Abstract:

The present regulations of the education require publications in scientific journals included in scientific databases. This policy forces university teachers to publish in journals indexed in recognized databases, such as the Web of Science (WoS) or SCOPUS database. These databases don’t provide free access to their content and the best papers are often published in journals to which both scientific employees and students have a limited access. Students, that write papers, projects and diploma theses are expected to use these databases, too.

At the time of the quarantine in connection with Covid 19, we made several innovations in teaching through MS Teams. This style of teaching greatly limits the possibility of testing. Because students have a lot of opportunities to cheat on the exam. Therefore, the main task of our courses became seminar work. Thus, the qualitative requirements for seminar work have increased. One of the criteria for the evaluation of the seminar essays is the use of citation databases. This change is not limited by the current quarantine measures in the Czech Republic the extended use of scientific article databases will probably last even after the end of the quarantine. That is why we researched the use of scientific databases among students of the University College of Business in Prague.

As for the research method, we used the quantitative research. It be based on contingency tables and correlations in statistics. We used a questionnaire as a research technique, some questions offered respondents the Likert scale for measuring attitudes.

We asked about the frequency of scientific databases use, about the favourite database, the aim of use, the contentment with the databases and their content, the fees related to the databases and similar questions. The results show that students use the databases, but not very often. They are not regular academics, most of them will be employed in a company. Google Scholar was the most favourite database followed by the Web of Science. Students use the databases mostly for their seminar essays and are contended with them on the average. They’d be willing to pay about 100 CZK (4 Euro)/month for the access to the content of the database. These databases help them a lot in their studies.

More detailed analysis and results will be provided in the final version of the paper. We will also include some theoretical discussion of the role and current status of the scientific databases in the academic work.

Keywords:

Scientific database, university studies, teaching, Covid 19 pandemic.