Citation, Journal Impact Factor, and H-index as Indicators of Research Performance : a Workshop for Librarians, Information Professionals, and Researchers

Date : 23-24 May 2012

Venue: Quality Hotel, Shah Alam, Selangor

SBL HRDF Claimable (private sector)

Target Audience

This workshop is intended for librarians, information managers, researchers and anyone interested in understanding “Citation and its derivatives” which have been used as quality indicators in scholarly activities across various fields of knowledge.

Expected Outcomes of the Workshop

Upon completion of the workshop, participants should be able to:

• Identify the interrelationship among research, publication, and citation
• Use appropriately citation data as indicators of quality research
• Use appropriately citation data to evaluate journal collections
• Apply citation analysis to assess universities’ status and world ranking of universities
• Conduct Bibliometric research relevant to their organisation’s needs

Workshop Delivery

The workshop is interactive. Participants will have opportunities to ask questions, engage in discussions and group exercises throughout the workshop.

Facilitator

Szarina Abdullah, PhD. Information & Library Science (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), M.L.S (Hawaii), B.A. Honors (Chulalongkorn)

Professor Szarina Abdullah is currently attached to the Faculty of Information Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia.

Her research in Bibliometrics had a good start in 1986 under the supervision of the renown Professor F. W. Lancaster at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Findings of her Bibliometric studies, some of which were jointly written with Lancaster are published in the journal Scientometrics 1991, Proceedings of the International Conference on Science Indicators for Developing Countries, organised by UNESCO / CNRS, Paris, 1992, and in the Festschrift of an Indian Information Scientist, Dr. Sengupta, 1993.

During June 2003-Aug 2004, and July 2008 –March 2010, she led a team of researchers from the Faculty of Information Management, UiTM, to conduct  two national bibliometric studies of Malaysia’s S&T knowledge productivity for the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation, Malaysia. Findings from these  comprehensive studies have implications for S&T policy makers, university administrators, researchers, and academics engaged in R&D activities, and were tabled to the Cabinet in August 2004 by the Minister. Since then, Malaysian academics and researchers have become more aware of the importance of citation studies and their use in the assessment of science productivity, and ranking of universities. It has also led to the establishment of the national database for S&T indicators under the Malaysian Science & Technology Information Centre.  She has conducted workshops for various groups of academics and researchers in Malaysian universities and research institutions on the proper use of citations as indicators of quality in international scholarly publications.

She has been serving UiTM since January 1975, in various capacities. Her previous administrative posts included Dean, Centre for Graduate Studies, Assistant Vice-Chancellor (Distance Education and Flexible Learning), Assistant Director (Academic), Head of School of Library & Information Science, and Course Leader of the School of Library & Information Science.  The vast experiences in management have added value to her workshop on Strategic Management, especially for information professionals.