The service has been rather popular. Our users have TOC alerts for more than 2000 different journals. We noticed in the referrals from our SFX server that the TOC alerts were in the top 10 of referring databases. Our researchers, teachers and students still prefer e-mail over RSS. So we have to offer both.

The old technique we used, was based on a subscription model from Swets (our journal intermediary). However, Swets did not deliver the best of services for this alerting service. We noticed very often considerable delays, and sometimes double alerts. There for enter the ticTOC project. We included the TOC service in our catalogue last year already, Peter described the technical bits and pieces here. Since this implementation we started thinking about the improvement of our TOC alerts.

Yesterday we received the first batch of TOC alerts in the mail based on the ticTOC service. We harvest for the journals that our users have TOC subscriptions for the RSS feeds from the publishers. Look at weekly of monthly intervals what has been added. The changes for those journals are send in an e-mail to the subscribers.

Advantageous of the RSS based system is that for some journals our TOC alerts are way earlier than those from the publisher. Springer is an example where the RSS feed runs over the online first articles, rather than the ‘printed’ issues. In my experience the RSS feed is 3 to 4 months ahead on the official TOC alerts. Furthermore we can now offer TOC alerts on a far more larger set of journals. And lastly, since it is a service that is entirely based on open data, we can offer this service now to our ‘external’ users as well.

We haven’t considered the last point officially yet. But the TOC alerts was a subscription service for our Wageningen UR employees only. Since we had to do we a subscription service from Swets. Now that it is an entirely open application we can offer the service in theory to any users. 

Transferring RSS feeds to e-mails sounds a bit silly, and not so Web 2.0, but when that’s what your users wants, you better provide that service.         

Literature

Using Google we ended up on this version of the Master Journal List. Not the one I really wanted since it did not have the datase specific lists. I knew it existed but where? Only a couple of hours later, by approaching the site from a different angle, navigating around a wee bit more different I found the version of the Master Journal List, the version we were actually looking for.

Looking carefully I finally see that the first one is a more extensive journal search form of the Master Journal List. But that you can only find out after you’ve found the second website. You can navigate from the one to the other, but not the other way around. Little bit strange. Let alone confusing.

Actually in a similar vein. Thomson has a brand new product InCites, whereas the old totally different In-Cites website/product from the same company still exists.

I was therefore pleasantly surprised by the research of Liang-Hsuan Chen (2008) which only passed my screen today. She found that for Asian graduate students attending Canadian universities the rankings played an important role in university selection. She found:

Graduate students enrolled in professional programs ranked factors such as the ranking of the program and affordability of tuition with high importance in choosing a Canadian graduate school. The fact that the ranking of program was ranked with the highest importance by this group of students was in part due to the availability of program ranking information and marketing efforts (e.g., the MBA Tour) undertaken by the programs.

My impression from this piece of research, wether you like it or not, rankings do play their role in the perception and choice of international students in their selection of university to complete their graduate education. Rankings have different purposes Chen explains:

Reputational ranking became a proxy for the quality of education. Although much criticized by academics for its lack of both validity and reliability, reputational ranking serves three purposes: first, it is a promotional tool for higher education institutions to recruit students; second, it is an assessing tool for international students to screen out competitive choices; and third, it is a marketing and signaling tool for students themselves after they graduate.

So it’s not only important to be present in the various University rankings. You better make sure you rank well!

References
Chen, Liang-Hsuan (2008) Internationalization or International Marketing? Two Frameworks for Understanding International Students’ Choice of Canadian Universities, Journal of Marketing For Higher Education, 18(1): 1-33, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08841240802100113 (Subscription required)

Wikipedia als medicijn voor kennismanagementpijn

View more presentations from Edwin Mijnsbergen.

Thanks to ZBdigitaal I noted this presentation from World Bank staff, on the use of Wikipedia as a knowledge management system. Apart from the knowledge management side of the use of the Wikipedia for World Bank reports, it is a good initiative to expose the essence of kilometers of reports from the World Bank burocracy to a larger public.I wish I could encourage our researchers to make use of the Wikipedia more often. With to major objectives, to expose their ideas and findings to a larger public than acadmic peers only. Secondly to be prepared to participate in publica discussion on their theme of research with public stakeholders.Interesting move of the World Bank  

For me a bit confusing. Even today when I go to the old incites site a arrive here In-Cites. Okay. It carries the warning that the site has effecitvely moved to ScienceWatch.com. (In the unnoticable red bar at the top of the page). Fair enough. But the sole reason for me to use that website, or refer to in-cites is the journal lists. Follow the trail to the methdology section in Sciencewatch there you find a link to the journal list. With an additional click you end up here, where is stated:

The current Journal List is located on the archived in-cites.com Web site.

So you end up at in-cites.

What’s new at in-cites? Or what marketeer has thought up an old name from the same company for a new product?

I am interested in the new product, but at the moment I find it all a bit confusing.

Have a look at this record. The option of “show recent articles”  in the right hand screen will show the titles from the most recent issue.  In the TOC that shows at the bottom of the record, you can select the “show abstract” to view even more detail when that’s provided in the Feed.

Albeit an comprise, its a step in the right direction I think.

I do sincerely apologize for this boring video, a few talking heads is not the right medium to pass a message. An important message that is. But I couldn’t find any palatable alternatives on YouTube. Has nobody tried to make an attractive, short film on this subject?Anyway, a couple of bigshots from the Dutch University world passing the message on the importance of Open Access. They talk in Dutch, but this version has English sub-titles.

Today Anne had a post that really did make me wonder. In her post of Anne is… for which she apperently searched in Google, which should actually read Anne Helmond is…The first hit is

• Lovink stresses that the Main object of research Anne Helmond is working on is that bloggers start to realize they are ‘working for google’ and contributing …

Which statement really amazes me. Certainly for social scientists. If the research question was phrased differently, such as “are Bloggers (really) working for Google?”, then it was a valid  research question. But if the research question is stated as it is, it takes me actually by surprise. Value free research? I know that sounds idealistic, but we have to keep up to some ideals.

The facts are, that certainly on my Dutch blog I have build an audience for whom I am writing. Combined with the direct visitors they combine for half of the blog visitors. And yes indeed, the other 50% of the visitors, do stop by because of maily Google. And they are more than wellcome.