Purpose

Using chat transcripts from Indiana University Libraries, the authors examined a subset of transcripts involving citations. From this analysis, they propose improvements for citation assistance as a holistic service.

Design/methodology/approach

Two years of chat transcripts were examined and questions containing citation-related keywords were segregated for further examination. The authors used a test data set to create a coding scheme for the questions and responses. This scheme was then applied to all the citation-related transcripts.

Findings

390 of 11,553 transcripts included interactions about citations. In 42% of the transcripts, no specific citation style was mentioned. American Psychological Association and Modern Language Association were the most frequently mentioned citation styles by chat users. Business reports (company data and market research), periodicals (journal, newspaper or magazine articles), websites and government documents were the most often asked about formats, but there was a wide variety of other unusual formats. Questions about EndNote were more common than other types of citation management software. Chat staff utilized a variety of responses including guiding the student by example, directing to an online resource for more information (85% of the responses) or referring to a citation management expert. An unexpected amount of hedging words in the responses indicates the presence of anxiety on the part of chat staff in responding to these types of questions.

Originality/value

This paper goes beyond most existing studies of chat transcripts by using chat transcripts as data to guide service improvements for a commonly asked but not typically discussed set of questions.

中文翻译：

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构建引文：审查聊天记录以改进引文辅助服务

目的

作者使用印第安纳大学图书馆的聊天记录，检查了涉及引用的一部分记录。根据这一分析，他们建议将引文协助作为一项整体服务进行改进。

设计/方法/方法

检查了两年的聊天记录，并将包含与引用相关关键字的问题分开以供进一步检查。作者使用测试数据集为问题和回答创建了编码方案。然后将该方案应用于所有与引文相关的成绩单。

发现

11,553 份成绩单中的 390 份包含关于引文的互动。在 42% 的成绩单中，没有提到特定的引用风格。美国心理学会和现代语言协会是聊天用户最常提到的引用风格。商业报告（公司数据和市场研究）、期刊（期刊、报纸或杂志文章）、网站和政府文件是最常被问到的格式，但还有各种各样的其他不寻常的格式。关于 EndNote 的问题比其他类型的引文管理软件更常见。聊天人员使用了各种回复，包括以实例指导学生、指向在线资源获取更多信息（85% 的回复）或咨询引文管理专家。

原创性/价值

本文超越了大多数现有的聊天记录研究，使用聊天记录作为数据来指导常见问题但不常讨论的问题集的服务改进。