Journal usage at department and research group level

ABSTRACT

Journal usage in the Department of Polymer Science at the University of Akron from 2006 to 2011 was determined by counting citations within faculty-supervised dissertations and faculty publications. Ranked title lists were created and correlations between journal usage in faculty publications and faculty-supervised dissertations were measured using Kendall's rank-correlation coefficient. Dissertations and faculty publications were also organized by research group and correlated within groups. Dissertations and faculty publications were found to have a much stronger positive correlation within the group than within the department. Individual groups were found to have highly variable correlation with one another. Examining journal usage at the group level gives a more nuanced view of serials usage for faculty and graduate students than the departmental level. Implications for collection development are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Research group, usage statistics
• University of Akron
• polymer
• science
• serial
• faculty
• dissertation