SIGMETRICS Digest - 7 Aug 2000 to 10 Aug 2000 (#2000-116)

Fri Aug 11 23:22:26 EDT 2000

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 <smaritch at ROCKETMAIL.COM> 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
>
> <http://www.cis.vt.edu/technoscience/97win/comm.htm>
> /
>
> > 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
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________________________
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=====
---------------------------------------------------
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

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