Research is emerging as one of the fundamental axes of university education, in synergy with training and extension, generating research professionals of the highest quality, helping to establish solid scientific, technological, cultural, social, and humanistic foundations that support the autonomous, independent, and sovereign progress of a nation. ¹

From this point of view, the epistemological debate in the field of educational sciences is a challenge that is becoming more and more challenging, ² since one of the dilemmas that the field of education is going through refers to the consciousness of the researcher, the accumulation of information, the recognition of scientific information, the use of different bibliographic managers that allow the organization of information, the axiological matrices that govern their thinking, the state of comfort, the epistemic instrumental power that anchors their paradigmatic vision of seeing, understanding and interpreting the cosmos, aspects that limit the spaces for collective reflection and the reality of a planet life in constant transformation. ³

Therefore, the researcher in the educational sciences, and specifically in the university context, must unravel the multiple visions and underlying ontological complexities of human environments. In this sense, knowledge as a polyvalent source is situated in the plane of subjectivity and emergent expression of reality, understanding that knowledge is the product of a recurrent and interactive dialogic linked to historical, cultural, and social elements that mark the epistemic communities in the order of the individual and collective, interpreted in man as congenital elements in his way of thinking. ⁴

Then, the man seen as a biopsychosocial-spiritual-ecological being and creator of multiple ways of thinking, leads to perennially directing, according to his geo-historical moment and his epistemic matrix; which implies thinking and rethinking reality from an emerging research future ⁵ of great epistemic value. This allows describing and discovering the complex connections and core interactions that configure a new polyvalent architecture of thought, a new paradigmatic vision, and therefore, a new social researcher, committed to the human value, the understanding of the other, the empathic capacity to understand both tacit and explicit knowledge, allowing glimpses of a new paradigm.

Therefore, universities, as a space for divergent thinking, must promote the integral formation of their students and the development of research competencies, contributing to the formation of a leading, autonomous and self-critical citizen of their academic and research process. Consequently, there is an urgent need to understand from the perception of university teachers the conceptions about the use of bibliographic managers, as an aspect that allows organizing and systematizing scientific information, recognizing that we are currently facing a knowledge society, that requires university teachers to know how to adequately select information for their research process. ⁶

In these current times of uncertainty and where the human being is immersed in a large amount of information, it is necessary for university teachers to use bibliographic managers that allow them to systematize the information, in other words, to analyze, understand and interpret those documents with scientific validity, leading to the development of informational research. This aspect is relevant for the university professor, since it allows from his educational praxis to promote the appreciation for validated scientific information in his students, originating in them the constant questioning of what they review and read.

Furthermore, the use of scientific databases connected to bibliographic managers in university spaces allows the information to be investigated to have a scientific backing, in other words, university professors must become promoters of the investigative action, providing a scientific accompaniment that allows students to obtain good sources of scientific information or scientific data that allow them to interpret and understand the phenomenon to be investigated.

Therefore, the use of bibliographic managers, such as Mendeley, Zotero, EndNote Basic, RefWorks, among others, allows the management of scientific information through the storage and organization of information, in addition to the dissemination of research, the management of citations and references, facilitating the bibliographic adaptability of research to certain standardized styles in an automatic way.

Bibliographic managers are defined as software tools that automatically collect bibliographic reference data from sources selected from various existing databases. ^{7 , 8} These programs also allow the management of data obtained in any of the citation styles, ⁹ being therefore tools mainly used in the field of scientific research. ¹⁰

These computer programs initially emerged in the 1980s, the pioneers were EndNote, Reference Manager, and ProCite. ¹¹ From there, more appeared, which can be classified into three: desktop programs, which are installed on the computer and work from there; web environment programs, which store the information on a web server that can be accessed from anywhere. ¹² And, finally, the recent social reference managers which facilitate collaborative work on reference collections. ¹³ Desktop managers are licensed and require a subscription to access their functions, as is the case of ProCite and EndNote. ⁷ Meanwhile, managers such as RefWorks and Zotero, being web-based, are the best known. As for the latter type of managers, Mendeley and Citeulike stand out. ¹²

The advantages granted by bibliographic managers are varied, ranging from the generation of citations and references in the desired style ¹⁴ ; shared use of personal libraries with other users, through the cloud ² ; import, export and manipulation of the data and metadata. ³ This facilitates the process of scientific writing, improving time management, organization of sources by criteria, access to reliable database sources, correct writing of citations according to the required style. ¹⁵

While there are many advantages offered by this type of programs, there is still not much use at the university level, ^{2 , 5 , 16 – 18} by students and teachers; this is mainly due to the lack of research policies that strengthen research and information competencies among teachers and students.

In view of this, there is a need to include the teaching of bibliographic managers in the curricula and to promote their use through formative research. The proper management of bibliographic managers, as has been argued in several studies, ^{16 , 19} guarantees products of higher academic quality.

Under this reality, the present research sought to understand the implicit theories on the use of bibliographic managers in the organization of scientific information in university teachers in Latin America (Colombia, Ecuador and Peru). For this purpose, the general problem was formulated: What are the implicit theories on the use of bibliographic managers in the organization of scientific information in university teachers in Latin America (Colombia, Ecuador and Peru)?

The research assumed the interpretative paradigm, since it allowed to understand from the perceptions and experiences lived by university teachers the use of bibliographic managers. In addition, the research was approached from the qualitative approach, allowing the description of the research phenomenon without emphasizing measurement, since its purpose is the interpretation of reality. ²⁰ In terms of design, it assumed a flexible, dynamic, and changing design, because it is developed through sequential stages, which are derived from each other. ¹ The method used was phenomenological, which led the researchers to immerse themselves in the consciousness of the key informant in order to understand the input category, such as the use of bibliographic managers.

The research project was reviewed by the Ethics Committee of the Universidad Nacional Experimental Francisco de Miranda and approved with code D.A.I.2022.03.015, on March 15, 2022. The committee verified that no human condition was altered, in addition to considering the informed consent of the people who were part of the study sample; likewise, the purposes of the study were notified in advance to the key informants, who were selected in an equitable manner; in addition, the protection of the participants’ data as well as their personal information was guaranteed; and finally, it was ensured that the data collected were used only for the purposes expressed in this research. Likewise, each of the teachers provided informed consent and voluntarily authorized their desire to participate in the interview, through a written format. The interviews lasted approximately 15 minutes with each key informant. Only the researchers in charge and the key informants were present during the interviews.

The setting for the study consisted of three Latin American universities, the Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia, the Universidad Internacional del Ecuador and the Universidad Nacional de Educación Enrique Guzmán y Valle in Peru. The sample consisted of 15 teachers, five from each university who were currently teaching the research subject and who were available to participate in the study. It is worth mentioning that there was a relationship prior to the study with the teachers from the country of origin, but not with the teachers from Ecuador and Colombia; the snowball technique was key for the sampling. All the participants contacted for the interview process answered the questions; none of them left the study. The semi-structured interview was used as a technique, which allowed to understand from the realities lived by university teachers the use of bibliographic managers, also allowed the processing of data by collecting the opinions of the sample participating in the study. The instrument used was the interview script, which was composed of eight open-ended questions, arising from the objectives of the study and from the categories proposed a priori.

The semi-structured interviews were based on the interview script referred to the topic of the study and were conducted using Google Meet as an instrument that accurately recorded the information provided by the key informants. It was not necessary to repeat any interview, and once the information was obtained, it was transcribed verbatim for the information analysis process, which included the study of microanalysis or content analysis line by line, word by word, of each information protocol. Along with the microanalysis or content analysis, the method of constant comparison between each of the dimensions and properties was carried out simultaneously, achieving consistency. Likewise, the first process of internal reliability was achieved, since the key informants confirmed that it was the product of the interaction between them and the researchers.

The interviews were conducted during the month of July 2022, where we coordinated first with each teacher, according to the availability of each one of them to collaborate with the research. The study was based on four cyclical-recursive moments, the first was the natural attitude, where information was obtained from the key informants as a result of the interviews, for transcription, analysis and coding. ²¹ The second moment allowed the epoche - eidetic reduction, consisting of the analysis of each interview to extract the phrases, words, or attributes that stood out in the process. The third moment originated the epoche-transcendental reduction, analyzing each attribute and their consistency in each interview analysis, allowing the emergence of attributes, subcategories, and emerging categories. The fourth moment revealed the constitution of the study, integrating in a semantic network the categories, subcategories and attributes that emerged in the research from a holistic, systemic and integrating vision. For the analysis of the data, the ATLAS.ti version 22.0.0 program, with license ID: L-A44-93E, was used, which allowed the introduction of the data, originating the interrelationships between each one, for their subsequent interpretation of the reality studied. Similarly, the same process can be carried out with the free software NVivo.

The results of the research are presented below, according to the moments established for the same.

This changing and complex world that constantly generates large-scale information data, has also generated Big data and constant changes in the mental structures of human beings for the process of organizing information and in this field the support provided by bibliographic managers is invaluable, as stated by the Ecuadorian researchers, ² who highlight the benefits of such bibliographic managers in terms of organization, systematization and conceptualization of the information. On the other hand, Cuban authors ¹⁸ draw attention to the usefulness of managers for young researchers with difficulties in the use of the Apa-Vancouver.

The use of bibliographic managers makes it possible to optimize the time available to the researcher for accessing and organizing information, ²³ which is extremely important in an era of large distances between the time available to the researcher and the volume of information that can be accessed. In Costa Rica, the researchers ²⁴ state the relevance of the use of managers as research tools.

The researcher’s challenge is to provide itself with technological tools that allow it to optimize the results and quality of its research. Other benefi-ts provided by bibliographic managers are the socialization of research results and collaborative work, as Ref. 6 point out.

In reference to the conceptions about the use of bibliographic managers in the organization of scientific information in teachers, the findings establish that there is an urgent need to incorporate the use of bibliographic managers as a skill in university students and teachers. This can be done through information literacy programs, as pointed out by Ref. 23 or incorporated into the syllabus of a subject of the research area. While it is true that managers are research tools and play a key role in developing students’ research skills, ²⁴ it is not only the curricular research experiences that must guarantee their use, but also the entire curriculum, since promoting, their use in isolation from other curricular experiences would not be sufficient to generate an internalization of their use. ²

Therefore, it is necessary to conceive it as a transversal strategy during the period of higher education, and this is possible if it is established as a guideline or institutional policy for the elaboration of academic products; this guarantees the execution of an adequate organization of information ^{4 , 17 , 25} the optimization of time, and above all, the quality of the research or academic product. This last aspect becomes relevant when it becomes evident that the main difficulties of students is the search for sources and the citation and referencing of them ^{2 , 18} ; which explains why bibliographic managers would become indispensable tools for the student body. ^{6 , 8 , 11 , 17}

The implementation of the use of bibliographic managers as an institutional guideline not only leads to the obvious development of students’ research competence. This was demonstrated in the study by Ref. 23 in which it was found that users of bibliographic managers spend a tenth of the time to make a citation than those who do not know how to use this tool. In addition, the use of these programs is reflected in an improvement in academic performance in general, ⁴ which would help us to achieve the long-awaited educational quality.

According to the general objective, to understand the implicit theories about the use of bibliographic managers in the organization of scientific information, in university teachers in Latin America (Colombia, Ecuador and Peru), it is asserted that even when it is recognized from the cognitive conception about the concept of bibliographic managers, its applicability or use, it seems not to be so effective in scientific academic spaces and activities, because teachers are still anchored to the traditionalist vision of organizing information through “drive, folder or excel”, reflecting the resistance to change. The use of bibliographic managers requires formative spaces, instruction, and opportunities that strengthen professional competence in the research process, in a way that is reflected in the performance as evidence of the educational quality that is created.