International Journal of Information Science and Management
Volume:12 Issue: 1, Jan-Jun 2014

The goal of this paper is evaluation of published scientific documents of Islamic Azad University (IAU) in WOS from the beginning until Feb. 2013. The method of this study was extracting of all published IAU documents that have been indexed in WOS in all field of Science, Social Science and Art & Humanity. Research findings show that in this period, 18398 scientific documents have been published by IAU that is about 12.42% of Iran’s total published scientific documents from 1956 until the present time. Clustering of the journals based on topic indicated that 22.72% of documents are related to Chemistry, 14.45% related to Engineering Sciences, and 8.92% published in Physics. The increasing number of IAU documents from Jan. 1999 until Feb. 2013 is significant. In 2012, the IAU reached the first position of scientific documents production among all Iranian universities. Most scientific collaborations of IAU in scientific publication have been with US, followed by Malaysia, England, Germany, Turkey, and Australia. More than 4700 IAU documents have been published in 37 journals, 8 of them lack or have a poor peer-review process. At the end, a number of suggestions for increasing quality of IAU’s scientific documents have been offered.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the web pages of Islamic World Science Citation Center (ISC), the Islamic Countries SCI using Nielsen`s Heuristic Principles and was performed during September 2012. Among Nielsen`s 10 usability heuristic principles, five were covered. Five professional evaluators were asked to evaluate the database using Nielsen`s five criteria. The total average of severity rating of database problem was calculated 1.008 which stated minor problems in overall look of the database. According to this study, strengths and weaknesses of the WebPages of Islamic Countries SCI of ISC database were discovered which might be used by beneficiary groups like database designers.

Ranking is one of the key measures for evaluating universities. Progress of research at universities is often measured by the rate of its publications. It is also common knowledge in the field of research that journal publications owe their success to their impact factor. However, one of the contributing factors that affect a journal''s impact factor is the accessibility and availability of its content. The law of statistics suggests that publishing an electronic version of the journal content through online publications is likely to boost the visibility of a journal; hence, improving the impact factor. The ability to publish electronically is often received favorably by the research community. Despite advances in electronic journal publishing, only recently, online journals have made their way into Iranian university journal publishing. This paper evaluates and reports on the extent of online journal publications among Iranian universities. For the purposes of this study, 653 journals published by 183 universities were studied. The results reveal that 66.7% of all universities have online copies of their journals. This study is carried out for three categories of universities; the Ministry of Health and medical Education universities, the Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology universities(MSRT), and Islamic Azad University Branches(IAU).

The generation, acquisition, utilization and application of knowledge/ information is an indispensable factor for growth and development. Nigeria’s vision 20: 2020 is a blueprint designed for the development of the country with emphasis on making it one of the top developed economies by the year 2020. However, the observation and analysis of the vision’s objectives and thematic areas shows that knowledge/information (its generation, acquisition, utilization and possible application) were not accorded the due attention as a tool for the vision’s success. Added to the above statement is the fact that the research findings and intellectual output of higher education institutions (HEIs) and research-based institutes in the country mostly in the form of grey literature (i.e. unpublished technical/research reports, manuals, theses and dissertations, monographs, etc) gather dust in their institutions of origin, with little or no visibility, thereby affecting accessibility, utilization and application. This paper therefore examines the role of institutional libraries in developing open access repositories; infrastructure and facilities for developing Open Access Repositories; and advocates for a national policy for the development and management of open access repositories in institutions, where the research findings and intellectual outputs of these institutions will be domiciled, which will be easily accessible online for utilization and possible application in various sectors of the economy for the realization of vision 20: 2020.

This study aims to introduce the information seeking anxiety construct as a phenomenon among postgraduate students. It also presents the Information Seeking Anxiety Scale (ISAS) as a valid and reliable instrument. Further, the current study investigates the prevalence of information seeking anxiety among postgraduate students at a research-intensive university in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Results of the study revealed that while information seeking anxiety is present among the studied students, the overall level is not high. Additionally, Different levels (low, mild, moderate and severe levels) of the information seeking anxiety construct were reported to have experienced by 96.5% of the postgraduate students at the sampled university.

Teaching information literacy needs to become a core activity at academic libraries in distance education universities. Innovative programs have been developed to promote information literacy to ensure students success as lifelong learners. This study has been done to evaluate information literacy of students of humanities in Payame Noor University of Mashhad. The research population subjects are M.A. students in the humanities departments of Payame Noor University of Mashhad, from whom 188 were selected randomly based on Krejcie and Morgan table. Data collecting tool is a questionnaire, which has been provided according to Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. The results revealed that there is a significant difference between the female students’ information literacy with average score (t= -10.45, df= 159, p< 0.0005), the male students’ information literacy with average score (t= 4.71, df= 27, p< 0.0005), and all students’ information literacy with average score (t= -11.42, df= 187, p< 0.0005). The questionnaire average score (26) is more than students’ score, although the information literacy level in female and male students had no significant difference (t= -0.520, df=186, p=0.604). There is a significant difference in information literacy of students with different majors (f (12, 175) = 2.803, p= 0.002).Developing information literacy skills is essential for academic members and other educational staff to be able to fully engage and exploit library resources in distance education system. Distance education programs are complex and costly to implement, which suggests that they are a valuable asset for universities and therefore should be adequately managed and protected. Libraries must sufficiently promote services available to distance students and provide adequate service hours. In order to provide effective support to distance learners, librarians and educators need to be creative and find unique solutions.

Looks at the historical and philosophical roots of the reasoning and defines the induction as the most popular style of reasoning. Discusses the problem of induction and its complexities through an example. Explains one of the solutions provided for the problem of induction; i.e. the falsifiability theory. Defines the falsifiability theory and concentrates on an ongoing argument among information professionals. Survival of the print book, as an inductive belief, is what this article tries to analyze and gauge. Through an all-inclusive literature review, viewpoints of the pros and cons of this inductive belief are discussed; and much number of evidences is provided for the death of the print book. Concludes that the survival of the print book belief is falsified and liberal information professionals should be trained to press e-book publishers to develop their products.