This is a follow up on one of the comments made in a previous post on knowledge management and dissemination. Someone was asking if our local grads and / or local academics had access to article databases such as JSTOR.
My impression is that our local academics have access to JSTOR but that our undergraduates do not. Most research universities here in the US have online access to multiple article databases including JSTOR and both undergrads as well as academics have the same level of access.
I was wondering if our readers out there can tell us what sort of articles databases they had access to while studying for their degree, both locally and overseas, or better yet, what current undergrads have access to, both locally and overseas.
Let the comments begin!
17 comments:
It's the same here in New Zealand. All students have access to many online article databases, be they undergrads or postgrads. I can imagine completing an essay without one!
mmm... yes... I agree with what y t said.
Thanx..
-Miss Mazween
Think UM library e-Databases is pretty good. When I was an engineering post-grad student (semiconductor), I used IEEE Xplore and Sciencedirect.com heavily during the research. A lot of e-books are available as well (e.g. by publisher like Lawrence Erlbaum, Routledge etc).
http://www.diglib.um.edu.my/interaktif/SQL-bin/ebooks_list.asp
lol, i mean *can't imagine!
by the way, JSTOR reminds of some weird old FOTRAN procedure. :)
I'm not familiar with JSTOR as I'm a biology background. When I was doing my undergrad in UPM (1997-2000), we depend heavily on scienedirect and pubmed. Not all the articles are available online, some need to be requested from other library (i.e. UM, UKM and etc)
While in Nottingham for my postgrad, I have access to a broader database. A full subscription to Sciencedirect, OVID, Sprinklink and etc. If I can't get the article I want, I can put an interlibrary loan which cost only GBP1.00 per article.
Now, as research fellow in Harvard, again, I can access to almost all the article published in Pubmed or even some very old original articles, for example the original paper of Watson & Crick's DNA paper in Nature, the Crebs cycle and etc. And for economic and political journal, they have a vast collection as well. Although not very familiar in that field but I know they're quite complete as I can find any article that's requested by my sister for her MBA assignment.
I am an undergraduate in Australia and not only we get full subscriptions to almost everything (including the PhD thesis' of people like George Akerlof etc)... but also access to the raw numbers compiled by various agencies in the world (e.g. Thompson Financial Data), The Economist country profiles in full etc etc... priceless...
Almost dropping dead from assignments... but couldn't help but comment on this. As a CS student in UTAR, I had access to the necessary journals (i.e. ACM and IEEE). The journals subscribed were mostly related to the subjects that were offered at that time, which were mostly Business, CS and journalism-related. I suppose that now with the addition of engineering and biotech courses, the repertoire of journals would've been widened. Overall, I would say that it's sufficient to get the job done.
Private colleges have been known to use ProQuest and LexisNexis.
ProQuest is OK, though a bit limited and very USA-centred.
LexisNexis seems to be mostly for business and law students.
Generally, students don't use them much unless they are forced to, preferring to use Google, and whatever that turns up - especially Wikipedia of course.
I access the following databases regularly here in Singapore (SMU to be particular): Economist, Gartner, Factiva, JSTOR. Of course, there are other databases/journals but I seldom access to those though. =)
at my japanese university, i have access to numerous databases and e-journals on my university network. i use EBSCOHOST and Leix Nexis mainly. as far as i know, undergrads and grads have equal access.
only shortcoming is that these online journals, databases and OPAC cannot be accessed from outside of the university network.
adriene
julthefool said
"Generally, students don't use them much unless they are forced to, preferring to use Google, and whatever that turns up - especially Wikipedia of course."
I am wondering whether our local institutions, either private or public do encourage undergrad students to cite credible sources for their work. If the lecturers are happy with their students quoting wikipedia, then I would have more reasons to worry about the research culture in Malaysian academic institutions.
Ouch, wikipedia! :| It's good as a starting point but, the accuracy of stuff always needs to be verified. Anyway, CS material is lacking in wikipedia, so we rely heaps on ACM and IEEE.
the unis over here use a portal system, so you can access this databases from anywhere provided you have your student password...
I am a student from INTI. Our library subscribes to Emerald. As I am doing a twinning degree with Coventry University, I have access to their Emerald account as well, which has way more journals than INTI's.
I am a frequent user of UUM's Sultanah Bahiyah Library online collection. I think it is sufficiently comprehensive for business research, as it contains ABI/INFORM, Blackwell, Sciencedirect, Emerald, Business Source Premier, IEEE, LexisNexis, WorldScientific, to name just a few. Do visit the address below for further info http://www.lib.uum.edu.my/eng/index.html
I'm an undergrad at IIUM doing Econs. I can say there is extensive online database subcribes by the library. Example are like LexisNexis, EBSCOHost, and EconLit. It's up to the students to use it or not.
In most cases, undergrads usually refer to books rather than journal articles. Articles from AER example are heavy with maths which not everyone can understand.But I still use it if its relevant with my assignment.
The bad side on online articles is you need to have computer to read.I have to read them in on my laptop sitting up straight. The hard-copy ones is even better, you could read it while lying down or on the LRT/bus/taxi. Furthermore printing from soft-copy cost at least $0.10 a page. Photocopying only cost $0.07 a page.
I'm an intern research assistant at the University of Queensland Law School. We have access to facilities such as JSTOR. I haven't had any experience in local universities, so I wonder if they subscribe to these electronic services.
Greetings from UofC.
We have access to pretty much everything. JSTOR is abundant, of course.
Wikipedia citations are not allowed in all cases. So if Malaysia's public universities allow such atrocities, hmm...
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