Surveying Online Scholarship

Abstract

Part of the importance of descriptive studies such as surveys is the identification of directions and issues that can be pursued in future research. Surveying online scholarship helps scholars to identify component features of their fields reflecting where research scrutiny and deficiencies reside. Online access is providing users with the ability to survey exhaustive datasets available previously to a relatively few information scientists. Because of the relative newness of this level of access, scholars outside information and library science are just beginning to wrestle with issues that have a mature but somewhat obscured literature available. This chapter describes technologies, components, and possible analytical techniques related to some of these struggles. Specifically it addresses their use in examining trends, producers, artifacts, and concepts of scholarly communication. Additionally, it provides a targeted application of these components to the literature concerning computer mediated communication.