Abstract
This study of the use and value of 158 MSC in Information Studies dissertations produced in the ten years 1978-79 to 1987-88 at the Unversity of Sheffield, Department of Information Studies, is based mainly on questionnaire surveys of the former taught course students who wrote the dissertations, the academic staff who supervised them and the staff of external organisations who suggested topics and/or participated in other ways. Searches of SCISEARCH® and Social Scisearch® were undertaken for references which cited publica tions based on the dissertations
All except one of the 82 former students surveyed by questionnaire (68% response rate) had found the research pro cess useful, whilst 52% had made use of their dissertations in ,ome way since graduating The dissertation supervisors had made use of 80%, others in the Department of 38% and the staff in external organisations of 72% of the dissertations. Thirty-seven percent of the dissertations had resulted in pub lications in the professional literature. A search of SCISEARCH® and Social Scrsearch® showed that of 30 such publications, 20 had been cited. producing a total of 143 citations. Authors from over 54 other organisations, including those in us, USSR. Canada. Switzerland, Italy and Belgium, had cited these papers Thirteen of the publications were cited in reviews.
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