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This article addresses the question of whether personal publication lists should be used as a data source in research evaluation, or whether, as is widespread in practice, existing databases, such as Web of Science, can be used instead. For this purpose, an empirical study was carried out in which all business administration university professors (n = 233) of a non-English-speaking country, namely Austria, were ranked in several ways (e.g., full or fractional counting, consideration or non-consideration of journal rankings). All rankings were based on the number of published journal articles (n = 4246; observation period: 10 years). In one case, the personal publication lists and in the other case, the Web of Science were used as data source for these rankings. The rankings created in these two ways were compared with each other. The results show that the choice of the data source has a major influence on the ranking results. For researchers from non-English-speaking countries with (many) publications in their respective national languages, an exclusive use of international databases, such as Web of Science in our case, cannot fully consider the whole research performance. In these cases, the use of personal publication lists seems to make a lot of sense, at least for several ranking variants, despite the effort involved. The main contribution of our study is that we compare personal publication lists as a data source with Web of Science which is often used in research evaluations. In addition, this comparison is not, as usual, input-related (based on the degree of coverage in the two data sources) but impact-related (based on rankings that are created based on the publications contained in the two data sources). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we discuss possibilities for ranking business schools and analyse the stability of research rankings using different ranking methods. One focus is set on a comparison of publication-based rankings with citation-based rankings. Our considerations and discussions are based on a (small) case study for which we have examined all (six) business schools at public universities in Austria. The innovative aspect of our article is the chosen mix of methods and the explicit comparison of the results of a publication analysis with those of a citation analysis. In addition, we have developed a new indicator to check the stability of the obtained ranking results with regard to the individual business schools. The results show that the ranks of the individual business schools are quite stable. Nevertheless, we found some differences between publication-based and citation-based rankings. In both cases, however, the choice of the data source as well as switching from full to adjusted counting only have little impact on the ranking results. The main contribution of our approach to research in the field of university rankings is that it shows that focusing on a single (overall) indicator should be avoided, as this can easily lead to bias. Instead, different (partial) indicators should be calculated side by side to provide a more complete picture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A comparison between the (former) Institutes for Information Science at the Universities of Düsseldorf and Graz, based on research performance for a period of ten years shows how much the evaluators can influence the results. When choosing "suitable" indicators, it is possible – depending on the desired result – to rank the favored institute first. If, on the other hand, the evaluators adhere to the scientific principle of impartiality, this leads to mixed results for the example shown here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study can be from an information science point of view assigned to the subject area of information literacy. It examines the electoral competence of students on the basis of questions in which the positioning of the most important political parties in Austria regarding selected subject areas has to be assessed. The electoral competence is measured as the difference between this assessment and the actual positioning and is higher the smaller this difference is. In addition, we analyze whether there are differences in competence according to the branch of study, gender, age and political interest. The data regarding the positioning of the parties was taken from the voting advice application "wahlkabine.at", and those for assessing this positioning were collected by means of a structured survey of 620 students. Our results indicate that students are politically quite competent. On average, the error rate was between 24.7 and 36.6 percent, depending on the methodology used. Students indicating a high interest in politics showed significantly better results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of the Institute for Information Science at the University of Graz in Austria from its foundation in 1987 until its merger with other institutes in 2020 is described and supplemented with data from bibliometric analyses of publications. Finally, the integration of information science in new study programmes is described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Im Rahmen dieser Untersuchung wird ermittelt, wie intensiv derzeit Printmedien im Vergleich zu elektronischen Medien im universitären Bereich genutzt werden. Besonders wird dabei auf die Nutzung von Büchern, Zeitschriften und Zeitungen eingegangen und analysiert, ob es geschlechter-, alters-, universitäts- und gruppenspezifische Unterschiede im Nutzungsverhalten gibt. Die dafür benötigten Daten wurden mittels strukturierter Befragung von 554 Studierenden und 436 Universitätslehrenden erhoben. Anhand der Ergebnisse lässt sich erkennen, dass Printmedien im universitären Bereich nach wie vor von großer Bedeutung sind, wobei ältere Nutzer, Nutzer aus dem Geisteswissenschaftlichen Bereich sowie Nutzer aus der Gruppe der Universitätslehrenden sowohl für berufliche als auch für private Zwecke besonders stark auf Printmedien zurückgreifen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper a user study for two libraries of the University of Graz, namely the main library and the Law and Social and Economic Sciences Library, is presented. In detail, user structure, user behavior, and user satisfaction are evaluated by interviewing 276 library users. The results reveal that most users are students who use both libraries quite intensively and are quite satisfied with the existing offer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the problem of text plagiarism in the university sector. As a complement to theoretical considerations, an empirical study on plagiarism among 72 university teachers and more than 600 students was conducted. The article first discusses the conditions for the existence of text plagiarism. These statements are followed by an analysis of possible causes of plagiarism. The analysis is mainly based on the results of the empirical study. The fourth section is devoted to strategies for the prevention of plagiarism, which can be differentiated into education measures and measures of deterrence. The effectiveness of the presented strategies is verified by the results of the empirical study. Overall, it is obvious that both university teachers and students are quite aware of the plagiarism issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we analyze the opening hours of 50 randomly selected university libraries (UL) in Austria, Germany, Canada and the USA. The aim of this analysis is to identify possible influences on the extent of the opening hours. Potential influencing factors that we consider are library size and country (state) or linguistic area in which a library is located. The results of the analysis show that larger UL and UL that are located in the United States tend to be opened longer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we analyse and compare the opening hours of 50 randomly selected university libraries in Austria, Germany, Canada and the USA. Thus we want to answer five concrete questions concerning opening hours, such as ''Is there a correlation between opening hours and size of a library?'' The study reveals for example that larger libraries have extended opening hours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this contribution we analyse user requests with regard to opening hours of university libraries. The aim of the contribution is to answer five main questions concerning opening hours, such as opening hours in the evening or opening hours during weekends. To answer those questions we surveyed more than 400 library users using a structured questionnaire. The results show that many users would prefer extended opening hours in the evening and during week-ends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is little data on the smoking behaviour of the population of Austria. The available information hardly goes beyond some figures on the number of regular smokers and the amount of cigarettes consumed per person per year. Equally, statutory anti-smoking measures in Austria lag considerably behind those of other countries, especially the U.S. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the availability of books at the university library of Graz, Austria. The author discusses a study which was conducted concerning the availability of books and periodicals for students. Information is presented about information services and patrons of this library. Several charts and tables are presented which show the percentage of materials which are available to be checked out or available for reference within the library.

In this paper we try to answer the following two questions: 1. Are the results of user studies methodology dependent? 2. Is library use organisation dependent? To answer the first question we observe 200 users of the Graz University Library during their current library visit and compare the results with those obtained from asking 200 further users about their library usage. The results of the two methods show some differences. To answer the second question we conduct user studies in two different library areas: the main library and the Law and Social and Economic Sciences Libraries, which are both part of the Graz University Library, but are organized differently. The results show certain dependence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the evaluation of a scientific library's book stock. In detail, it describes the evaluation of the book stock of the law faculty and the social sciences faculty at the university library Graz. Of particular interest hereby is to review the quality and availability of the particular book stock. Additionally, we investigate the user satisfaction concerning the law and social sciences book stock. As a result, the investigation revealed satisfying results, albeit in some respects there is still improvement potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we analyse the technical efficiency of 118 randomly selected university libraries from German-speaking countries (Austria, Germany, Switzerland) and English-speaking countries (the United States, Australia and Canada) using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). DEA efficiency scores are calculated using library staff, measured in fulltime equivalents, and book materials held as inputs, and the number of serial subscriptions, total circulations, regular opening hours per week, and book materials added as outputs. Among the 118 university libraries analysed 10 are rated fully efficient. However, comparing group-specific efficiency scores, there are no significant differences between libraries from English-speaking and German-speaking countries or between small and large university libraries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]