Online research is now a mainstay of scientific analysis. Private firms who employ scientists expect their employees to use digital academic materials in their study, often subscribing to various article databases and online journals in a preemptive attempt to satisfy those information needs. Although historically scientists have preferred obtaining reference directly from their close colleagues, more and more often, scientists are using the Internet as a primary form of research. While firms endeavor to supply their researchers with accurate resources to meet their information demands, these means are often acquired before a user has an actual need. Determining a solution to a problem that does not yet exists has its obvious limitations, as no information solution is a cure all, to be slapped like a band aid on multiple kinds of wounds. In order to secure a sound course of action for particular research, the informational needs of the specific community must be examined.
Team Science Research proposes a research study on the information seeking behavior of particular group of scientists during their professional research. We want our investigation to illustrate any patterns in the requests as well as provide potential recommendations to address issues made evident by the study. Our team has access to approximately 3 years of data from a private pharmaceutical firm, Isis Pharmaceuticals, which employs primarily biologists and chemists. The data consists of journal article requests made by individual users via the firm’s Digital Library Request Service, (DLRS). The DLRS allows scientists to search online databases for citations of articles they would like to retrieve. Once selected those article are placed in a digital shopping cart, and the system is able to determine where to purchase the article at a minimum cost to the firm. We will review this record, allowing us to observe: what journals were requested simultaneously by a user, and which users ordered what over any given period within the past 3 years.
The user’s request history will be analyzed year by year, as well as in correlation to some demographic information, such as; education level, field of study, their length of time in their current field, any society affiliation, their country of origin, and gender. These comparisons will be made in an attempt to illustrate any visible research patterns that are related to chronology or background.
Research Questions
Are there journals that are most requested overall?
Are there requests for current and past issues?
What is the proportion of traditional vs. open-source publishing requests?
Are there periods of higher volume of requests?
Research Objectives
To investigate the scientists’ acquisition requests as a step in their information seeking behavior.
To identify some of the specific information needs of these scientists.
To demonstrate how the current system meets those needs.
To identify any potential gaps in the system.
To provide suggestions for system changes based on identified information gaps or on retrieval patterns observed within the system.
Limitations/Scope
The current study focuses on one particular aspect of information seeking, which is the scientist’s search for journal articles. It does not explain how an individual scientist chooses which articles to read, but does shed light on their choices as a group. Although the entire process of information seeking will not be documented step by step, we can derive some indicators of scientists information seeking behavior by examining this acquisition stage.
