Thursday 20 February 2014

STRATEGIES FOR INCREASING CITATION FREQUENCY: Before & After Publications







THE
INTERNATIONAL BUREAU FOR CONSULTANCY AND TRAINING
API,
UNIVERSITY MALAYA


Just
to remind you about the workshop of:


STRATEGIES
FOR INCREASING CITATION FREQUENCY:
Before
& After Publications

   
Date: 
February
23rd 2014

Time: 9:00– 5:00pm

Venue: Computer Lab A (Block B - Level 3),
Academic of Islamic Studies, University Malaya, Kuala Lumpur


Speaker:
Nader Ale Ebrahim, PhD in
Technology Management
UM leading expert in “Virtual R&D
teams” & Founder of “Researcher Tol Box
 







Research Tools

Wednesday 19 February 2014

The Academic Impact of Research in Developing Countries: Current and Future Citation Trends



The Academic Impact of Research in Developing Countries:

Current and Future Citation Trends



Details of the workshop are as follows :
        
Date              : 28 February 2014 (Friday)
Venue           : Interactive Learning Room (ILR), Level 14, Wisma R&D
Time             : 9.30 am - 12.00 pm 
(2 CPD Points)
Facilitator     : Dr Nader Ale Ibrahim (Visiting Research FellowResearch Support Unit)

About the workshop:

A research impact comprises  measures such as the number and value of the grants, the number of awards (e.g. Nobel Prizes) won, peer evaluation, publication counts and citation count/citation metrics. Although none of these measures , on its own, work perfectly,  there are always anomalies. Withing this, human judgment is required in order to  interpret the results and among all,  citation metrics is  the most important piece of the research performance puzzle.

In relation to this, competition for government research funding is increasing and available funding for scholarly research is decreasing. . As a consequently, competition for top research is on the rise and the need to demonstrate the return on investment (ROI) becomes  more demanding. To quantify the research output of a single scientist, Hirsch (2005) introduced the h-index,  a single number which supports a good representation of the scientific lifetime achievement. Online publishing may assist the researcher to increase the impact of the research but  writing an article for online distribution in such a way that it maximizes the chances of citation hits is different from preparing an article for print journals. Online publishing requires attention to some very small, but   important details. To be cited, articles have to be visible in an electronic environment. Therefore, publishing a high quality paper in scientific journals will only serve  half the journey of receiving citations in the future. The rest of the journey is completed by advertising and disseminating the publications by using the proper “Research Tools”. Familiarity with the tools allows the researcher to increase his/her h-index in the short time.

The number of citations has over 30% share in academic ranking. Hence, most  scientists are looking for a method to increase their citation record. Nader developed and introduced a method for increasing the visibility and impact of the research which directly effects on the number of citations. This talk aims  to explore the academic impact of research by demonstrating the current trends in developing countries and to set guidelines for the future. In addition,  Nader’s method will introduce some  key points for improving the citation trends in developing countries.



Presenter biography:
Nader Ale Ebrahim holds a PhD degree in Technology Management from the Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya. He holds a Master of Science in the Mechanical Engineering from the University of Tehran with distinguished honors. He has over 19 years of experience in the field of technology management and new product development in different companies. His current research interest focuses on E-skills, Research Tools, Bibliometrics and managing virtual NPD teams in SMEs’ R&D centers. Nader developed a new method using the “Research Tools” which help students who seek to reduce the research time by expanding the knowledge of researchers to effectively use the "tools" that are available on the internet. He was the winner of Refer-a-Colleague Competition and has received prizes from renowned establishments such as Thomson Reuters. Nader is well-known as the founder of “Research Tools” Box and the developer of “Publication Marketing Tools”.

Interested participants, please log in to your UM mail and fill in the online registration form below:
https://docs.google.com/a/um.edu.my/forms/d/1-Of6Li3cNvb0NytIVRVR_VFN94G4FHJxYvB4k7frFnA/viewform
Important:

Please be informed that participants are not allowed to park inside Wisma R&D building
.

Monday 10 February 2014

Maximizing the Visibility and Impact of Your Published Research

Source: https://library.concordia.ca/research/subjects/accountancy/impact.php









Maximizing the Visibility and Impact of Your Published Research

Introduction

Measuring the inter-and cross-disciplinary impact of your
published research can be a valuable indication of the achievement of
both an individual or unit and can play a role in a number of decision
making processes including:


Identifying Research Trends including:



  • Impact: Examine the dispersion of cited and citing works both within and across disciplines and geographic boundaries to capture the total impact of research collaboration and investment
  • Time: Consider the longitudinal impact and
    value of publications i.e. the frequency and distribution both
    publication output and citation impact over time
  • Prestige:  Capture the scope and prestige of the publication in which the unit publishes
  • Funding and Grant Applications: profile performance and impact to demonstrate the track-record of a research entity.

Benchmarking Your Research Using Citation Analysis

Citation analysis (or bibliometrics) can provide valuable data for determining the impact of published research. 


  • This is the discipline of measuring the performance of a
    researcher, a collection of articles, a journal, a research discipline
    or an institution. 
  • This process involves the study of patterns of authorship, publication, and literature use to determine trends in output and citation impact.

Maximizing the Impact and Visibility of Your Published Research

When an article is submitted for publication, citation analytics
features (available via many business and multi-disciplinary
databases), enables you to monopolise on key components for mining
important metric-based quantitative data to measure impact.  These
include:


  • Authors’ names: significant in determining who the key players are in the field of research
  • Institutional addresses:  institutional
    affiliation data (including affiliate institute name and address)
    assigned to a publication is commonly captured to track citation
    counts, one of a number of criteria used to rank institutional
    performance and subsequently published in global university ranking
    tables
  • The Journal in which you publish: this is not only an indication of the field of expertise but may also be an implicit measure of the prestige of accepted papers
  • References: the references included in a
    paper can be a highly effective way of tracking citation patterns
    and impact both within and across a discipline
  • Keywords and concepts: online publishing and
    dissemination is changing the way researchers write articles. To
    be spotted, articles must be structured with search engines in
    mind – search engine optimization (see below).

Strategies to Increase Citations to Your Publications

  • Impact: Publish in high impact journals. Use the Journal Citation Reports database (available online via the Library) to find out which journals have the highest impact in your field
  • Visibility: Make it easy for others to
    access your work by publishing in an Open Access journal and/or maximize
    the exposure of your publications by depositing open access versions
    in Spectrum, Concordia University’s Institutional Research Repository. Papers in Spectrum are indexed by indexed by Google Scholar, potentially increasing your citation impact!
  • Search engine optimization: Online
    publishing and dissemination is changing the way researchers write
    articles. To be spotted, articles must be structured with search
    engines in mind.
    • Include important keywords in your abstract and title (the text fields most usually searched and read).
    • Avoid unnecessarily flowery language if possible.
  • Get counted: When publishing always use the same name variant.  Your publication impact profile (particularly for journal articles) may be misrepresented when:
    • Authors alternate between using middle initials and/or shortened versions of their first names. 
    • You publish under multiple names e.g. female authors marry and switch to publishing under their married name
    • Your papers are difficult to identify from those by authors with a similar name in citation databases. 
Therefore:


  • Use a constant name syntax when publishing where possible
  • Consider creating a unique ResearcherID identifier for Web of Science.
    This can include papers indexed in the Web of Science as well as
    other publications which can be uploaded to your ResearcherID profile
  • Check your publication profile in the main citation indices like Web of Science which enables you to set up a citation tracking alert so that you are notified when your work is cited and by whom.
  • When publishing always use the same institutional name variant, including the complete University address when
    submitting your manuscript for publication, as the address of
    affiliation field is often used to retrieve publication outputs.
For more tips on how to increase citations to your published research see: 9 Simple Tips.


Tools to Access Research Performance Data

Choosing the right tool for the job.  


What are you measuring?


  1. An individual or groups of authors
  2. The research performance of an individual paper: Use Google Scholar
  3. Topic or field trends

1. Individual or groups of authors

Using Web of Science


Web of Science is made up of three citation indices owned by Thomson Scientific:


  • Science Citation Index
  • Social Sciences Citation Index
  • Arts & Humanities Citation Index.
Within Web of Science, the ‘Author’ field on the search page enables you to determine the citation activity to an authors publication. You can also use ‘Author Finder’
to identify a particular author. Running an ‘author’ search can be
used to create a list of works they have written.  Once you have
generated a list of publications by particular author you can generate a
citation report to view graphs and summary data for results sets of 10,000 or fewer depicting the distribution of items by:


  • When they were published
  • When the items were cited
  • Number of citations per year (over a 5-year period)
  • Average number of citations (over a 5-year period) 
  • The h-index - a useful bibliometric measure
    in determining a researcher’s relative impact in his/her
    discipline e.g. an h-index of 26 means that a researcher has
    published 26 papers that have been cited at least 26 times each.
Note: The h-index is only
meaningful when compared to others within the same discipline area. 
Researchers in one field may have very different h-indices than
researchers in another.


2. The Research Performance of an Individual Paper: Use Google Scholar

Google Scholar is the
scholarly arm of Google. It contains material across many disciplines
and sources including journal articles and books. Where available
citation tracking information is provided, including all the data
indexed in Google Books. This makes it the most comprehensive tool for checking book or book chapter citations.


To analyse publications and citation counts in Google scholar use the analytics plug-in Publish or Perish.


Remember: citation indexes are primarily based on
selected journal literature. If the author is most likely to be cited in
books, non-English language journals, or journals not covered in the
database, the usefulness of citation analysis is limited.



3. Topic or field trends

The Web of Knowledge database Journal Citation Reports database allows you to evaluate and compare journals using citation data drawn from journals indexed by the Web of Science
database.  It includes the disciplines of science, technology, and
social sciences. The JCR is available in 2 discipline specific
editions:


  • Science
  • Social Science
Using this tool you can view the:


  • Most frequently cited journals in a field
  • Hottest journals in a field
  • Highest impact journals in a field
  • Leading journals in a field
  • Related journals in a field
  • Citation characteristics for a subject category
Click here to view a brief tutorial on using the Journal Citation Reports database.



Library Sources in Accountancy · Research Guides · Research Tools · Concordia Libraries

Sunday 9 February 2014

Faculty of Built Environment

Workshop: Publication Marketing Tools “Enhancing Research Visibility and Improving Citations”

[ admin ] [ 16-01-2014 ]

Bengkel: Publication Marketing Tools “Enhancing Research Visibility and Improving Citations”



22 Januari 2014

8:30 -12:30

Makmal ICT 2, Mercu Alam Bina

Fasilitator: Dr. Nader Ale Ibrahim, Research Support Unit, IPPP



Objectives:

  • To increase a paper's visibility, accessibility

  • To improve the quality of the article title and keywords

  • To search and analyze the right journal to submit

  • To disseminate the publications by using research tools in order to increase citation

  • To trace the citation


Faculty of Built Environment

Impact Strategies - Enhancing Your Research Impact - LibGuides at Oregon Health & Science University

Source: http://libguides.ohsu.edu/content.php?pid=407819&sid=3338188#11869847

Distinguish Your Name & Use Unique Identifiers

Use the same version of your name on all publications.  If you have a common name, add your middle name for distinction. 


Review
and update your Scopus Author Profile.  Scopus is a database of
peer-reviewed citations.  People use it to find articles and evaluate an
author's publication output.



Register
for a free ORCID identifier.  ORCID gives you a persistent digital ID. 
It will distinguish you from other researchers and support linkages
between your scientific activities. 





Use a Standardized Affiliation

 For Example:

Use This:
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Oregon Health & Science University

3181 S.W. Sam Jackson Park Road

Portland, Oregon 97239-3098

United States of America

Not This:
BME
OHSU
3181 S.W. Sam Jackson Park Rd.
Portland, OR 97239
USA



Optimize Your Title and Abstract

The title and abstract are the most public parts of your article.  For search engines they are also the most important parts: this is the content that's analyzed to provide search results.  


Search
engines weigh the keywords and phrases that appear in a title.  So,
create a descriptive title that includes the most important words
relating to your topic. 



Consider the terms one would use to find articles on your subject and use them in your title.


♦ Keep in mind that people tend to search for specifics, not just one word (e.g. cancer progression, not cancer).



The frequency of a keyword will influence search results.  Use the same
keywords and phrases in both the title and abstract, repeating key
concepts.



This information was adapted from Wiley-Blackwell's Optimizing Your Article for Search Engines.  Read the article for additional tips and examples.





Open Your Work!

Articles that are freely available demonstrate more readership and higher citation rates.

♦ Consider publishing in an open access journal.  Most funders, including the NIH, will pay article processing charges.  The Library's memberships with PLoS and BMC provide reduced publication charges for OHSU authors.


Submit your manuscript to PubMed Central in accordance with the NIH
Public Access Policy.  For submission instructions visit the NIH Public Access guide.


Negotiate with your publisher to retain liberal re-use rights, such as
posting the paper to a personal website and sharing copies with
colleagues.  OHSU's Scholarly Communication Librarian can help you interpret and revise your copyright agreements. 


Promote Your Work

Consider communicating about your science on blogs, websites, podcasts, and Twitter.  This guide includes an overview of social media for scientists and many great resources.



Impact Strategies - Enhancing Your Research Impact - LibGuides at Oregon Health & Science University

Using Wikipedia to Enhance the Visibility of Digitized Archival Assets

Source: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march13/szajewski/03szajewski.html

D-Lib Magazine

March/April 2013

Volume 19, Number 3/4

Table of Contents
 

Using Wikipedia to Enhance the Visibility of Digitized Archival Assets

Michael Szajewski

Ball State University

mgszajewski@bsu.edu




doi:10.1045/march2013-szajewski
 
 

Abstract

As an increasing number of archival repositories, libraries, and
cultural institutions build significant freely accessible digital
collections, archivists and digital librarians must continue to develop
digital outreach strategies that reflect the nature of searching and
discovery in today's information economy. This case study examines the
use of Wikipedia by the Ball State University Libraries as an
opportunity to raise the visibility of digitized historic sheet music
assets made available in the university's Digital Media Repository. By
adding links to specific items in this collection to relevant, existing
Wikipedia articles, Ball State successfully and efficiently expanded the
user base of this collection in the Digital Media Repository by vastly
enhancing the discoverability of the collection's assets.
 

Introduction

Beginning in 2010, Ball State University Archives and Special
Collections embarked on a program that aimed to increase the visibility
of digital archival assets in the Ball State University Digital Media Repository
(DMR) by adding links to these assets to relevant articles on
Wikipedia. The DMR is a digital library developed by Ball State
University Libraries that provides "online access to a variety of
primary source materials, including photographs, oral history
interviews, artwork, video and film footage, cartographic resources,
architectural drawings, publications, and 3-dimensional objects." The
DMR includes materials digitized from the Ball State University Archives
and Special Collections, including materials documenting Muncie and
Delaware County history, Ball State history, and architecture in Indiana
(from Ball State University's Drawings and Documents Archive), as well
as other special collections, learning resources from other library
departments, and digital records from community organizations. Wikipedia,
a ubiquitously popular resource that is collaboratively developed and
edited, provided the opportunity to directly link objects and
collections in the DMR to the Further reading, External links, and
Citations sections of articles.



This case study will discuss the use of Wikipedia to promote access
to and advance visibility of individual digitized archival assets
contained in the Hague Sheet Music
collection, a digitized collection of 149 pieces of 19th and early-20th
century popular sheet music contained in the DMR (the materials were
collected by Frank Penwell and were donated to Ball State University
Libraries by Elizabeth Hague, his daughter, in 2006) and report the
impact of this initiative on the use of materials in this collection.
The case study will examine the opportunities for successful and
productive outreach conducted at the item level rather than solely the
collection level.



 

Background

As a growing number of archival repositories, libraries, and cultural
heritage institutions develop sizeable collections of freely available
digitized material similar to Ball State's DMR, there is a need for
archivists and digital librarians to re-imagine an approach to, and
methods for, increasing the visibility of digital assets. These types
of repositories and institutions have used Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and
other social networking outlets with frequency and success to promote
digital materials and services. A study published by Archivaria in 2010
authored by Adam Crymble demonstrated the breadth of the use of social
media as an outreach tool for archivists.1
The Society of American Archivists has developed a webpage entitled
"The Interactive Archivist", a platform for the publication of case
studies and the sharing and compiling of web resources on the subject of
Web 2.0 and archival outreach, with pages devoted to the use of blogs
and social networking services.2



While these initiatives should represent significant elements of a
digital outreach strategy, other efforts must be made to effectively
broaden the scope of online users reached by digital outreach programs.
How can a digital archival repository or library increase the
visibility of a resource on a global scale to users who would
potentially be interested in the resource but are unaware of its
existence and availability online? How do archivists and digital
librarians create paths leading to their digitally-available resources
that originate from relevant, high-traffic information-flow paths?
Issues related to global accessibility and discoverability addressed by
these questions are particularly relevant for digital archivists, since
these professionals frequently build collections that, due to the lack
of copyright restrictions, may be made freely accessible globally and
are not restricted to users at a particular institution. By critically
considering and addressing these questions, Ball State Archives and
Special Collections developed a program to use Wikipedia as an
opportunity to increase global visibility and reach
potentially-interested users.



 

Why Wikipedia?

Wikipedia was an obvious choice as a vehicle for increasing the
visibility of digitized archival materials because the resource is both
editable and tremendously popular. According to reports produced by
Alexa Internet Inc., an Internet information provider, Wikipedia.org is
the sixth-most visited website globally.3
Beyond just general use, however, Wikipedia is widely used by students
during the research process. A study conducted by Alison J. Head and
Michael B. Eisenberg concluded that "[f]ar more students, than not, used
Wikipedia. Wikipedia was used in addition to a small set of other
commonly used information resources at the beginning of the research
process." The findings of this study demonstrate the potential of
Wikipedia to serve as a gateway to archival resources for students
beginning the research process.4



The decision to explore the use of Wikipedia to increase the
visibility of archival resources was also influenced by published
scholarship on this topic. In 2008, Lauren Pressley and Carolyn J.
McCallum of Wake Forest University validated the usefulness of Wikipedia
for librarians, writing "they look for discovery tools that instantly
deliver information about desired topics in a user-friendly environment.
Wikipedia entries provide that instant information on numerous
topics." Supporting Wikipedia as a visibility-enhancing tool for
librarians, they wrote that "If librarians contribute to Wikipedia, it
might raise awareness of the library."5



A more direct influence on the use of Wikipedia at Ball State was an
article published in 2007 by Ann M. Lally and Carolyn E. Dunford that
reports the authors' success in increasing visibility of University of
Washington digital collections by adding collection-level links to
relevant Wikipedia articles. Their analysis showed that, over a
one-year period, Wikipedia directed over 11,000 visitors to their
digital collections.6
The Ball State University project and case study serves as an extension
of the work of Lally and Dunford that explores the adding of item-level
rather than collection-level links to Wikipedia.



 

Why the Hague Sheet Music Collection?

The Hague Sheet Music Collection presented itself as a natural
candidate for item-level linking from relevant Wikipedia articles after a
brief survey of Wikipedia revealed a high number of existing Wikipedia
articles for individual songs and songwriters that were documented in
this digital collection. Additionally, the nature of the collection's
content also made it an ideal candidate for this method of digital
outreach. While the items in the collection were grouped as such
because of a similar source (Elizabeth Hague) and format (sheet music),
they documented many different subjects (songs, songwriters, and
lyricists). A reasonable analysis of the collection would conclude that
Internet users could very likely be interested in one and only one
asset in the collection. Therefore, a digital outreach strategy that
provided this type of user with access and awareness to the relevant
individual assets in this digital collection at the item level, rather
than a strategy that markets the collection as a whole unit, was deemed
worthwhile.



 

Study

During an eight week period ranging from the end of July 2011 into
September 2011, 57 separate links to Hague Sheet Music Collection
digital assets in the DMR were added to relevant Wikipedia articles.
Decisions made regarding the addition of links to Wikipedia articles
were made on the basis of the existence of relevant articles; if a
Wikipedia article existed for a song, songwriter, or lyricist, a link to
the DMR asset was added. Links were typically placed in the "External
Links" section of the Wikipedia article. Regarding total links added, in
the month of July, 11 links were added; 32 links were added in the
month of August and 13 were added in September.



Regarding total assets linked, in the month of July, 9 individual
assets in the collection were linked to Wikipedia articles; 21 were
linked in August, and 10 were linked in September, adding up to a total
of 40 linked assets in this eight week period. The discrepancy between
these figures (40 and 57) exists because some assets were linked to
multiple Wikipedia articles, since Wikipedia articles existed for the
song, songwriter, and lyricist (or some combination of two of these
three) for some assets linked in this project. Twenty-seven assets were
linked once, 9 were linked twice, and 4 were linked three times.



 

Results

The impact of an asset being linked from Wikipedia on the asset's
total number of pageviews was significant. In total, the 40 assets that
were linked received 1,824 pageviews one year prior to being linked to
Wikipedia, with a pageview being defined as "an instance of a page being
loaded by a browser ... repeated views of a single page are also
counted." 7
One year after being linked, these same 40 assets were viewed a total
of 12,956 times, marking an increase in pageviews of 610.31%. Of these
12,956 pageviews that occurred one year following the addition of the
link or links, 9,824 were referred via Wikipedia. The number of
pageviews via Wikipedia during the one year period after these assets
were linked is 5.39 times greater than the total number of pageviews via
any source for these assets for the one year period prior to linking.
The figure below demonstrates the impact of the adding of links on the
traffic for these 40 assets.





Although the average percentage increase in pageviews for one asset
linked from Wikipedia in the Hague Sheet Music collection was 610.31%, a
wide range in increases was observed over the set of 40 assets linked.
Of the 40 assets linked, 12 exhibited pageview increases of over 5,000%
when compared the year prior to and the year following the addition of a
link or links. Thirteen linked assets exhibited pageview increases of
between 1,000% and 5,000%. One asset linked exhibited an increase
between 500% and 1,000%; ten exhibited increases between 100% and 500%;
four exhibited increases between 0% and 100%. The figure below depicts
this distribution of percentage increases in pageviews.





When analyzing whether assets that were linked multiple times
received a greater percentage increase in pageviews than assets that
were linked once, the data for this study actually showed that assets
that were linked once received a greater percentage increase when
comparing the year before and after linking (1,121.84%), than assets
that were linked twice (390.31%) or three times (515.16%). However,
this data was affected by the fact that two of the nine assets linked
twice, and one of the assets linked three times, received over 200
pageviews the year prior to being linked from Wikipedia, while only one
of the 27 assets linked once received 200 pageviews from Wikipedia
during this period, thus affecting the percentage of change. Further
research with a larger and more balanced sample size is necessary to
analyze the impact of the number of links added on the number of
pageviews received by the asset linked.



A few item-level examples can further demonstrate the vast impact of
using Wikipedia as a means of raising visibility for a digitized
archival item. On July 28, 2011, a link to the digitized version of the
sheet music for "It's a Long, Long Way To Tipperary", a popular song
from the 1910s,8
from the digital Hague Sheet Music Collection was placed in the
External links section of an already-existing Wikipedia article for the
song. In the year prior to that date, the digital item had received 4
pageviews. In the year following that date, the digital item received
640 pageviews, an increase of 15,900%. Of these 640 pageviews, 582 were
referred via Wikipedia.



Other linked assets saw smaller but notable increases in use as a
result of Wikipedia linking. On August 10, 2011, a link to digitized
sheet music for the song "Margie", a 1920 song written by Con Conrad and
J. Russell Robinson9,
was linked under the External links section for the Wikipedia article
on Con Conrad. During the year prior to this date, the asset received 1
pageview. In the following year, it received 44 pageviews, an increase
of 4,300%, with 31 of those pageviews being referred via Wikipedia.



Some assets that already received a significant number of pageviews
also received additional traffic as a result of linking from Wikipedia.
On August 26, 2011, links to digitized sheet music for "There's a Long,
Long Trail"10
were added to Wikipedia articles for the song itself and for the
song's composer, Alonzo Elliott. During the year prior to linking, the
digitized item received 290 pageviews; 356 pageviews were recorded the
following year, an increase of 22.76%. Of those 356 pageviews, 102 were
referred via Wikipedia.



An analysis of the pageviews for the Hague Sheet Music Collection as a
whole (149 assets in total) also reveals that the addition of 57
Wikipedia links to 40 assets in the collection had a significant impact
on the total collection's pageviews. The chart below details the number
of collection pageviews for the Hague Sheet Music collection, the
number of these pageviews for which Wikipedia served as a referral
source, and the percentage of total collection pageviews referred via
Wikipedia. A collection pageview is defined as a pageview on an object
or set of objects in the collection as well as on the collection's
homepage.



 
Month Hague Sheet Music Collection Pageviews Hague Sheet Music Collection Pageviews Via Wikipedia % of Pageviews Via Wikipedia
11-Jan 2265 1 0.04
11-Feb 1553 0 0
11-Mar 2125 0 0
11-Apr 2549 0 0
11-May 2870 2 0.07
11-Jun 1955 0 0
11-Jul 2049 100 4.88
11-Aug 3527 1612 45.7
11-Sep 6417 4123 64.25
11-Oct 7254 4717 65.03
11-Nov 6569 4680 71.24
11-Dec 5932 4414 74.41
12-Jan 8346 5324 63.79
12-Feb 7763 5806 74.79
12-Mar 7287 4788 65.71
12-Apr 9999 6266 62.67
12-May 11497 6769 58.88
12-Jun 6048 4080 67.46
12-Jul 6795 4699 69.15
12-Aug 6934 4261 61.45
12-Sep 8240 4953 60.11
 
 
Graph

As the data shows, the number of collection pageviews roughly tripled
in the period following the addition of the Wikipedia links, with
Wikipedia consistently providing between 50% and 75% of the traffic for
the total collection pageviews despite the fact that only 40 of the 149
assets were linked from Wikipedia.



 

Conclusion

The results of this study show that the addition of links from
relevant Wikipedia articles to individual digitized assets in the Hague
Sheet Music Collection in the Ball State University Digital Media
Repository was an overwhelming success. Despite the fact that only 57
links to 40 assets were added to Wikipedia articles, pageviews for the
collection of 149 assets roughly tripled as a result of this effort.
The adding of links at the item level provided a plethora of
highly-visible entry points to this collection's assets, raising
awareness of the existence of these resources to interested Internet
users who were previously unaware of these materials, as is suggested by
the collection's use statistics. The success of this initiative is
also remarkable in its efficiency, generating a large number of new
digital patrons while requiring relatively little time to plan and
execute.



Archivists organize records by collections. Therefore, archivists and
digital librarians may be susceptible to the tendency to think solely
at the collection level when promoting resources. However, the results
of this study show that an outreach strategy that limits
visibility-raising efforts solely to the collection level is limited in
its ability to reach numerous potential digital patrons. The use pattern
of digital patrons observed in this study shows that users of the
digitized Hague Sheet Music assets are often not just simply interested
in digitized sheet music, but rather are often interested in specific
songs and songwriters. Their discovery of assets in the Hague Sheet
Music collection via Wikipedia articles about specific songs,
songwriters, and lyricists supports this characterization. When
attempting to connect with potential digital patrons whose web searches
are conducted at this level of specificity, archivists can achieve
greater success in generating collection use by using Wikipedia to
connect users with digital archival materials at the item level.



 

Notes

1 Crymble, Adam. "An Analysis of Twitter and Facebook Use by the Archival Community." Archivaria. 70 (Fall 2010): 125.



2 The Interactive Archivist: Case Studies in Utilizing Web 2.0 to Improve the Archival Experience. Society of American Archivists.



3 "Alexa Top 500 Global Sites." Alexa.com. Alexa: The Web Information Company.



4 Head, Alison J. and Michael B. Eisenberg. "How today's college students use Wikipedia for course-related research." First Monday 15(3) (1 Mar 2010).



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About the Author

Photo of Michael Szajewski
Michael Szajewski has served as Archivist for
Digital Development and University Records at Ball State University
since 2011. In this
position, he develops and promotes digital collections, manages
digitization projects, and oversees Ball State's university records
collection area. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and
communication studies from Northwestern University in 2009 and a Master
of Library Science degree from Indiana University in 2010 with a
concentration in archives and records management.
 




Using Wikipedia to Enhance the Visibility of Digitized Archival Assets