Abstract :
Interdisciplinary research is being promoted in many quarters as the way
forward, but “research islands” still persist. Taking computer-assisted learning
(CAL) within health sciences as a case in point, this paper describes a detailed
study of the references to source material within papers published in general
medical, specific nursing and general information and communications
technology journals as pointing to papers published either in the same
category of journal or journals of other categories. The results show that
research within this area exhibits a disquieting inbred approach. Furthermore,
there is clear evidence of a tendency amongst the papers examined to cite
research published in journals with broadly the same impact factors as the
journal in which the papers themselves are published. A discussion of the value
of journal impact factors, which are a crude but useful index of the quality of
journal, and their possible effect on the future of research in CAL within health
sciences is embedded in the paper.
