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Beyond relevance and recall: testing new user-centred measures of database performance
Peter Stokes1, Allen Foster, Christine Urquhart
1Anglia Ruskin University, Education Centre, Peterborough District Hospital, UK. peter.stokes@anglia.ac.uk
Health Information and Libraries Journal
|August 29, 2009
Summary
BNI and CINAHL databases are most effective for nursing students seeking dissertation information. This study introduces new measures for database effectiveness, efficiency, and accessibility to guide library purchasing decisions.
Area of Science:
- Bibliometrics
- Information Science
- Health Sciences Librarianship
Background:
- Traditional database effectiveness measures (recall, precision) are insufficient for modern search engine users.
- Need for new metrics assessing full-text availability and user expectations.
- Relevance assessment in databases remains a debated topic.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the usefulness of four bibliographic databases (BNI, CINAHL, MEDLINE, EMBASE) for nursing and midwifery students.
- To identify the most effective database for undergraduate dissertation research.
- To compare database performance using novel effectiveness, efficiency, and accessibility metrics.
Main Methods:
- Title searches conducted for student-provided dissertation topics (n=9).
- Relevance judgments made by student users.
- Effectiveness measured by combining recall, precision, novelty, and originality.
- Efficiency assessed via novelty and originality.
- Accessibility evaluated through availability and retrievability.
Main Results:
- Significant differences found in precision, originality, and availability across databases (Friedman test).
- BNI and CINAHL identified as most effective.
- CINAHL ranked highest for efficiency, BNI for accessibility.
- Odds ratio testing differentiated database performance.
Conclusions:
- The developed methodology aids library services in database acquisition decisions.
- Accessibility measures and odds ratio testing are valuable for differentiating database performance.
- BNI and CINAHL offer superior utility for nursing and midwifery students' dissertation research.
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