Theses and dissertations in Information Science: unrevealed multidisciplinarity in the evaluation of scientific production

Abstract

The study discusses the researchers’ community profile in Information Science at ECA/USP, that emerges from the analyses of indicators about formal education of the graduate programs’ research members in relation to the thematic profile of their dissertations and theses. The department lines of research and the research groups registered at CNPq are referential elements in the evaluation of the scientific production of the area. Working under the hypothesis that the descriptions of the group’s activities are elaborated to accommodate the researchers’ diverse interests and don’t reflect the production of the area, a study was undertaken to analyze the thematic content of the dissertations/theses from 1999 to 2004, for the evaluation of their pertinence to the lines of research and research groups. The results show an unrevealed multidisciplinar academic production in the bibliometric studies, especially quantitative results and the negative impact of those descriptions on the analysis of the production of the area itself, since the production of the graduate program includes a variety of research works from different theoretical fields.