STEM authorship, user-generated reviews and their impact: legitimate or not?
| Date | 02 May 2024 |
| Pages | 1258-1272 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-12-2023-0262 |
| Published date | 02 May 2024 |
| Author | Lala Hajibayova,Mallory McCorkhill,Timothy D. Bowman |
STEM authorship, user-generated
reviews and their impact:
legitimate or not?
Lala Hajibayova
Kent State University, Kent, Ohio, USA
Mallory McCorkhill
Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County, Youngstown, Ohio, USA, and
Timothy D. Bowman
Dominican University, River Forest, Illinois, USA
Abstract
Purpose –In this study, STEM resources reviewed in Goodreads were investigated to determine their
authorship,linguistic characteristics and impact.The analysis reveals genderdisparity favoringtitles with male
authors.
Design/methodology/approach –This paper applies theoretical concepts of knowledge commons to
understand how individuals leverage the affordances of the Goodreads platform to share their perceptions of
STEM-related books.
Findings –The analysis reveals gender disparity favoring titles with male authors. Female-authored STEM
publications represent popular science nonfiction and juvenile genres. Analysis of the scholarly impact of the
reviewed titles revealed that Google Scholar provides broader and more diverse coverage than Web of Science.
Linguistic analysis of the reviews revealed the relatively low aesthetic disposition of reviewers with an
emphasis on embodied experiences that emerged from the reading.
Originality/value –This study contributes to the understanding of the impact of popular STEM resources as
well as the influence of the language of user-generated reviews on production, consumption and discoverability
of STEM titles.
Keywords Scholarly communication, Knowledge commons, Goodreads
Paper type Article
Introduction
Spurred by the development of Internet technologies, individuals’ratings and reviews of
products,services and culturalexperiences are often considereda driving forceof consumption
and production. Thus, there is much to wade through, from corporate platforms providing
rankings and reviews, such as Netflix movie recommendations and Spotify personalized
playlists and radio stations, to individuals’personal opinions shared on social media.
Despite, or maybe because of, having relatively looser connections with established
practices of culturalevaluation and dominant viewson cultural capital,these online reviewers
have great potential to influence the “ideological groundwork of value attribution i tself”
(Verboord, 2014, p. 924). It comes as no su rprise that user-generated ratings and
recommendations have also become a significant part of knowledge representation and
discovery systems. In particular, user-generated reviews on Goodreads, a social book review
platform, are utilized by mainstream systems of knowledge organization such as WorldCatto
enhance representation and discoverability of information resources. User-generated reviews
also providean indication of the impact of individuals’scholarly output(Thelwall and Kousha,
2017) as altmetrics, quantitative evidence of readers ’interactions with research objects
primarily through social media platforms (Sugimoto and Larivi
ere, 2017). Moreover, this
impactcan be assessed more broadlyby increasing the diversityof both the audienceand of the
research that is disseminated as well as by turning attention from the impact of science on
JD
80,6
1258
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0022-0418.htm
Received 20 December 2023
Revised 21 March 2024
Accepted 23 March 2024
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 80 No. 6, 2024
pp. 1258-1272
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-12-2023-0262
Get this document and AI-powered insights with a free trial of vLex and Vincent AI
Get Started for FreeStart Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting