Journal of the Korean Society for information Management (정보관리학회지)

Korean Society for Information Management (한국정보관리학회)
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The Dispersion Phenomenon of Journal Citations in a Digital Environment

디지털 환경에서 학술지 인용의 분산화 현상에 관한 연구

  • Shin, Eun-Ja (Department of Communication Art, Sejong University)
  • Published : 2009.06.30
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Abstract

Electronic publishing has influenced, and in some ways changed, information seeking, reading patterns and citation behaviours. This study collected the Cited Half-Lives, the indicator implies the life-span of scholarly journals, from JCR Social Science edition the before and after of the prevalence of electronic journals, and observed if there are some changes in these two periods. The analysis results of eight disciplines show that the average Cited Half-Lives increased in 2007 than in 1994 for seven disciplines except the demography. Especially in the four disciplines of economics, education, finance and sociology, the average Cited Half-Lives increased significantly. This results show that the concentration, researchers cite more recent articles and concentrate their citations on fewer ones, is lightening and the dispersion of citations is actually increasing. With the online availability of articles and journals the old online materials can be often accessed, used and cited more frequently, the more growth potential of Cited Half-Lives are made in a digital environment. Further research needs to investigate if the phenomenon will become more obvious in various disciplines after a few years.

전자출판은 정보검색, 이용패턴, 인용행태 등 학술 커뮤니케이션 전반에 많은 영향을 주었고 변화를 초래하였다. 이 연구는 전자출판 특히 전자학술지의 보급이 학술 커뮤니케이션에 어떠한 영향을 미치고 있는지를 규명하기 위하여 학술지의 수명을 간접적으로 보여주는 지표라 할 수 있는 인용반감기 데이터를 JCR 사회과학 편으로부터 수집한 후 전자학술지 도입 이전과 이후를 비교하고 분석하였다. 모두 여덟 부문의 주제영역에 관하여 데이터를 분석한 결과 인구통계학을 제외한 일곱 부문에서 1994년에 비해 2007년의 인용반감기가 증가한 것으로 나타났다. 특히 경제학, 교육학, 재정학, 사회학 등의 네 주제영역에서는 인용반감기의 평균이 통계적으로 유의미하게 증가하였다. 이 결과는 과거와 같이 핵심 학술지 및 최신호에 이용이 집중되던 현상이 완화되고 비핵심 학술지 및 오래된 학술지의 이용이 상대적으로 증가하는 '학술지 인용의 분산화(탈집중화) 현상'이 나타나기 시작했다는 것을 보여주는 것으로 간주할 수 있을 것이다. 디지털 환경에서는 오래된 자료라도 여러 가지 미디어에 힘입어 원활하게 접근이 가능하기 때문에 이의 이용과 인용이 증가할 가능성이 있고, 따라서 인용반감기의 증가로 이어질 수 있는 가능성도 충분하기 때문이다. 그러나 이러한 현상이 일시적으로 나타난 것인지 아니면 매우 다양한 분야에서 지속적으로 나타날 것인지는 시간을 두고 더 관찰해야 할 것으로 보인다.

Keywords

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