The purpose of this study is to examine the core journals used by graduate students in doctoral research in sociology at 16 institutions within the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA). Citation studies in dissertations are often limited to exploring core journals based on local or aggregate multi-institutional use and rarely provide metrics for comparing local use within a discipline. Our study explores the nuances of finding core journals based on local priorities and aggregate use in dissertations. It also examines how well each institution supports graduate research by examining the institutional holdings for these core lists.
With Stephen Woods
Supporting other research by Stephen Woods about citation practices in sociology dissertations. I used WorldCat APIs and Z39.50 queries to determine which journals were held in some manner by which BTAA institutions (and comparing with Stephen’s citation analysis). The project was a fun opportunity to test some methods of querying data. As mentioned in the article, there is no way to review actual holdings so our test was simply for the presence of a record, indicating some degree of holdings at some point in time.
Also led to my MARC Misconceptions blog post about ISSNs.