CITATION ANALYSIS OF DOCTORAL THESES IN BOTANY DEPARTMENT OF THE NORTH BENGAL UNIVERSITY: A REVIEW PAPER

ABSTRACT

A Citation analysis of 75 Doctoral theses in botany, submitted to the North Bengal University, Darjeeling, during 1987 to 2007 has been carried out to trace the development of scientific research. The 75 botany PhDs theses contain 13,542 bibliographic references, with an average number per thesis comes at a range of 180.56. The year wise productivity of theses, supervising pattern, authorship pattern and the rate of collaboration are studied. The study of the citations is carried out with a view to ascertaining what types of documents are the most frequently used in the research process. The study indicates authorship trend was towards team works rather than a work in isolation. Single author contributions, even though shown a decreasing tendency, are still on stage. Chronological variation in the various characteristics of the cited literature was also examined. It is observed that most of the publications cited are articles in journals; the number of references to other kinds of documents such as books/monographs, patents, conference proceedings, reports, and other theses is small; and references like official publications, press articles and Internet documents are rare. Among the citations from journal literature, majority are from foreign journals though the journals of Indian origin have also extensively used by the North Bengal University science researchers. Journals published in India, USA, and United Kingdom occupies premier positions while journals from other countries are also cited. The most frequently cited journals were also studied in this discipline under study. The most frequently cited journal titles were the Phytopathology, Indian Phytopathology and Physiological and Molecular Plant Pathology. The findings from this study could serve as a collection development, a model that libraries could use to identify the primary sources, budget planning, to guide collection maintenance and user services design in libraries. 

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