The JISC Academic Database Assessment Tool – virtues and vices
| Published date | 28 September 2010 |
| Pages | 806-814 |
| Date | 28 September 2010 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14684521011084636 |
| Author | Peter Jacsó |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
SAVVY SEARCHING
The JISC Academic Database
Assessment Tool – virtues
and vices
Peter Jacso
´
University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
Abstract
Purpose – The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) is an advisory body to the higher and
further education funding councils for England, Scotland and Wales, and the Department of Education
of Northern Ireland in matters related to the use of information and communications technology in
education and research. In the world of committees, it has been offering remarkably practical digital
information products and services for colleges and universities (www.jisc.ac.uk/aboutus/whoweare/
valueimpact.aspx) for a variety of very large-scale projects. One of the services helps librarians in
comparing and selecting digital information resources for licensing. The JISC Academic Database
Assessment Tool (JISC ADAT) – created for JISC by DataSalon – is offered free of charge under a
Creative Commons license agreement so it is available to any type of library (and any user) anywhere
in the world, not just for JISC members in the UK. This paper aims to address these issues.
Design/methodology/approa ch – The paper reviews the major features, advantages and
shortcomings of the promising initiatives of JISC ADAT, and recommends some essential content
enhancements to increase its utility for the perennial and daunting task in academic, public, special
and school libraries of selecting databases based on their source coverage and essential features of
their software platform. Here only the journal coverage aspects are discussed.
Findings – JISC ADAT is a promising idea, and indeed JISC is the organisation in the UK that can
handle it. However, it still would not suffice, as users would need to learn about the depth of coverage
of each journal by the databases, not just about the time span of coverage, and in particular the gaps
which may have very different implications. It should show the number of records taken from the
journals in the specific database. For nearly 100,000 journals, it seems to be impossible to do, but it
could be limited to the active journals, and the process could be automated by a series of macros
launching federated searching using the existing journal names and/or ISSNs, and visualising the hit
counts in tiny sparkline graphs in a very compact way to make the differences in the real coverage of
journals by various databases really stand out.
Originality/value – The paper offers insights into the JISC ADAT, outlining its virtues and vices.
Keywords Databases, Libraries
Paper type Research paper
The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) is an ad visory body to the higher and
further education funding councils for England, Scotland and Wales, and the
Department of Education of Northern Ireland in matters related to the use of information
and communications technology in education and research. In the world of committees,
it has been offering remarkably practical digital information products and services
for colleges and universities (www.jisc.ac.uk/aboutus/whoweare/valueimpact.aspx) for
a variety of very large-scale projects (Jamali et al., 2009; Markland, 2006; Merk et al.,
2009; Moghaddam, 2008). One of the services helps librarians in comparing and selecting
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1468-4527.htm
OIR
34,5
806
Online Information Review
Vol. 34 No. 5, 2010
pp. 806-814
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1468-4527
DOI 10.1108/14684521011084636
To continue reading
Request your trial