Journal of Information Science current issue

Collaborative pricing model for bundling information goods

Chang, W.-L., Yuan, S.-T. — 2008-09-19

The information economy engenders consideration of certain issues such as information goods cost/pricing, technology infrastructure, and information policy in the era of knowledge economy. Due to the unique cost structure and product characteristics of information goods, conventional pricing strategies are unfeasible, and a differential pricing strategy is crucial. Nevertheless, few models exist for pricing information goods in the e-service industry. This study proposes a novel collaborative pricing model in which customers are active participants in determining product prices and adopt prices and services that meet their changing needs. This study also shows that the collaborative pricing model generates an optimal bundle price at equilibrium with optimal profit and utility. Theoretical proofs and practical implications justify this pricing model, which is essential for future information goods pricing in the information economy.

Knowledge organization trends in library and information studies: a preliminary comparison of the pre- and post-web eras

Saumure, K., Shiri, A. — 2008-09-19

Qualitative analyses were used to launch a preliminary exploration of the dominant knowledge organization (KO) trends in the pre- and post-web eras. Data for this study was assembled by searching the Library, Information Science, and Technology Abstracts database for articles that have used the term `knowledge organization' or `information organization' in their titles, abstracts, or descriptors. Taken as a whole, these preliminary results suggest that the content of the KO literature has shifted since the advent of the web. Although classic KO principles remain prominent throughout both eras, the presence of new content areas, such as metadata, denotes a shift in KO trends. In the pre-web era, the literature was related in large part to indexing and abstracting. In contrast, cataloging and classification issues dominate the landscape in the post-web era. The findings from this paper will be of particular use to those interested in learning about upcoming trends in the KO literature.

Cyberabstracts: a portal on the subject of abstracting designed to improve information literacy skills

Pinto, M. — 2008-09-19

With the overall purpose of improving the information literacy skills of librarianship and information science students, an academic portal specifically centred on abstracts and abstracting resources is proposed. We take the existing literature, together with our knowledge and experience of abstract/abstracting topics and web-based technologies to conceive the research design. The research mainly consists of the selection, assessment and web-display of the most relevant abstracts on knowledge management, information representation, natural language processing, abstract/abstracting, modelling the scientific document, information retrieval and information evaluation. The resulting Cyberabstracts portal presents its products consistently and includes reference, abstract, keywords, assessment and access to the full document. Improvement opportunities for this unique subject-based gateway, representing much more than a mere subject catalogue, are uncovered as the starting point on a planned route towards excellence.

Amusing titles in scientific journals and article citation

Sagi, I., Yechiam, E. — 2008-09-19

The present study examines whether the use of humor in scientific article titles is associated with the number of citations an article receives. Four judges rated the degree of amusement and pleasantness of titles of articles published over 10 years (from 1985 to 1994) in two of the most prestigious journals in psychology, Psychological Bulletin and Psychological Review. We then examined the association between the levels of amusement and pleasantness and the article's monthly citation average. The results show that, while the pleasantness rating was weakly associated with the number of citations, articles with highly amusing titles (2 standard deviations above average) received fewer citations. The negative association between amusing titles and subsequent citations cannot be attributed to differences in the title length and pleasantness, number of authors, year of publication, and article type (regular article vs comment). These findings are discussed in the context of the importance of titles for signalling an article's content.

Word segmentation for the Myanmar language

Tun Thura Thet, , Na, J.-C., Wunna Ko Ko, — 2008-09-19

This study reports the development of a Myanmar word segmentation method using Unicode standard encoding. Word segmentation is an essential step prior to natural language processing in the Myanmar language, because a Myanmar text is a string of characters without explicit word boundary delimiters. The proposed method has two phases: syllable segmentation and syllable merging. A rule-based heuristic approach was adopted for syllable segmentation, and a dictionary-based statistical approach for syllable merging. Evaluation of test results showed that the method is very effective for the Myanmar language.

Linking patterns in European Union countries: geographical maps of the European academic web space

Ortega, J. L., Aguillo, I. F. — 2008-09-19

This national level study intends to describe the existing relationships between the number of web pages, inlinks to and outlinks from Europe and national or internal links in the European Higher Education Area through a sample of 535 European universities' web domains. Several geographical maps are introduced to summarize and visualize this statistical information. The main result shows that larger countries, in number of web pages, link less to the remaining European countries, while the smaller ones are characterized by their link profusion to the European zone. The great presence of national links in large and medium size countries confirms that the European academic web space is shaped by the aggregation of national sub-networks, while the similar low presence in small countries suggests that these are linked to another large country.

A bibliometric analysis of pharmacology and pharmacy journals: Scopus versus Web of Science

Gorraiz, J., Schloegl, C. — 2008-09-19

Our study examines the suitability of Scopus for bibliometric analyses in comparison with the Web of Science (WOS). In particular we want to explore if the outcome of bibliometric analyses differs between Scopus and WOS and, if yes, in which aspects. Since journal indicators vary among disciplines, we analysed only journals from the subject pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences. Nonetheless, our study has also broader implications. Its major findings are: (a) Each top-100 JCR pharmacy journal was covered by Scopus. (b) The impact factor was higher for 82 and the immediacy index greater for 78 journals in Scopus in 2005. Pharmacy journals with a high impact factor in the JCR usually have a high impact factor in Scopus. (c) Several medium impact journals could be identified in Scopus which were not reported in JCR. (d) The two databases differed in the number of articles within a tolerable margin of deviation for most journals.

Web robot detection in the scholarly information environment

Huntington, P., Nicholas, D., Jamali, H. R. — 2008-09-19

An increasing number of robots harvest information on the world wide web for a wide variety of purposes. Protocols developed at the inception of the web laid out voluntary procedures in order to identify robot behaviour, and exclude it if necessary. Few robots now follow this protocol and it is now increasingly difficult to filter for this activity in reports of on-site activity. This paper seeks to demonstrate the issues involved in identifying robots and assessing their impact on usage in regard to a project which sought to establish the relative usage patterns of open access and non-open access articles in the Oxford University Press published journal Glycobiology, which offers in a single issue articles in both forms. A number of methods for identifying robots are compared and together these methods found that 40% of the raw logs of this journal could be attributed to robots.

The effects of socio-technical enablers on knowledge sharing: an exploratory examination

Sue Young Choi, , Young Sik Kang, , Lee, H. — 2008-09-19

Recently, the need for knowledge management has been drastically increasing so organizations may meet the high level of dynamic, complex business change and uncertainty. In particular, knowledge sharing has been recognized as a critical process through which organizational knowledge can be utilized. For successful knowledge sharing, companies need to capitalize on various socio-technical enablers. The primary objective of this paper is to provide a better understanding of how these enablers can affect knowledge sharing intention and behavior, and explore practical implications for knowledge sharing. For this purpose, the paper proposes a theoretical model to investigate these enablers from a socio-technical perspective. PLS (Partial Least Square) analysis was employed to validate the model. This field study involves 164 users. Furthermore, interviews with experts were investigated for practical implications. Our analysis reveals that social enablers such as trust and reward mechanisms are more important than technical support in isolation for facilitating knowledge sharing.