical reasoning and rational distributionof the content in question. Essay is a written formof creative expression usually in a discourse thatoften goes beyond purely scientific types and inmany ways there are artistic and literary approachesto the creation emphasized by a subjective positionon a given topic. Subject of interest of essayists maybe a current issue of spiritual or cultural life in whichthe author points out emphatically a personalposition on a particular issue that may be of broadersocial significance.The earliest stage of research in an academic setting,however, usually starts by creating not toodemanding seminar work (essay) in high school, orat the beginning of university studies.Seminar paper, presents a sort of didactic resourceson the basis of which students must demonstratethat they have mastered the technique of applyingthe basics of research methodology, the proper useof resources, a solid implementation of the rulesof spelling and grammar, logical reasoning skills,analytical ability to read written sources and writingtext on a given topic.Research papers that are written during undergraduatestudies are certainly more demanding than theprevious ones and as such should show a highdegree of skill to master the basics of expressionand professional research methodology. After all, itis the individual author who is being prepared for

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scientific and professional work.Graduate paper at the end of undergraduate studies,as a rule, defended in front of a commission andrepresents something more complex anddemanding creation in which the final version shouldmeet both formally and substantively demands ofthe candidates the author of such work set byits educational institutions.Specialist and master thesis are prepared and defendedby a special procedure, which is prescribed by thestatute of the university at which the studentbecomes a candidate. The aim of developing suchwork is to show that the candidate is qualified forscientific research in a particular scientific field andis able to contribute for solving a set of researchtasks whether by presenting completely new facts,any newer higher quality presentation of familiarnames in science before this present knowledge.Doctoral dissertation, which is approved and defendedby the prescribed complex procedure, as a rule needto be independent and original scientific work,which should represent a contribution to theattained level of solving certain scientific questionsin a specific scientific field and the rigorousapplication of scientific methodology.

7. Steps for preparation andpublication of the scientific researchresultsIn order for a man to devote himself to science andresearch, it is necessary to have the followingqualities: intelligence, skill of analysis and synthesis,the power of observation, perseverance, creativity,ethics and responsibility (2). After the selection of aresearch topic, choosing a mentor, associates andconducting the research, it follows the writing ofthe articles. The concept of scientific research is basedon the division into specific sections. Each articleshould contain the title, abstract, introduction,materials and methods, results, discussion, conclusionand the list of references (2-5).Title: Title should be as short as possible, as well asconcise as possible in describing the content. One cansay that the title is a summary of an abstract (2).Abstract: Is a summary of the work and is placedat the beginning of the text. This summary is usuallywithout judgment, interpretation or criticism, whileit may also contain bibliographic references that refer

to the original document. The abstract can bedescriptive or informative, otherwise, it helps thereader before reading the entire article to decidewhether it is valuable to him/her or not. In addition,the abstract allows the reader to become familiarwith the key elements of the text without going intotoo much detail.Introduction: The introduction should provideinformation that will help the reader to understandthe methods and results of the research. Theintroductory section should contain a definition anda formulation of the problem being investigated.In experimental and clinical research it is necessaryto specify the goal(s) of the research and hypotheses(assumptions) which are included in the study. Thereare a few rules to comply in writing the introduction:a) Clearly describe the problem for which theresearch should give an answer; b) Indicate whysomething is investigated; c) Avoid stating facts fromstandard textbooks; and d) Do not clarify the titleof the publication.

Material/ Subjects and Methods: In thedescription of the methods used in the researchwork, the study design employed should beemphasized in the first place. It is necessary todescribe the main features of the study, describe thetested sample, standard values for the tests, andso on. In this section, it is necessary to explicitlyspecify the parameters that are evaluated andcontrolled during the study. This part should containcomplete description of the statistical methods used.Results: The section in which are presented theresults of research begins with a description of thetested population and clearly identifies the size ofthe sample and its demographic characteristics. Theresults obtained by statistical analysis should bepresented in tables and/ or charts. When presentingthe results it is necessary to mark the interval of itsdeviation and their levels of statistical significance.In a comparative study the interval of deviationmust relate to the differences between the groups.Discussion and Conclusion: The discussion is themost important part of the article and it begins bysummarizing the key findings obtained during thestudy. Promoted are the most important results andcompared with those obtained in previouslyconducted studies. If they are significantly different,



it is necessary to give a possible explanation for thesedifferences. Finally, the discussion should provideconfirmation of reaching required objectives (goals)and confirm or reject the hypotheses. In theconclusion, there should be presented the mostimportant facts that were obtained during theresearch.References: In scientific circles, references presentinformation that is necessary for the readers toidentify and find out the sources employed. Thebasic rule when listing the sources used is thatreferences must be accurate, complete and shouldbe consistently applied. On the other hand, citationimplies an exact written or verbal reference to partsof the text or words of others that can be checkedin the original source.

7.1. Using scientific information sources andcitation of the scientific literature

An organized list of sources cited at the end ofjournal articles or book chapters plays an importantrole, not only to be acknowledged as a debt tothe sources the author used, but it also provides anopportunity for anyone who is interested to verifythe methods and the relevance of the sources towhich the author referred to. Also, from the quotedmaterial, without great difficulty, it can bedetermined by the subject of the author s researchinterests, as well as how factually substantiate theirviews are. Bibliographical list contains all the sourcesthat are individually cited in the text. The list can bearranged in alphabetical order by the authors. Ifthere are more papers from one author, it is in thelist chronologically arranged: from the earliest to thelatest. The first element in the list of bibliographicreferences is the author s last name, followed by thename or initial of the first name. When there is morethan one author, their names are listed in the orderin which they appear in the source and are separatedby a coma (2,3,5).Regarding the citation of references from publishedarticles in the biomedical journals, authors usually useVancouver style, PubMed style, Harvard style, andso on.The Harvard method of quoting sources(www.makecitation.com) is used especially in exactsciences, such as the case with natural-mathematical,technical sciences and in some social science

disciplines (information science, education, education,demography, political science, sociology, oreconomics) (1).The method of citation, therefore, implies thatwhenever an author is cited in the main part of thepaper, essays, reports and publications, in general,the author must be mentioned stating: last name andyear of publication in a closed parenthesis, and thisis followed by a reference to complete descriptionof the elements appearing in the alphabetical list ofsources at the end of the text. In the case of citinga specific piece of text after the tag name of theauthor and date of publication should include thepage, chapter, table, etc.The purpose of the list of references is to enablereaders to easily locate and track the source that theauthors relied on for their work. Different types ofresources require different volumes of information,but it can be said that there are some commonelements to all of them including: author, title, placeof publication, year of publication, publisher, andpossibly extended. All units of this list should becited in the alphabetical order by the author orauthorship, regardless of the format in which theyoccur (books, articles in magazines, Web sites, or e-mails). In the event that there are more papers byone author it is needed to cite them chronologically,with the first originally published article in the firstplace.Citing references can be conducted in two ways (1):· In the text when is given a brief description ofthe information source;· At the end of the document where are provideddetailed bibliography information for each source.References are often cited according to theVancouver nomenclature or alternatively the so-called ICMJE style (International Committee ofMedical Journal Editors). In the literature review,there should be used only those references that aredirectly related to the topic of the current study.Publication of the article: At the end, the articleshould be prepared for its publication, and there arenumerous reasons why researchers should publishtheir work. Some of them include the following (1):· The possibility of conducting scientific dialogue;· Receiving critical review;· Showing respect for the participants and partners;· Facilitation of future research;· Personal satisfaction.

http://www.makecitation.com

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7.2. Scientific assessment of published articles inbiomedical journals

Measuring the scientific validity and relevance ofarticles is made by appropriate scientific methods.This is an area of a scientific discipline - sciento-metrics. Scientometrics is a part of scientology (thescience of science) that analyzes scientific papers andtheir citation in the selected sample of scientificjournals (5). The name bibliometrics was introducedduring the 1970s to denote a quantitative study ofthe communication process using mathematical andstatistical methods for books and other media ofcommunication. Almost simultaneously, in theformer communist countries in Europe, the namescientometrics was derived from the Russian word.More specifically, in 1969 it was introduced the namescientometrics relating to a scientific field that dealswith the study of science as an information processby applying quantitative (statistical) methods. Lateron, in 1977, Tibor Braun established an internationaljournal namely Scientometrics, introducing thus thename scientometrics (6).Some of the indicators used in the evaluation ofthe scientific research include the following:· Impact factor;· Number of article citations;· Number of journal citations;· The number and order of the authors.Impact Factor is the number of citations of articlespublished in a given journal during the previous twoyears divided by the total number of articlespublished in that journal during the same period.The impact factor depends on: the quality of thejournal, the language in which the journal ispublished, the area it covers, the magazinedistribution system, and so on (1,5).Scientometrics is the science of measuring andanalyzing science. In practice, scientometrics oftenuses bibliometric methods to measure the impactof scientific publications. Modern scientometrics islargely based on the work of Derek J. de Solla, Price

and Eugene Garfield. Garfield founded the ISI -Institute for Scientific Information and is considered tobe the father of scientometrics and methods forevaluation of scientific publications. Researchmethods of publication s scientific importanceinclude qualitative and quantitative methods, as wellas computer analysis (5,6).Trying to establish a mathematical representation,Garfield developed a number of factors that allowthe assessment of the value and importance of thescientific publications, among which the most factorsinclude the Impact Factor (IF) and the H-index.The Impact Factor (IF) of an academic journal is ameasure that reflects the average number of citationsof articles published in the journal. For a given year,the Impact Factor (IF) of a journal is the averagenumber of citations per article published in thatjournal during the previous two years. For example,if a journal had an IF=3 in 2008, then the papersthat were published in 2006 and 2007 were citedon average three times in 2008.In general, the IF for the year 2008 of a givenjournal would be calculated as follows: A/ B, wherethe letter A represents the number of cited articlespublished in 2006 and 2007 in the journal during2008, while letter B is the total number of articlespublished in the journal in 2006 and 2007 (thus, IFfor 2008 is: A/ B). The impact factor is used tocompare different journals within a certain field.H-index is an index that attempts to measure theproductivity and impact of published scientificarticles. The index is based on the most cited articlesand the number of citations that the articles receivedin other publications. This index can also be appliedto the productivity and impact of a group ofscientists, such as a department or a faculty, as wellas to a scientific journal. As a useful tool fordetermining the relative quality, the H-index wasproposed by Jorge E. Hirsch, a physicist at theUCSD (7).



Table 1. Review of biomedical journals in Bosnia and Herzegovina ranked by the h-index values

From Table 1 it is clear that the h-index of the oldestbiomedical journal namely Medical Archives(Medicinski A rhiv) is significantly higher (with an H-index of 10), which means that scientists who havepublished in this journal 10 papers have, on average,at least 10 citations for each article in other journals.Citation provides guidance for scientific workbecause it encourages scientists to deal with the mostcurrent research areas. So actually terror fromscientometrics indicators is organizing scientificwork at the global level, it shapes and directs it (7).The citation is impacted by: quality of the articles,understanding of the articles, the language in whichthe work was written, the loyalty of a group ofresearchers, type of work, the benefit in terms ofI quote you, and you quote me , benefit in terms

of I will not quote it because he/ she is mycompetitor , and the like. Most of the scientificarticles are cited by inertia , because every scientisthas a collection of articles cited whenever he/ shewrites about a certain topic. Other articles arequoted so the researcher gains citations, othersbecause of reviewers or editors requests. Only asmall portion, perhaps only every fifth or tenthpaper, is cited properly. This includes those articleswhose data the author uses directly and/ or thosearticles the author directly relates to in his/her article.All persons listed as authors of the article must meetthe following criteria: they should have significantlycontributed to the planning and preparation of thearticle or the analysis and interpretation of resultsand participated in writing and editing of the article,

and that they agree with the final version of the text.Persons who are involved in data collection or otherfield work duties, but are not actively involved inthe development of the article, cannot be listed asauthors. The editor has the right to ask the authorto explain the contribution of each author listed.The contribution of one author is 1 and if thework was written by several authors ( n ) theircontribution is: 1/ n. In doing so, the contributionof each of the following authors is half in size ofthe previous one. Sequence is determined by theauthor s agreement.

7.3. The role of the International Committee of theBiomedical Journal Editors

The International Committee of the BiomedicalJournal Editors has developed detailed guidelines forthe preparation of articles in biomedical journals andrelated disciplines. How was this reached? A smallgroup of editors of general medical journals metin Vancouver, Canada, in 1978, with the aim ofestablishing guidelines for publications in biomedicaljournals. This group subsequently became known asthe Vancouver group . Their recommendations formanuscripts submission related to bibliographiccitation which was published in 1979 by the NationalLibrary of Medicine in Bethesda, USA. With time,the Vancouver group expanded and evolved intothe International Committee of Medical Journal Editors(ICMJE) (11), which meets once a year and, in themeantime, the domain of its interests has expanded.Thanks to the work of this committee, there have

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been established clear instructions referred to as Theuniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedicaljournals . This document has been revised severaltimes and has been recommended to be used in thepublished version starting from the year 1997. Theseinstructions may be reproduced and used for non-for-profit educational purposes. Furthermore, thecommittee encourages potential users to distributethese instructions widely.The group of publishers who met in Vancouver in1978 decided to create uniform technical propo-sitions for publications. These were adopted in 1979by the National Library of Medicine and subse-quently by the SCMJE which, starting from 1982,performs audits with the official application inapproximately 300 international journals.Articles for publication in biomedical journalsinvolve predominantly the following citation styles:Spruce, PubMed style, ICMJE, Web style, APA style,and so on. In this article we provide examples ofall of these styles of citing in order to facilitate theirproper use. Also, in this article, as a form of review,it is presented the problem of plagiarism, which isbecoming more common in the writing of scientificand professional articles in biomedicine.There are several systems of citation and referencingand the most commonly used systems include theauthor-date (such as the Harvard system, or APA)

and numerical systems (such as CSA, IEEE,Vancouver, and a few other systems). Often, thepreferred system of citation and referencingdepends on the scientific discipline in which theauthor writes. Thus, the way of referencing in apaper in mathematics differs from a biomedicalarticle. Also, the authors are sometimes faced torespect pre-set requirements for citing sources fromthe institutions, journals and book publishers (1,4).For example, there are different requirements ofhigher education institutions in terms of referencesin the master thesis from the publisher demands (e.g.a journal) that are indexed in the internationaldatabases (e.g., Web of Knowledge, PubMed, orScopus). Each of the systems implies precisely adefined set of rules for citation of sources in thetext of scientific or professional articles and theirway of quotation. The goal is to ensure that in thetext it can be recognized what belongs to the author

and what is taken from other authors/sources. Onceadopted a certain style of quotation, it must beapplied consistently throughout the text of thearticle.

7.4. Citation of references in scientificpublications: Harvard system of citation

The Harvard system of references represents themost common way of quoting in the natural andsocial sciences. This system is often referred to asthe author-date system. In the same category reliesthe APA system of references which differs fromthe Harvard system basically in the use ofpunctuations and conjunctions. A characteristic ofthe Harvard system is to specify only the basicinformation in the text (author s name, and year ofpublication), while the complete data of the articlecited are listed at the end of the text in the referencelist. In medical sciences, it is common to found inthe literature only pieces of work that are directlyused (cited) in the text. Authors may read andscrutinize many more articles, however, these sourcesare not cited in the literature unless they are directlyused. Robert Harris has designed simplifieddiagrams to indicate what needs to be cited (Harris,2001, quoted by Central Queensland University,2007).

Citing references in the textAuthors in preparation for creating specific researchworks, face with different kinds of secondary data.For example, the publication can be written by oneor by a number of authors, but also that the authorsare not listed anywhere but only organization thathas published the article. Bearing this in mind, inciting sources, publications are marked differently inthe text. During the writing, authors may refer todifferent sources. The section below providesexamples of proper citations.Citing references in the text is presented on theexample of abstract available at webpagewww.scopemed.org (Figure 1).Masic I, Milinovic K. On-line Biomedical Data-bases the Best Source for Quick Search of theScientific Information in the Biomedicine. ActaInform Med. (2012), [cited January 25, 2013]; 20(2):72-84. doi:10.5455/aim.2012.20.72-84.

http://www.scopemed.org



Figure 1. On-line Biomedical Databases - the Best Source for Quick Search of the Scientific Information in Biomedicineat the SCOPEMED (www.scopemed.org)

When we want to quote scientific articles in our text (biomedical disciplines), there are several recognized ways toquote the text.In SCOPEMED, there is specified a manner in which we will quote this text, in all styles, as presented in Figure 2:

Figure 2. Examples for citation of articles in biomedical journals

http://www.scopemed.org

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AMA (American Medical Association) Style Masic I, Milinovic K. On-line Biomedical Databases the Best Source for Quick Search of the Scientific Information in the Biomedicine. Acta Inform Med. 2012; 20(2): 72-84. doi:10.5455/aim.2012.20.72-84

AMA citation rules are presented in Box 4:

Box 4. The AMA Style citation rules

Characteristics of citations by applying Web Style manner are presented in Box 5:

Authors: The initials of the first and second name should be used, include up to five co-authors. If thereare more than six authors, the names of the first three authors should be stated followed by et al .Characteristics of citations by applying the AMA (American Medical Association) Style are presented inBox 3:

Citation employing PubMed Style is presented in Box 1:

Masic I, Milinovic K. On-line Biomedical Databases the Best Source for Quick Search of the Scientific Information in the Biomedicine. Acta Inform Med. 2012; 20(2): 72-84. doi:10.5455/aim.2012.20.72-84

National Library of Medicine (NLM) uses the ANSI/NISO Z39.29-2005 (R2010) Bibliographic Referencesstandard as the basic format of Pubmed/ MEDLINE citation.The last item in the above quotation is the unique identification number in the PubMed database and thestatus of citations indexed in MEDLINE.In November 2008, the NLM changed the way of quotation so that the first to be cited is the author andthen the title of the work.Characteristics of citations by applying the Vancouver/ ICMJE Style (the most common citation in articlespublished in biomedical journals) are presented in Box 2:

Vancouver/ICMJE Style Masic I, Milinovic K. On-line Biomedical Databases the Best Source for Quick Search of the Scientific Information in the Biomedicine. Acta Inform Med. (2012), [cited January 27, 2013]; 20(2): 72-84. doi:10.5455/aim.2012.20.72-84

Box 1. The PubMed Style citation rules

Box 2. The Vancouver/ ICMJE Style citation rules

Box 3. The AMA/American Medical Association Style citation rules



It differs from the other systems in that, after thebasic information about the author, the articlecontains the web address. It is usually used in onlineportals, or different websites.Basic bibliographic elements are: author/ s, title,journal title, numerical data on the journal, city,publisher, year of publication. Data on the quotedunit (reference), in the text should appear twice: firstin the text, and subsequently in the list of references.References in the text are labeled by Arabic numeralsstarting with number 1 and a list of references issorted by the order as they appear in the text.Certain types of data are separated by the originalpunctuation symbols which are in standard referencesstructure accented with red. From this structure weare using bibliographic elements which occur indescribed publication, and skip all the others. Whenskipping some elements of the bibliographicdescription there are not used any precedingpunctuation symbols.For example, if the publication has no subtitle,semicolons preceding the subtitle of the articleshould not be used; instead, a full stop should beemployed indicating the end of each group of data.

7.5. PlagiarismA particularly important problem in publishing andgenerally in scientific research is plagiarizing of othersideas, articles, or research work. Plagiarism (formLatin: plagium - kidnapping) is copying from othersworks and illegal taking of spiritual ownership (3).Plagiarism (from Latin: Plagiarius - a thief, akidnapper) is an illegal use of spiritual ownership,or any use of other people s ideas, opinions ortheories, either literally or paraphrased, when theauthor or the source of information is not citedand listed.Such a copy-paste act constitutes theft ofauthorship, which is completely unacceptable inscientific, professional and student works.

In the wider academic community, plagiarism is aserious breach of ethical standards and impliesaccountability with a disciplinary sanction.The biggest problem that the participants in theacademic process meet is plagiarism. This is one ofthe most common ways of compromising theacademic integrity of the author and cause ofconstant conflict in the students teacher relationship.Copy, use or other exploitation of other people sideas, words, or creations, without quoting sourcesin the appropriate form is strictly forbidden. It isnot enough to change a few words in a phrase fromthe source material into own words . Changing theorder of words in a sentence is also not acceptable,as well as the use of synonyms, such as e.g. thechange from air to atmosphere .When writing papers, it is possible to use otherpeople s words and ideas, but with mandatorylabeling and listing the sources from which thesewords and ideas are taken. People who read thearticle can easily recognize the very sentences writtenas original work which are actually taken fromdifferent parts of articles from other authors. Thereferences, as an essential part of any scientific andtechnical article, contribute to the quality and thesources and thus the depth of information on thesubject to which the article is dedicated. The processof preparation of each article should start byconsulting existing sources, possible research andthen writing the article by giving its own personalsignature.

8. The process of article reviewPublication of the results of scientific research is akey phase of scientific activity, and the standard wayfor this is by publishing a book or an article inrenowned scientific journals, either domestic orforeign periodicals. Of course, it is preceded by theevaluation and review of such contributions,

Box 5. The Web Style citation rules

Web Style Masic I, Milinovic K. On-line Biomedical Databases the Best Source for Quick Search of the Scientific Information in the Biomedicine. www.scopemed.org/?mno=20169 [Access: January 25, 2013]. doi:10.5455/aim.2012.20.72-84

http://www.scopemed.org/?mno=20169

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regardless of the topic area to which it applies.Review means that the manuscript or a research proposal is

read and evaluated by experts in a certain period of time,subject area, language and a document that deals with theauthor. A s prominent experts in the field of knowledge thatdeals with the author, reviewers are preparing an analysisfor the committee of experts on the scientific significance ofinstitutions articles in question: Does the author demonstratesknowledge of current developments in the area? A re theresearch procedure, processes and methodologies, for example,in accordance with professional standards? Does the authoroffers an original argument and provides valid facts to supporttheir work? If certain statements are weak or absent in thepresented contribution, the reviewers suggest the revision thatwill correct the article offered and ask it again for reviewbefore approval of financing a project or to be accepted forpublication (1,4).Reviews are used in many professional areas, suchas academic and scientific research, in medicine,engineering, law, and so on. In other cases, it isparticularly relevant to government institutions whenselecting projects to be financed by public funds.

9. Evaluation and impact of articles inscientific publicationsEvaluation of the quality and relevance of thepapers after they are accepted and published inscientific publications, which should be the result ofserious scientific research activities, relies mainly onthe reception by individual experiences - first roundby an identical professional direction and then in thewider plan within reference publications in whichsuch work is shown, quoted, criticized, or praised.In the circles of members of the academiccommunity involved around use, collaborate andedit the scientific and technical publications, there arefrequently encountered such terms as indexing,referencing, or citing. According to Tibor Toth,which wrote in an article published on the pages ofOpen Encyclopedia of Information: Indexing is aterm that is derived from the concept of indexing publicationssuch as Index Medicus, Science Citation Index, and CurrentContents, as has been customary, for example, for theChemical A bstracts or Biological A bstracts called abstractjournals, not indexed publications. These are, in fact, alongthe secondary referral or periodicals, or, more recently, thebibliographic database . Thus, according to Toth, thenotion of reference should be more correctly referred

to as indexing. It points to the fact that somesecondary information services (Abstracting andIndexing Services) are selected, edited and rankedby bibliographic recording in escalator conceptsand/ or summaries of the referral publication, orbibliographic databases.Evaluation of the scientific performance of eachscholar, and thus indirectly determining thereputation in the scientific community of the authors- associates of these publications, especially journals,as previously reviewed in this paper, is done throughthe so-called Impact Factor and the H-index.Currently, journal impact factors are extracted fromthe publication: Journal Citation Reports (JCR), whichis produced by the publisher Thomson Reuters.

10. Selective databases distributed onthe basis of Frascati manual

10.1. Databases

The answer to the question of what a database isand its relevance to the scientific research is not easyto address. We may not be wrong if we say that itis, basically, a kind of information resource, oftenincomparably richer than it is, for example, a singlebook or magazine (1).It is a form of storing and retrieval of theknowledge, appearing in the information age, whichwe have just participated and witnessed. Thanks tothe technical possibilities of information networks,databases can be searched for a number of moreor less relevant information, and scientific andprofound contents.The contents of the databases typically include suchbasic information as authorship, title of the article,place of publication, year of publication and,possibly, the volume of content. When it comes tothe type of stored records, most of them relate toarticles published in the journals. However, in asignificant number of cases, there are also recordsrelating to the announcements of scientific meetingspublished in proceedings, as well as other types ofpublications such as books, master s theses, doctoraldissertations, technical reports, patents, and, morerecently, audio and video records.The creation of databases involves several types ofprofessionals. Among them are librarians, computerspecialists and indexers. Users of the information



sources search on topics that are the subject of theirresearch and academic interest.

According to their structure and content, databasescan be divided into the following categories (4):- Bibliographic databases;- Citation databases, and;- Databases containing full-text.

10.1.1. Bibliographic databases

Bibliographic databases usually contain bibliographicrecords proficiently prepared with the structure ofthe description consisting of the following elements:authorship, title of the article, source, summary, yearof publication, publisher, publication type andinformation about the original language in which thepaper was written. These databases differ,particularly in terms of volume of data that presentthemselves and can contain abstract and index termsas keywords or descriptors. Their topics may includescientific, or commercial resources, as well as dailynews. They are usually used to search and locaterelevant sources of information and provide apathway to the original documents referenced in thedatabase. Currently, there is a growing phenomenonof the records in these databases associated withrecords in other databases, especially full versionsthat are located somewhere else on the World WideWeb. In addition, such databases may containelectronic addresses of the authors, web-page ofthe documents, the holder of the copyright, and thelike. These databases are, in short, used to getacquainted with the scope and level of researchliterature in a particular scientific field.

10.1.2. Citation databases

Unlike bibliographic databases, with which they arein close affinity, citation databases process alsoreferences and citations that the authors present atthe end of the articles. Citation databases, importantto mention, offer an answer to the question: Whichare the most cited papers and how relevant are they within aparticular scientific field? . Thus, they play a special rolein the citation indexing options, with is the mostrecently quoted from some platforms such asScopus, for example, which could result in self-quotation. This platform is normally used to gaininsight into the relevance of a work within a

particular scientific field.

10.1.3. Full-text databases

After bibliographic searches and insight into theextent of the scientific literature from each area ofinterest of a certain scholar, experts may want toaccess databases containing full-text articles. Mostoften this term refers to the complete recordingsof a scientific paper that was published in the formof a journal, book, or proceedings of asymposium. Complete record is usually offered ina truly convenient HTML format (which can bedisplayed in a Web browser such as InternetExplorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, etc., or a PDFformat using Acrobat Reader). This resource is usedto get familiar with the research work within aparticular scientific field.

11. Instruments to access recordedcontentThanks to the digital resources available throughaccess to databases and Internet dissemination ofinformation, including those of a scientific nature,it is much easier and the methodology of access toknowledge has acquired new forms and contents.For a wise search and use of resources in theInternet, there are different types of subjectdirectories (such as About.com, Dmoz.org,Google Directory, Yahoo Directory, Infomine,Librarian s Internet Index, ipl.org, Academicinfo,Bubl.com, and so on).To this type of instruments, there should be addedsearching engines such as Scirus, Scitopia, GoogleScholar, The Internet Archive, Science Research.com,WorldWideScience, Scitation, TechXtra, Yippi. As formetacrawlers, there should be mentioned thefollowing: www.metacrawler.com, Dogpile,Mamma, and the like.Back in 1967, Eugene Garfield s drew attentionabout the fact that the majority of scientific paperspublished in the world see their public promotionin the English language. In some areas, more than50% of professional papers are published in theEnglish language, as a means of lingua franca of theglobal academic community (1). Besides this,languages of small nations remain an importantmedium for the preservation of the collectivememory and the papers in such languages, in the tide

http://www.metacrawler.com

105



References

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Information in Biomedicine. Acta Inform Med. 2012;20(2): 72-84. doi: 10.5455/ aim.2012.20.72-84.

5. Masic I. Ethical Aspects and Dilemmas of Preparing,Writing and Publishing of the Scient ific Papers inthe Biomedical Journals. Acta Inform Med. 2012Sep; 20(3): 141-147. doi: 10.5455/ aim.2012.20.141-147.

6. G asparyan YA, Ayvazyan L, Kitas D G. Biomedicaljournal edit ing: element s of success. CMJ. 2011;52: 423-428. doi: 103325/ cmj.2011.52.423.

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8. Lusher FT. The codex of science: honesty, precisionand truth - and its violations. European heart journal.2013; 34: 1018-1023. doi: 10.1093/ eurheartj/ eht063.

9. World Associat ion of Medical E dito rs. WAMErecommendat ions on Publicat ion E th ics andPolicies for Medical Journals. Availab le: h t tp :/ /www.wame.o r g/ r eso ur ces / et h ics- r eso urces.

10. Committee O n Publication E thics. CO PE. Code ofConduct and Best Pract ice G uidelines for Journal

of history, contribute to the preservation of nationalidentities. Unfortunately, a number of languages,preserved in communication between members ofsmall ethnic groups in some areas of Asia, Africaand South America are sentenced to death (2).On the other hand, increasing specialization indifferent segments of the scientific research and,consequently, intensive development of technologywith international communications, were one of themain reasons that the global exchange of goods andknowledge and language as the medium starts tohave more attention. This especially applies to thefact that intensive international exchange follows a

E ditors. Available at: http:/ / publicationethics.org/resources/ guidelines.

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growing number of sophisticated goods with themand a growing number of technical terms, a glossary,and concepts that are at the same time used in thedocumentation. This process inevitably led to theneed for terminology corpus which is used in thisprocess to adequately transmit content from onelanguage to another (3).The need for harmonization of terminology has ledto its standardization, which is illustrated in a seriesof published bilingual and multilingual dictionariesespecially in the field of international trade includingideas and goods (statistical multilingual dictionary isalready present on the internet, customs too).

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http://www.wipo.int/Scite/standards/standards.htm

http://www.wipo.int/copyright/en

http://www.indexers.org.uk

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