From Linda.Marion at CIS.DREXEL.EDU Tue Aug 1 01:00:47 2000 From: Linda.Marion at CIS.DREXEL.EDU (Linda Marion) Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 01:00:47 -0400 Subject: Linda Marion/Drexel_IST is out of the office. Message-ID: I will be out of the office starting 07/31/2000 and will not return until 08/07/2000. I will respond to your message when I return. If you require immediate assistance please email Melissa Englund or phone the IST office at 215-895-2474. If you have an advising question, please email ISTadvising at cis.drexel.edu and an advisor will respond. Thank you. From jrichard at UCLA.EDU Tue Aug 1 13:34:05 2000 From: jrichard at UCLA.EDU (John Richardson) Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 10:34:05 -0700 Subject: Scientrometrics, vol. 41-43 (1998) Message-ID: Dear ListServe readers: UCLA does not have a current subscription and USC has only the earlier volumes; and I don't have time to wait for ILL to locate copies. So, if anyone is willing to help me answer 8 questions related to these 9 issues of the journal Scientrometics (vol. 41, issues 1-3; vol. 42 no. 1-3; and vol. 43, no. 1-3), I would appreciate it. You would have to have them in front of you to answer the questions. We can work out a mutually convenient time to do it. JRjr -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lmui at MIT.EDU Thu Aug 3 12:36:35 2000 From: lmui at MIT.EDU (LIK MUI) Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 12:36:35 -0400 Subject: Citations Source Message-ID: Hello, I am new to the citation world. Recently, I am trying to get access to citation data for a computer science algorithm work, but have NOT been able to locate such source. (ISI wants to charge quite a bit for it for their SCI.) Could anyone point me to a free citation source covering any scientific or engineering disciplines? The data preferably have authorship and and citation information for each reference. Thanks very much in advance. -- Lik Mui From helen.atkins at ISINET.COM Thu Aug 3 13:15:11 2000 From: helen.atkins at ISINET.COM (Atkins, Helen) Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 13:15:11 -0400 Subject: Citations Source Message-ID: Your email address seems to indicate that you are at MIT. I would suggest that you go to the MIT library and talk to them about how you can access ISI's Web of Science, to which MIT has subscribed. Web of Science is the Web-based version of the SCI and should provide the citation data you need. Helen Atkins ************************************* Helen Barsky Atkins Director, Database Development Institute for Scientific Information 3501 Market Street Philadelphia, PA 19104 Helen.Atkins at isinet.com 215.386.0100 x1218 800.523.1850 215.387.4706 (fax) ************************************* -----Original Message----- From: LIK MUI [mailto:lmui at MIT.EDU] Sent: Thursday, August 03, 2000 12:37 PM To: SIGMETRICS at listserv.utk.edu Subject: [SIGMETRICS] Citations Source Hello, I am new to the citation world. Recently, I am trying to get access to citation data for a computer science algorithm work, but have NOT been able to locate such source. (ISI wants to charge quite a bit for it for their SCI.) Could anyone point me to a free citation source covering any scientific or engineering disciplines? The data preferably have authorship and and citation information for each reference. Thanks very much in advance. -- Lik Mui -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From WhitsonT at OSTINET.OSTI.GOV Thu Aug 3 14:09:27 2000 From: WhitsonT at OSTINET.OSTI.GOV (Whitson, Thurman) Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 14:09:27 -0400 Subject: Citations Source Message-ID: Do we have a site for you! Try http://www.osti.gov/pubscience. The PubSCIENCE Web site, developed by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Scientific and Technical Information, provides access to scientific and technical journal literature, including citations with abstracts. As the result of a unique public-private sector partnership, 33 journal publishers are contributing content to PubSCIENCE, making over 1,400 journals and 2 million journal citations available from this source. Best of all, it's publicly-available and free! You may find many of OSTI's other sites beneficial as well. Check out http://www.osti.gov for more information. tl whitson 865-576-1088 -----Original Message----- From: LIK MUI [mailto:lmui at MIT.EDU] Sent: Thursday, August 03, 2000 12:37 PM To: SIGMETRICS at listserv.utk.edu Subject: [SIGMETRICS] Citations Source Hello, I am new to the citation world. Recently, I am trying to get access to citation data for a computer science algorithm work, but have NOT been able to locate such source. (ISI wants to charge quite a bit for it for their SCI.) Could anyone point me to a free citation source covering any scientific or engineering disciplines? The data preferably have authorship and and citation information for each reference. Thanks very much in advance. -- Lik Mui From lmui at BARTON.LCS.MIT.EDU Thu Aug 3 15:03:08 2000 From: lmui at BARTON.LCS.MIT.EDU (LIK MUI) Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 15:03:08 -0400 Subject: Citations Source In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 03 Aug 2000 13:15:11 EDT." <806F83B9E265D411ACC800D0B75AE32684DF0E@isi-mail.isinet.com> Message-ID: Hello Helen, Thanks for your reply! Yes, I am here at MIT. The web version of ISI's Web of Science requires a per reference lookup. I would like to analyze the data in bulk (such as over 10,000 references and all their citations). Using the web version will require 10,000 manual lookups which will not be desirable. By nature of MIT's license, is it possible to get access in bulk form for the data? Lik From Benoit_Godin at INRS-URB.UQUEBEC.CA Thu Aug 3 14:59:40 2000 From: Benoit_Godin at INRS-URB.UQUEBEC.CA (Benoît Godin) Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 14:59:40 -0400 Subject: Citations Source Message-ID: It's totally impossible to produce statistics in bulk with the Web of Science. ---------------------------------------- Beno?t Godin Professeur INRS Observatoire des sciences et des technologies e-mail: benoit_godin at inrs-urb.uquebec.ca http://www.ost.qc.ca -----Original Message----- From: LIK MUI [mailto:lmui at BARTON.LCS.MIT.EDU] Sent: 3 ao?t, 2000 15:03 To: SIGMETRICS at listserv.utk.edu Subject: Re: [SIGMETRICS] Citations Source Hello Helen, Thanks for your reply! Yes, I am here at MIT. The web version of ISI's Web of Science requires a per reference lookup. I would like to analyze the data in bulk (such as over 10,000 references and all their citations). Using the web version will require 10,000 manual lookups which will not be desirable. By nature of MIT's license, is it possible to get access in bulk form for the data? Lik From gwhitney at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Mon Aug 7 09:52:47 2000 From: gwhitney at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Gretchen Whitney) Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 09:52:47 -0400 Subject: SigMet to resume 21 August Message-ID: Hi all, The abstract service aspect of SIGMETRICS will resume approximately the 21st of August. The listserv remains open for discussion. Happy summer! --gw <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Gretchen Whitney, PhD tel 423.974.7919 School of Information Sciences fax 423.974.4967 University of Tennessee, Knoxville TN 37996 USA gwhitney at utk.edu http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/ jESSE:http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/jesse.html SIGMETRICS:http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> From familyburrell at ENTERPRISE.NET Thu Aug 10 17:32:43 2000 From: familyburrell at ENTERPRISE.NET (Quentin L. Burrell) Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000 22:32:43 +0100 Subject: Discussion? Message-ID: When she signed off from the abstracting service - for a well-earned holiday or - Gretchen said that the listserv would still be there for discussion. So here goes, with apologies if I seem a little disrespectful at times, but the aim is to provoke response! 1. For me, one of the major disappointments of SIGMETRICS has been the lack of discussion or debate. There have been a few attempts at encouraging discussion, for instance the power law vs exponential law description/modelling of scientometric phenomenon. But here, a haughty, intemperate and somewhat inaccurate response to Rousseau's very pertinent comment brought all discussion to a close. (I apologise, I really should have joined in at that stage.) Also a very few contributors have offered data and some analysis but these seem not to have stimulated any sort of debate on such things as alternative models for the data or methodology for the fitting of models. Why is this? Does nobody have ideas? Does nobody have questions? Or are we all protecting our ideas ready for publication? 2. The way it has developed over the past six months or so, SIGMETRICS seems to be primarily a vehicle for sending out "relevant" abstracts. A non-scientific perusal of these suggests to me that a word-search on the name "Garfield" in the list of references, i.e. a citation search, of possible papers is used as the sole criterion. (Please correct me!) IMHO, reference to Eugene Garfield's work, valuable though it is, is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for relevance to the general field of Sigmetrics (even though I still have some difficulties with this term!). If this is the case, then should we perhaps be seeking a rather wider abstracting search? And how should listmembers contribute - we can't just rely on Gretchen. 3. In case the above all seems rather critical, let me finish with a question which should at least warrant factual response but will hopefully engender some discussion. It seems that so many "research" papers currently mentioned have titles like "A citation analysis of papers in X, Y or Z" or "The Impact Factor of journals in A, B or C" which are eerily reminiscent of the situation a couple of decades ago when we had many papers presenting "Bradford's law applied to ..." or "A Bradford analysis of ..." and all leading to nothing. The problem in those early days was that the importance of the time dimension had not been realised - it was thought that Bradford's law (whether or not it was true!) - was the same whether we were looking at a "collection" for one year or ten. (And nobody bothered to check!) Is not the same true for much of the current research? Where is the theory of time dependent citation analysis? Is there an accepted stochastic theory? Indeed, is there any successful theory or do we just have a collection of empirical studies? If this latter is the case, then what is the real value of citation analysis and can it have any scientifically justifiable role in the policy decision making process? Over to you. Quentin Burrell -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davisc at INDIANA.EDU Thu Aug 10 18:58:44 2000 From: davisc at INDIANA.EDU (charles h. davis) Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000 17:58:44 -0500 Subject: Discussion? In-Reply-To: <001701c00312$9f43f6e0$9571a1d4@enterprise.net> Message-ID: Point taken, however patronizing it may have been to Gene Garfield, to whom we're all indebted. Having said that, there is much new to be learned. I call your attention to the following website: http://www.slis.indiana.edu/ Take a look at "Webometrics and Influmetrics." While one may deplore the neologisms, s/he might also learn something. In addition to the usual citation-analyses, people should take seriously the examination of acknowledgements -- a related but different kind of intellectual indebtedness. I am particularly interested as I believe the behavior follows a power curve rather than a simple exponential "law." (Note that I put "law" in parentheses since it merely exemplifies a pattern.) Before she passed away, Jean Tague expressed interest in some work that Blaise Cronin and I had done: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Davis, Charles H. and Blaise Cronin, "Acknowledgments and Intellectual Indebtedness: A Bibliometric Conjecture," Journal of the American Society for Information Science 44(10):590-592 (December 1993) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ =============================================================== Charles H. Davis, Ph.D. | Professor Emeritus Senior Fellow | GSLIS Indiana University | University of Illinois Bloomington, IN 47405 | Urbana-Champaign (812) 331-1322 | Fax: (812) 855-6166 | http://memex.lib.indiana.edu/davisc/davisc.html =============================================================== From egarfield at ROCKETMAIL.COM Thu Aug 10 23:42:06 2000 From: egarfield at ROCKETMAIL.COM (Eugene Garfield) Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000 20:42:06 -0700 Subject: Discussion? Message-ID: Gretchen and I(Gene) welcome any discussion or criticism. I can assure you that my sdi profile is not simply based on my name and used key words such as citation analysis, bibliometrics,etc. As a matter of fact, it would take pages to dispplay the entire profile that I have developed over the past thirty odd years. It takes in any paper that has cited any one of a list of key journals, but that does not mean I pick up every conceivable paper that over 200 SIGMET members might be interested in. That is why everyone is encouraged to submit their candidate papers either by title, abstract,etc. with or without critical comments. BEst wishes from down under. Eugene Garfield --- "Quentin L. Burrell" wrote: > When she signed off from the abstracting service - > for a well-earned holiday or - Gretchen said that > the listserv would still be there for discussion. So > here goes, with apologies if I seem a little > disrespectful at times, but the aim is to provoke > response! > > 1. For me, one of the major disappointments of > SIGMETRICS has been the lack of discussion or > debate. There have been a few attempts at > encouraging discussion, for instance the power law > vs exponential law description/modelling of > scientometric phenomenon. But here, a haughty, > intemperate and somewhat inaccurate response to > Rousseau's very pertinent comment brought all > discussion to a close. (I apologise, I really should > have joined in at that stage.) Also a very few > contributors have offered data and some analysis but > these seem not to have stimulated any sort of debate > on such things as alternative models for the data or > methodology for the fitting of models. > > Why is this? Does nobody have ideas? Does nobody > have questions? Or are we all protecting our ideas > ready for publication? > > 2. The way it has developed over the past six months > or so, SIGMETRICS seems to be primarily a vehicle > for sending out "relevant" abstracts. A > non-scientific perusal of these suggests to me that > a word-search on the name "Garfield" in the list of > references, i.e. a citation search, of possible > papers is used as the sole criterion. (Please > correct me!) IMHO, reference to Eugene Garfield's > work, valuable though it is, is neither a necessary > nor a sufficient condition for relevance to the > general field of Sigmetrics (even though I still > have some difficulties with this term!). If this is > the case, then should we perhaps be seeking a rather > wider abstracting search? And how should listmembers > contribute - we can't just rely on Gretchen. > > 3. In case the above all seems rather critical, let > me finish with a question which should at least > warrant factual response but will hopefully engender > some discussion. > > It seems that so many "research" papers currently > mentioned have titles like "A citation analysis of > papers in X, Y or Z" or "The Impact Factor of > journals in A, B or C" which are eerily reminiscent > of the situation a couple of decades ago when we had > many papers presenting "Bradford's law applied to > ..." or "A Bradford analysis of ..." and all leading > to nothing. The problem in those early days was that > the importance of the time dimension had not been > realised - it was thought that Bradford's law > (whether or not it was true!) - was the same whether > we were looking at a "collection" for one year or > ten. (And nobody bothered to check!) Is not the same > true for much of the current research? > > Where is the theory of time dependent citation > analysis? Is there an accepted stochastic theory? > Indeed, is there any successful theory or do we just > have a collection of empirical studies? > > If this latter is the case, then what is the real > value of citation analysis and can it have any > scientifically justifiable role in the policy > decision making process? > > Over to you. > > Quentin Burrell > > > ===== --------------------------------------------------- Eugene Garfield, President, American Society for Information Science & Technology www.asis.orgChairman Emeritus, ISI,3501 Market St,Philadelphia, PA 19104 www.isinet.comPublisher,THE SCIENTIST,3600 Market St,Philadelphia,PA 19104 www.the-scientist.comTel: 215-243-2205 // Fax: 215-387-1266 // E-mail: garfield at codex.cis.upenn.edu Personal Web site: www.eugenegarfield.org __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Kick off your party with Yahoo! Invites. http://invites.yahoo.com/ From smaritch at ROCKETMAIL.COM Fri Aug 11 07:33:09 2000 From: smaritch at ROCKETMAIL.COM (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sinisa=20Maricic?=) Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 04:33:09 -0700 Subject: SIGMETRICS Digest - 7 Aug 2000 to 10 Aug 2000 (#2000-116) Message-ID: --- Automatic digest processor wrote: > There are 3 messages totalling 343 lines in this issue. > > Topics of the day: > > 1. Discussion? (3) > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000 22:32:43 +0100 > From: "Quentin L. Burrell" > Subject: Discussion? Yes. I agree. Let me add some comment along Quentin's (abbreviated) text; > 1. For me, one of the major disappointments of SIGMETRICS has > been the lack of discussion or debate. A year ago, I (S.M.) wrote to the SIGMETRICS list: ______________________________________________________ > Dear SIGMETRICSians, > > Out of 107 postings on our list so far, the archives yield 20 items > after a "substring search" for IMPACT FACTOR . There is thus > already a "respectful" thread. Those postings/references deal with > the JOURNAL CITATION REPORTS (JCR) impact factors in a > laudable or critical way, but quite a number of them indicate a new > approach in "constructing" the impact factors for "non-ISI"journals, > i.e. those which are NOT within the ISI selection for regular > coverage, but have nevertheless been cited by them, as evidenced > by the records within the citation indexes. They are, however, kind > of "hidden data". > > According to Van Hooydonk, G. and Milis-Proost, G. /(1997), > Measuring impact by a full option method and the notion of > bibliometric spectra, Proceedings of the Sixth Conference of the > international Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics, > Jerusalem Israel, pp.449-461/ N. Bayers and H. Small (from ISI) > estimated in 1996 that between 50 and 70% of all citations >(depending on the particular ISI index) are to non-ISI journals. > > After 20 years of my meandering attempts to bring to the attention > of the mainstream science communities that the citation indexes > could be exploited one step further in evaluating the journals from > the peripheral scientific communities /Maricic, S (1997), The > mainstream peripheral science communication, Technoscience, > Winter 1997, vol. 10, Number 1, also in / > I eventually propounded a concrete proposal /Maricic, S (1998), > The missing link - The mainstream-peripheral science > communication, Current Science (India), 75(5):427-428, and on > 28th January 1999, for the World Conference on Science in < http://helix.nature.com/wcs/e01.html> /. > > Of course, whoever is interested in the "non-ISI" journals standing > within the citation mindset, can "construct" their impact factors > by making use of the ISI's data bases and - paying for it. > > However, for the science studies (and policy) in peripheral > scientific communities it would be of great help if there existed a > yearly "catalogue" of all the "non-ISI" journal titles appearing > within the citation indexes. Titles only - at lest. Even more useful > would be to have the total numbers each title had been cited within > the given year. > > Any comments, or questions (to me or otherwise)? > > Yours in discourse, > Sinisa ______________________________________________________ NO: there was no reaction whatsoever. MAYBE the topic I suggested is just plain irrelevant in general, or for the "Sigmetricians" in particular? > 2. The way it has developed over the past six months or so, > SIGMETRICS seems to be primarily a vehicle for sending out > "relevant" abstracts. Although Quentin is to me on this, too, mostly correct, I'm adding for good measure that the List did in fact bring out even an abstract of a paper of ours on evaluating domestic journals. Perhaps because the journal we published it in (this year - 2000) is covered by Current Contents. > 3. In case the above all seems rather critical, let me finish with > a question which should at least warrant factual response but will > hopefully engender some discussion. > > The problem in those early days was that the importance of > the time dimension had not been realised - it was thought that > Bradford's law (whether or not it was true!) - was the same whether > we were looking at a "collection" for one year or ten. (And nobody > bothered to check!) > Is not the same true for much of the current research? > > Where is the theory of time dependent citation analysis? Is there > an accepted stochastic theory? Indeed, is there any successful > theory or do we just have a collection of empirical studies? > Notwithstanding the brave attempts of offering theory of citation, we enlarged the "collection of empirical studies" with the hope of at least presenting some food for thought (the time span was 10 years of publishng + 20 years of citations to the source papers): Maricic,S; Spaventi,J; Pavicic,L; Pifat-Mrzljak,G (1998): Citation context versus the frequency counts of citation histories. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 49/6, 507-516. > If this latter is the case (cont. from Quentin's message!-SM), then > what is the real value of citation analysis and can it have any > scientifically justifiable role in the policy decision making process? Well, this indeed is an ongoing (but not in this list!) discussion. Bearing in mind all the caveats for using citation analysis in "policy decision making process", again for good measure - here is my experience at the periphery where the ugly side of indiscriminate use of citations does come in the foreground: Maricic,S (1997): About "Measuring" Croatian Science. Croatian Medical Journal 38,383-385., available at < http://salata.mef.hr/CMJ/3804/3804-i.htm > > > Over to you. > > Quentin Burrell OVER TO YOU, Sinisa Maricic __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Kick off your party with Yahoo! Invites. http://invites.yahoo.com/ From bvmarten at MAILBOX.SYR.EDU Fri Aug 11 15:05:07 2000 From: bvmarten at MAILBOX.SYR.EDU (Betsy V. Martens) Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 15:05:07 -0400 Subject: Controversial Questions In-Reply-To: <200008110419.AAA17829@mailbox.syr.edu> Message-ID: Hi, I have to agree with Quentin Burrell that there IS a surprising lack of discussion on this listserv, especially as compared with the conversations that take place on SOCNET, for example. (This is not at all to denigrate the helpful contributions of Gretchen, Gene Garfield and Charles Davis both on and off the list!). I find the abstracts most helpful, track down and read the articles, but then have little opportunity to discuss them with anyone. Just as additional conversation fodder: I'd be curious myself to know what people on the list think of the theory of "engineered reach" as applied to citations by David Kaufer and Kathleen Carley in their 1993 book, "Communication at a Distance"? Is anyone attempting to replicate their simulated findings with actual citation data? Why or why not? Betsy Van der Veer Martens Ph.D. candidate School of Information Studies Syracuse University bvmarten at mailbox.syr.edu From egarfield at ROCKETMAIL.COM Fri Aug 11 22:19:03 2000 From: egarfield at ROCKETMAIL.COM (Eugene Garfield) Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 19:19:03 -0700 Subject: Controversial Questions Message-ID: Dear Betsy: Perhaps the reason for a lack of discussion of the theory you mentioned is that most of us are not familiar with the book or the theory you mention. So why don't you provide us with a summary of it? Or perhaps you can convince the author of the theory to provide the summary. There is nothing in the title of the book that would lead one to assume that it was relevant to bibliometrics, but I am glad to be enlightened. I look forward to your further posting. Best wishes. Eugene Garfield --- "Betsy V. Martens" wrote: > Hi, > > I have to agree with Quentin Burrell that there IS a > surprising lack of > discussion on this listserv, especially as compared > with the conversations > that take place on SOCNET, for example. (This is not > at all to denigrate > the helpful contributions of Gretchen, Gene Garfield > and Charles Davis > both on and off the list!). I find the abstracts > most helpful, track down > and read the articles, but then have little > opportunity to discuss them > with anyone. > > Just as additional conversation fodder: I'd be > curious myself to know > what people on the list think of the theory of > "engineered reach" as > applied to citations by David Kaufer and Kathleen > Carley in their 1993 > book, "Communication at a Distance"? Is anyone > attempting to replicate > their simulated findings with actual citation data? > Why or why not? > > Betsy Van der Veer Martens > Ph.D. candidate > School of Information Studies > Syracuse University > bvmarten at mailbox.syr.edu ===== --------------------------------------------------- Eugene Garfield, President, American Society for Information Science & Technology www.asis.orgChairman Emeritus, ISI,3501 Market St,Philadelphia, PA 19104 www.isinet.comPublisher,THE SCIENTIST,3600 Market St,Philadelphia,PA 19104 www.the-scientist.comTel: 215-243-2205 // Fax: 215-387-1266 // E-mail: garfield at codex.cis.upenn.edu Personal Web site: www.eugenegarfield.org __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail ? Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ From egarfield at ROCKETMAIL.COM Fri Aug 11 23:22:26 2000 From: egarfield at ROCKETMAIL.COM (Eugene Garfield) Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 20:22:26 -0700 Subject: SIGMETRICS Digest - 7 Aug 2000 to 10 Aug 2000 (#2000-116) Message-ID: Let me reiterate-- if any one knows of articles appearing outside of the set of journals that we can follow easily then by all means submit them to SIGMET. No one has ever suggested that do not consider them relevant. However, you cannot expect me to do all this myself. You are free to express your opinions on any of the material we locate, but we cannot force people to comment. Best wishes. Eugene Garfield --- Sinisa Maricic wrote: > --- Automatic digest processor wrote: > There are 3 > messages > totalling 343 lines in this issue. > > > > Topics of the day: > > > > 1. Discussion? (3) > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000 22:32:43 +0100 > > From: "Quentin L. Burrell" > > Subject: Discussion? > > Yes. I agree. Let me add some comment along > Quentin's (abbreviated) > text; > > > 1. For me, one of the major disappointments of > SIGMETRICS has > > been the lack of discussion or debate. > > A year ago, I (S.M.) wrote to the SIGMETRICS list: > > ______________________________________________________ > > > Dear SIGMETRICSians, > > > > Out of 107 postings on our list so far, the > archives yield 20 items > > after a "substring search" for IMPACT FACTOR . > There is thus > > already a "respectful" thread. Those > postings/references deal with > > the JOURNAL CITATION REPORTS (JCR) impact factors > in a > > laudable or critical way, but quite a number of > them indicate a new > > approach in "constructing" the impact factors for > "non-ISI"journals, > i.e. those which are NOT within > the ISI > selection for regular > > coverage, but have nevertheless been cited by > them, as evidenced > > by the records within the citation indexes. They > are, however, > kind > of "hidden data". > > > > According to Van Hooydonk, G. and Milis-Proost, G. > /(1997), > > Measuring impact by a full option method and the > notion of > > bibliometric spectra, Proceedings of the Sixth > Conference of the > > international Society for Scientometrics and > Informetrics, > > Jerusalem Israel, pp.449-461/ N. Bayers and H. > Small (from ISI) > > estimated in 1996 that between 50 and 70% of all > citations > >(depending on the particular ISI index) are to > non-ISI journals. > > > > After 20 years of my meandering attempts to bring > to the attention > > of the mainstream science communities that the > citation indexes > > could be exploited one step further in evaluating > the journals from > > the peripheral scientific communities /Maricic, S > (1997), The > > mainstream peripheral science communication, > Technoscience, > > Winter 1997, vol. 10, Number 1, also in > > > / > > > I eventually propounded a concrete proposal > /Maricic, S (1998), > > The missing link - The mainstream-peripheral > science > > communication, Current Science (India), > 75(5):427-428, and on > > 28th January 1999, for the World Conference on > Science in > > < http://helix.nature.com/wcs/e01.html> /. > > > > > Of course, whoever is interested in the "non-ISI" > journals standing > > within the citation mindset, can "construct" their > impact factors > > by making use of the ISI's data bases and - paying > for it. > > > > However, for the science studies (and policy) in > peripheral > > scientific communities it would be of great help > if there existed a > > > yearly "catalogue" of all the "non-ISI" journal > titles appearing > > within the citation indexes. Titles only - at > lest. Even more > useful > would be to have the total numbers each > title had been cited > within > the given year. > > > > Any comments, or questions (to me or otherwise)? > > > > Yours in discourse, > > Sinisa > > ______________________________________________________ > > NO: there was no reaction whatsoever. MAYBE the > topic I suggested is > just plain irrelevant in general, or for the > "Sigmetricians" in > particular? > > > 2. The way it has developed over the past six > months or so, > > SIGMETRICS seems to be primarily a vehicle for > sending out > > "relevant" abstracts. > > Although Quentin is to me on this, too, mostly > correct, I'm adding > for good measure that the List did in fact bring out > even an abstract > of a paper of ours on evaluating domestic journals. > Perhaps because > the journal we published it in (this year - 2000) is > covered by > Current Contents. > > > 3. In case the above all seems rather critical, > let me finish with > > a question which should at least warrant factual > response but will > > hopefully engender some discussion. > > > > The problem in those early days was that the > importance of > > the time dimension had not been realised - it was > thought that > > Bradford's law (whether or not it was true!) - > was the same > whether > we were looking at a "collection" for one > year or ten. > (And nobody > bothered to check!) > > Is not the same true for much of the current > research? > > > > Where is the theory of time dependent citation > analysis? Is there > > an accepted stochastic theory? Indeed, is there > any successful > > theory or do we just have a collection of > empirical studies? > > > > Notwithstanding the brave attempts of offering > theory of citation, we > enlarged the "collection of empirical studies" with > the hope of at > least presenting some food for thought (the time > span was 10 years of > publishng + 20 years of citations to the source > papers): > > Maricic,S; Spaventi,J; Pavicic,L; Pifat-Mrzljak,G > (1998): Citation > context versus the frequency counts of citation > histories. Journal of > the American Society for Information Science, 49/6, > 507-516. > > > If this latter is the case (cont. from Quentin's > message!-SM), then > > > what is the real value of citation analysis and > can it have any > > scientifically justifiable role in the policy > decision making > process? > > Well, this indeed is an ongoing (but not in this > list!) discussion. > Bearing in mind all the caveats for using citation > analysis in > "policy > decision making process", again for good measure - > here is my > experience at the periphery where the ugly side of > indiscriminate use > of citations does come in the foreground: > > Maricic,S (1997): About "Measuring" Croatian > Science. Croatian > Medical Journal 38,383-385., available at > > < http://salata.mef.hr/CMJ/3804/3804-i.htm > > > > > Over to you. > > > > Quentin Burrell > > > OVER TO YOU, > > Sinisa Maricic > > > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Kick off your party with Yahoo! Invites. > http://invites.yahoo.com/ ===== --------------------------------------------------- Eugene Garfield, President, American Society for Information Science & Technology www.asis.orgChairman Emeritus, ISI,3501 Market St,Philadelphia, PA 19104 www.isinet.comPublisher,THE SCIENTIST,3600 Market St,Philadelphia,PA 19104 www.the-scientist.comTel: 215-243-2205 // Fax: 215-387-1266 // E-mail: garfield at codex.cis.upenn.edu Personal Web site: www.eugenegarfield.org __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail ? Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ From Michel.Menou at WANADOO.FR Sat Aug 12 06:07:41 2000 From: Michel.Menou at WANADOO.FR (Michel J. Menou) Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 12:07:41 +0200 Subject: Controversial Questions In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 15:05 11/08/00 -0400, Betsy Van der Veer Martens wrote: >snip >Just as additional conversation fodder: I'd be curious myself to know >what people on the list think of the theory of "engineered reach" as >applied to citations by David Kaufer and Kathleen Carley in their 1993 >book, "Communication at a Distance"? Is anyone attempting to replicate >their simulated findings with actual citation data? Why or why not? As the idiot on duty in this list, I'd also be interested to see a short introduction to this topic and/or a reference. Thanks in advance Michel Menou ========================================= Michel J. Menou, Ph.D., Professor of Information Policy Department of Information Science, School of Informatics City University Northampton Square, London EC1V OHB, U.K. Email: Michel.Menou at wanadoo.fr Http://www.soi.city.ac.uk/informatics/is/mjm.html From bvmarten at MAILBOX.SYR.EDU Mon Aug 14 09:15:11 2000 From: bvmarten at MAILBOX.SYR.EDU (Betsy V. Martens) Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 09:15:11 -0400 Subject: Kaufer-Carley Theory of Engineered Rearch In-Reply-To: <200008140415.AAA17018@mailbox.syr.edu> Message-ID: > > Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 12:07:41 +0200 > From: "Michel J. Menou" > Subject: Re: Controversial Questions > > At 15:05 11/08/00 -0400, Betsy Van der Veer Martens wrote: > >snip > >Just as additional conversation fodder: I'd be curious myself to know > >what people on the list think of the theory of "engineered reach" as > >applied to citations by David Kaufer and Kathleen Carley in their 1993 > >book, "Communication at a Distance"? Is anyone attempting to replicate > >their simulated findings with actual citation data? Why or why not? > > As the idiot on duty in this list, I'd also be interested to see a short > introduction to this topic and/or a reference. > > Thanks in advance > > Michel Menou > Dear Michel, Gene, and interested others, Alas, I certainly don't travel in those rarefied Carnegie-Mellon circles with Drs. Kaufer and Carley, and only came across their work in the course of reviewing the literature for my own dissertation in progress. But following is a brief description of the Carley-Kaufer "theory of engineered reach", omitting the mathematical elements of their model, which the book addresses in detail. Please forgive the embedded references and the doctoral student tone: this is taken directly from my lit review. Perhaps others on the list with more knowledge of this work could comment? Regards, Betsy Martens Syracuse University School of Information Studies bvmarten at mailbox.syr.edu Kaufer, David S. and Carley, Kathleen M. (1993) COMMUNICATION AT A DISTANCE: THE INFLUENCE OF PRINT ON SOCIOCULTURAL ORGANIZATION AND CHANGE. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. In their 1993 monograph, "Communication at a Distance", David Kaufer and Kathleen Carley propose a systems approach to the communicative transaction, integrating agents, content, and context as components of a sociocultural ecology which evolves over time (Kaufer and Carley, 1993, pages 87-88). This unified theory of the communicative interaction cycle, which they term "constructuralism" (Kaufer and Carley, 1993, page 14), is suggested as a more satisfactory meso-theoretical approach than either of the two pre-eminent communication research traditions: the empirical (e.g., mass communications theory) and humanistic (e.g., reader-response theory). Both of these separate traditions tend to make either the specific communicator, the audience, the communication, the communication technology, or the communicative effect the object of inquiry. Both traditions, therefore, tend to "black-box" the communicative transaction itself (Kaufer and Carley, 1993, page 88). Further, while the empirical communication research tradition functions ahistorically, in accordance with the social scientific research tradition from which it stems, the humanistic research tradition is historically specific in its concern with individual authors, in accordance with the classic literary research tradition (Kaufer and Carley, 1993, page 2). Consequently, both traditions neglect the continuities of social and cultural organization arising from the circulation of information through concurrent transactions unfolding over time (Kaufer and Carley, 1993, page 3). In contrast, the constructuralist approach, which "... makes individual cognition (specifically, individual information; the ability to learn and to choose interaction partners with whom to learn) the central showpiece [in which] the slightest change in what an individual knows can, in principle, affect the entire sociocultural landscape", also allows the aggregation of the communicative transactions which dynamically structure a given social world over time (Kaufer and Carley, 1993, page 90). Kaufer and Carley point out the critical centrality of print in modern sociocultural organization and change, appreciating in particular the influence of such predecessors as Eisenstein (1979), Goody (1986), Innis (1950, 1959), McLuhan (1962, 1964), Ong (1982), and Yates (1966) in exploring the impact of old and new media on basic cognitive and cultural organization for understanding information, from units organized by the oral/aural senses to units organized by the visual senses (Kaufer and Carley, 1993; page 9). Similarly, they acknowledge the importance of such social theorists as Archer (1988), Callon and Latour (1981), Collins (1975), Giddens (1984), and Turner (1988), all of whose work explore in various ways the "meso-structure" between the micro-interactions of individuals and the macro-structures of society (Kaufer and Carley, 1993, page 206). However, constructuralism itself can be profitably viewed as a structural theory of information diffusion, with ties to classic work in diffusion theory (Katz et al., 1963; Rogers, 1962), information use theory (Feldman and March, 1981; Festinger, 1956), social network theory (Burt, 1983; Granovetter; 1973; Pool and Kochen, 1978; White and Breiger, 1975), and scientometric theory (Holton, 1978; Price, 1970). Constructuralism provides a dynamic model of the communicative transaction cycle as it impacts and is impacted by the particulars of any sociocultural topology. It specifically foregrounds "adaptation" by social groups in consonance with its emphasis on change over time, with three specific "measures of adaptation" at the sociocultural level: diffusion, stability, and consensus (Kaufer and Carley, 1993, page 148). Diffusion is a longitudinal measure of the fraction of the population that has received some new information or innovation. Stability is the degree to which the population shares available information. Consensus is the degree to which the population shares the same belief about some focal idea or decision point. Constructuralism, thus, is a generic process model that Kaufer and Carley employ in a series of historically-informed, computer-assisted thought experiments that model the movement of texts as artificial agents in simulated societies of oral and print-oriented communicators, professional communicators, and academic communicators. As the intent of these simulations is theory development, framed by high-level historical accounts and the operationalization of these accounts into a set of models that furnish insight into how the accounts need further elaboration and revision, constructuralism is very much a work in progress (Kaufer and Carley, 1993, page 8). In a critique of self-organizing systems research in the social sciences, including both constructuralism and autopoiesis, Noshir Contractor points out that such models run the risk of being more metaphorically appealing than theoretically or empirically revealing (Contractor, 1998). The considerable difficulties in modeling communicative complications are exemplified in Niklas Luhmann's attempt to use autopoiesis to model communication systems such as law (Luhmann, 1982, 1995). Autopoiesis has made little progress to date in modeling a real-world legal knowledge system or in fitting actual or gedanken data to its parameters (Baxter, 1998; DeFlem, 1998). One of the more fascinating features of the constructuralist model is the specification of the text as an artificial agent encapsulating part of its author's mental model during the time of composition, and subject to later, local interpretation during communicative transactions (Kaufer and Carley, 1993, page 229). In the academic simulation, this specification is termed the "theory of engineered reach" and makes a distinction between context-related (prestige of author and/or journal of publication) and content-related resources available to authors (Kaufer and Carley, 1993, pages 380-1). Authors' content-related resources for creating their textual agents consist of "citation" (the use of authors' names to relate the textual content to the ideas of other authors in the field) and "elaboration" (the use of sentences to expand more fully than citations upon the ideas of prior texts). Kaufer and Carley quantify both citation and elaboration in a test of their "engineered reach" model (Kaufer and Carley, 1993, pages 385-391). The neglect of citation and elaboration quality in their model presumably contributes to the inconclusiveness of their results. What is not at present factored into constructuralism's textual agent is any potential power or truth-value of those new ideas embodied in the text itself. While avoiding the danger of a simplistic evolutionary epistemology such as Dawkin's concept of "memes" (self-validating ideas as controlling parasites on the brains of their human hosts) which has been recently been both popularized (Balkin, 1998; Blackmore, 1998; Lynch, 1996) and debunked (Gatherer, 1998; Polichak 1998), the textual agent comes precariously close to foundering on a purely social construction of truth as an emergent property of subsequent local interpretations. It is unlikely that the current model of constructuralism would be able to explain much about the actual import and impact of the ideas of, for example, Darwin (Dennett, 1995) or even Derrida (Lamont, 1987) without attending to larger issues of private or public standards for credibility. Private standards for credibility would presumably involve individually distinguishing the ontology of agents (e.g., as facts, hypotheses, assumptions, speculations, etc.). Public standards for credibility might be Bayesian, possibly using Goldman's (1999) "veritistic social epistemology", which allows for varying degrees of belief to be based on the range of proven or possible "veritistic values" of a particular item of information. "Consensus consequentialism" (that is, mistaking the consensus of any group on a particular matter as equivalent to the "truth" of that matter) inherent in the constructuralist model at present could perhaps be averted by allowing credibility to be set at different levels for different agents and audiences. This Bayesian approach, however, is itself imperfect and attests to the difficulty of modeling credibility claims in even a simulation of knowledge transfer and transformation. A further weakness of the constructuralist model is that it tends to present the communication landscape as a level plain, without the complications introduced by the dynamics of various knowledge systems and their interrelationships. Although this is an inherent feature of models, advances in constructuralist research beyond what is already available through standard diffusion research or network analytic techniques will obviously require the introduction of appropriate cognitive and communication complications. Although constructuralism's use of "citation" as textual agent may be particularly problematic, it does possess the inestimable advantage of providing a useful framework for empirical research. Clearly, constructuralism's strengths as an integrated approach to the study of the development of reliable knowledge, as compared with its predecessors, are well worth further discussion and elaboration. In order to move beyond thought experiments, though, the model needs to be supplied with empirical data from a variety of communicative perspectives. From smaritch at ROCKETMAIL.COM Wed Aug 16 06:03:22 2000 From: smaritch at ROCKETMAIL.COM (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sinisa=20Maricic?=) Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 03:03:22 -0700 Subject: SIGMETRICS Digest - 10 Aug 2000 to 11 Aug 2000 (#2000-117) Message-ID: Hi, SIGMET List members, Below is the comment by Gene (Garfield) of my posting in the SIGMETRICS Digest #2000-116 (for 7-10 Aug 2000). In it, I agreed with Quentin L. Burrell that discussion proper is lacking on our List. I then copied my suggestion to the List for a topic of a year ago. Now I see Gene missed (again) completely my main point, which is, to my mind, of quite a general interest (very practical. though). That is why I address the List as well and not only Gene himself. > Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 20:22:26 -0700 > From: Eugene Garfield > Subject: Re: SIGMETRICS Digest - 7 Aug 2000 to 10 Aug 2000 > (#2000-116) > > Let me reiterate-- if any one knows of articles > appearing outside of the set of journals that we can > follow easily then by all means submit them to SIGMET. > No one has ever suggested that do not consider them > relevant. However, you cannot expect me to do all this > myself. You are free to express your opinions on any > of the material we locate, but we cannot force people > to comment. Best wishes. Eugene Garfield I was NOT asking for more coverage of any particular articles. I even indicated that a paper of ours from this side of the Atlantic and the outskirts of Europe has recently been mentioned on the List. However, my MAIN POINT is that I have proposed setting up a regular annual 'Extra-CI' directory, which would indicate those publications from the peripheral scientific communities which have been considered to have some importance by having been cited through the regular Citation Indexes journals pool (selected by ISI, that is). Such a directory should register at least the titles of those "extra-CI" journals, but, of course, more useful would be to indicate also how many times such journals had been cited in the relevant year. Anyone interested in the idea is welcome to comment (or ask questions). Yours in discourse, Sinisa (Maricic), Ph.D.(Chem) Poljicka 12/D-419, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia email: smaritch at rocketmail.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send instant messages & get email alerts with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com/ From gwhitney at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Wed Aug 23 17:27:54 2000 From: gwhitney at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Gretchen Whitney) Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 17:27:54 -0400 Subject: ASIS is ASIS&T (fwd) Message-ID: Many sigmetricians are not members of ASIS; I thought this might be of interest. --gw ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 16:18:00 -0500 From: Richard Hill To: all mbrs aug 23 Subject: ASIS is ASIS&T The ASIS Board of Directors voted at its May meeting to change the name of our Society to the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T). This action follows over a year of discussion among the membership in many forums. The new name better reflects the professional interests of the membership and positions the Society to compete and thrive in the future. There has been a debate for many years over the best way to expand the reach of this information science society in response to the dramatic advances in information technology over the past decade. We should view these rapid advances in computer and communications technology and the coming ubiquity of information technology as an important opportunity for us. We have been talking about the "information society" since 1970 but now it is upon us. One way to view recent developments is that a distributed tele-computing infrastructure has been put into place. But there are significant information management challenges that need to be solved before this dazzling new structure can function as a global library. Guiding this next generation of information technology is part of the mission of our society. We must define a new information professionalism-- * By providing analysis of practices and technologies, and * By nurturing new perspectives, interests, and ideas --in a world where creating and communicating information is of central economic, social, and political importance. This spring, a mail ballot of the membership resulted in approximately 70% approval to change the name of the society. With this direction from the membership, the Board at its May meeting approved amending the ASIS Charter to change the name of the Society to the American Society for Information Science and Technology. This change is an important opportunity for us to take advantage of the new value being placed on information science, technology, and their applications. Anyone who attended our Spring summit on Information Architecture was struck by the large number of new faces and the energy they generated. While change can be jarring, this is a time for us to reaffirm the core values of our Society--theory, research, applications, and service. We hope to capture more of this energy in our 2000 Annual Meeting November 13 - 16 in Chicago, and in an expanded Summit meeting next Spring. Headquarters, under the Board's direction, is making special efforts to recruit individual and institutional members, particularly from the information technology sector. Our change of name (but not our soul) provides us an opportunity to revise our mission and goals, focus on making sure that we are provide unique services that meet members needs. We are very excited about the opportunities and challenges to be faced as the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T). We count on you to help us achieve our objectives in the coming year. Let us know you thoughts about how we can work with you to accomplish our mission and your goals. American Society for Information Science and Technology ASIS&T 8720 Georgia Avenue, Suite 501 Silver Spring, MD 20910 (301) 495-0900 FAX: (301) 495-0810 http://www.asis.org From linda.butler at ANU.EDU.AU Thu Aug 24 20:04:52 2000 From: linda.butler at ANU.EDU.AU (Linda Butler) Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 10:04:52 +1000 Subject: positions vacant Message-ID: The Research School of Social Sciences of the Australian National University has been exploring options for the development and promotion of the Research Evaluation and Policy Project (REPP), since the death of the founding director of the Project, Professor Paul Bourke, in 1999. A senior position in REPP was advertised earlier this year, but the Research School was unable to make an appointment. The Research School has now advertised for several positions 'across the board', from junior to senior, with some expectation that this will produce a strong field from which to make one or more academic appointments. A copy of the advertisement and contact details follow. The Australian National University INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED STUDIES RESEARCH SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES RESEARCH EVALUATION AND POLICY PROJECT Professor (Academic Level E1) Senior Fellow (Academic Level D) Fellow (Academic Level C) Research Fellow (Academic Level B) ADVERTISEMENT Applications are invited for up to two fixed-term appointments in the Research Evaluation and Policy Project (REPP) within the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University. REPP pursues a program of research into the structures of research enquiry in Australia in the natural sciences, the social sciences and humanities. Major projects have been completed, or are in train, on patterns of publication and citation across these broad fields, on the sectoral origins of basic research in Australia and on the international linkages of Australian research. Applications for appointment at the Fellow and Research Fellow level are encouraged from persons from other backgrounds who are interested in moving into the field of research evaluation and policy. Appointment: Fixed-term for a period up to five years. The Research School of Social Sciences encourages applications from women and other equal opportunity target groups. Intending applicants must obtain a copy of the further particulars from the School Secretary, Research School of Social Sciences, by fax on 61 2 6249 0502, by email on schoolsec.rsss at anu.edu.au or by telephone on 61 2 6249 2257. Enquiries may also be made to the Director of the Research School of Social Sciences by email on Ian.McAllister at anu.edu.au Closing date: 6 October, 2000 Ref: SS 7.8.1 ***************************************************** Linda Butler Research Evaluation and Policy Project Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University ACT 0200 Australia Tel: 61 2 62492154 Fax: 61 2 62493969 http://coombs.anu.edu.au/Depts/RSSS/REPP/repp.htm ***************************************************** From David.Watkins at SOLENT.AC.UK Sat Aug 26 10:40:04 2000 From: David.Watkins at SOLENT.AC.UK (David Watkins) Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2000 15:40:04 +0100 Subject: Time dependent theory of citation Message-ID: One of the several interesting points made by Quentin Burrell in his posting of 10th August concerned the temporaral element in citation analysis, or the general lack thereof. An exception to this which may interest list members is a recent book by Patrick Thomas which used a variety of techniques, including logistic curves, to look at long-term trends in the influence of key authors (as measured by citation impact) in a sub-field of social science. The reference is: "Thomas, P. (1999). Fashions in Management Research: an Empirical Analysis. Aldershot, UK / Brookfield, Vermont, Ashgate." ISBN 1-84014-730-X Being a UK-based study, although using mainly US data, and being published in monograph form this may have escaped some of the attention it deserves. David Watkins ************************************************ Professor David Watkins Business Development Research Centre Southampton Business School East Park Terrace Southampton SO14 0YN Telephone number from overseas: +44 2380 319610 >From UK: 023 80 319610 (Tel) Fax number fom overseas: +44 2380 332627 >From UK: 023 80 332627 (Fax) David.Watkins at Solent.ac.uk