Citation analysis of Masters in Information Technology theses available in Library, University of Moratuwa

Abstract

Library records indicate postgraduates reading for MSc. in Information Technology use less printed information resources. Library University of Moratuwa has subscribed reputed databases in such subject specialties. Though downloads from these databases are significantly increasing, their real usage has not been evaluated. By analyzing citations of theses and dissertations of MSc. in Information Technology, usage information resourcescan be identified.Population of the study comprises 250 Masters in Information Technology theses of Faculty of Information Technology, University of Moratuwa submitted during 15-year period from 2006-2020. Stratified random sampling was used to select sample of 152 theses according to the year of submission. Three thousand five hundred seventeen citations were found in 152 MSc. in Information Technology theses with 23 average citations per thesis. More than 50 % of the citations were within the period from year 1996 to 2020.Majority of citations are from Websites (38.24 %). Journals (23.20 %), books (16.12%) and conference proceedings (12.88 %) dominate thereafter. Majority of the information sources cited are available electronically (70.4 %). When authorship patters are considered, it was found 781 citations are by individual authors; 1313 publications by corporate authors and 1416 publications by multiple authors. Though affiliation could not be identified in 40.3 % citations, others belong to 50 countries and United States of America (14.3 %) in the highest position. Majority (23) of the studies have been carried out in the sub-field of Information Systems and ‘Software Engineering’ by Ian Sommerville ranked first (12.5 %) among 184 authors and co-authors of books. International Journal of Computer Applications received 5.63 % of citations. Five out of 10 highly ranked journals are available in subscribed databases of Library, University of Moratuwa. Out of 141 listed conferences, 49.64 % of the conference proceedings are available in IEEE Explore Digital Library; 32.6 % are available in ACM Digital Library; 2.1 % are available in both databases. It can be concluded that current Library collection is mostly utilized to satisfy research needs physically as well as electronically.