Metadata characteristics as predictors for editor selectivity in a current awareness service

Abstract

a current awareness service for recent additions to RePEc. The service is run by volunteer editors. They filter new additions to RePEc into subject-specific reports. The intended purpose of this current awareness service is to filter papers by subject matter without any judgment of their academic quality. We use binary logistic regression analysis to estimate the probability of a paper being included in any of the subject reports as a function of a range of observable variables. Our analysis suggests that, contrary to their own claims, editors use quality criteria. These include the reputation of the series as well as the reputation of the authors. Our findings suggest that a current awareness service can be used as a first step of a peer-review process.

Mediação em serviços de disseminação seletiva de informações no ambiente de bibliotecas digitais federadas

“…Uma vez que se trata de uma atividade realizada por selecionadores humanos, fica evidente que a seleção é dotada de um alto grau de subjetividade. Krichel e Bakkalbasi (2005a;2005b) estudaram o comportamento dos editores temáticos que colaboram com o NEP, a partir de duas teorias, as quais eles chamam de "teoria do foco" (target theory) e "teoria da qualidade" (quality theory).…”

“…Tentando evidenciar as duas teorias, anteriormente identificadas, Krichel e Bakkalbasi (2005a;2005b) fizeram um estudo estatístico buscando compreender o processo de seleção dos documentos, observando sete variáveis que poderiam influenciá-lo:…”