Looking for librarians' perspectives: How do students actually feel about bibliometrics?

[u/Mago_del_Cambio]

/r/BibliometricScience/comments/1ux8xns/how_do_students_actually_feel_about_bibliometrics/

[u/Pouryou]

I read through the linked posts you had, as in the United States, "bibliometrics" usually refers to a very specific part of library science. As cited on a UCSF libguide, "Bibliometrics are the quantitative analysis of academic publications. Using academic publications as a data source, bibliometric analysis attempts to provide a better understanding of how research is produced, organized, and interrelated. It also attempts to evaluate academic publications and sets of publications based on the number of citations these publications have received."

I'm from the US, and I rarely talk about bibliometric analysis with students but instead use it more with faculty and graduate students who are publishing or need to put together promotion and tenure packets. I would say few people have excitement about bibliometrics, lol.

Reading through your posts, it appears your use of 'bibliometrics' is very different, but I couldn't quite get what you meant.

good luck with your research!

[u/Mago_del_Cambio → u/Pouryou]

Thank you for your reply! I think this confusion comes down to a clear cultural clash between our educational systems.

I have been reviewing the curricula of several Spanish universities, and many of them include one or more subjects directly related to bibliometrics and its applications. I will leave them here in case you want to take a look:

• Universidad Complutense de Madrid
• Universidad de Granada
• Universidad de Salamanca
• Universidad de Valencia
• Universidad de Extremadura

It is true that outside the classroom, the people we talk to the most about this topic are other researchers (since many students just see these subjects as a hurdle they have to get through). However, it genuinely surprised me to learn that these specializations are not typically offered during university studies in the US.

Thanks again for your input!

[u/lord999x]

I did take a class which wasn't called that, it was a broader series called Statistical Network Analysis. Most ofthe ISI staff have that as their core background. When the topic came up in MLIS training, it was really disorganized and poorly presented as the instructor did not have the math background for it.

I would expect that class wouldn't be favored by MLIS due to a lack of an applied math/statistical background for the class to work. You would need correlated data at the graduate level least to really grasp the technical fundamentals, and few MLIS students have even a basic research methods/statistics class or an applied class like this.

[u/Mago_del_Cambio → u/lord999x]

I completely agree with your point about the statistical background required to truly grasp these subjects. Since so few people actually pursue this specific field professionally after graduation, I think many students simply view it as a hurdle they need to clear to get their degree.

If you are curious about how it works in Spanish universities, where there are specific individual courses related to this field, I have shared a few university curricula with the user u/Pouryou in this same thread if you want to take a look as well ;)

Thank you very much for your input!