ABS: Harter, Web-based analyses of e-journal impact: Approaches, problems, and issues

[Gretchen Whitney]

Steven P. Harter : harter at indiana.edu

TITLE           Web-based analyses of e-journal impact: Approaches,
problems, and issues
AUTHOR  Harter SP, Ford CE
JOURNAL JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE
                                  51: (13) 1159-1176 NOV 2000

 Document type: Article    Language: ENGLISH    Cited References: 11
Times Cited: 0

Abstract:
This study(1) assesses the ways in which citation searching of scholarly
print journals is and is not analogous to backlink searching of scholarly
e-journal
articles on the WWW, and identifies problems and issues related to
conducting and interpreting such searches. Backlink searches are defined
here as
searches for Web pages that link to a given URL. Backlink searches were
conducted on a sample of 39 scholarly electronic journals. Search results
were
processed to determine the number of backlinking pages, total backlinks, and
external backlinks made to the e-journals and to their articles. The results
were
compared to findings from a citation study performed on the same e-journals
in 1996. A content analysis of a sample of the files backlinked to e-journal
articles was also undertaken. The authors identify a number of reliability
issues associated with the use of "raw" search engine data to evaluate the
impact of
electronic journals and articles. No correlation was found between backlink
measures and ISI citation measures of e-journal impact, suggesting that the
two
measures may be assessing something quite different. Major differences were
found between the types of entities that cite, and those that backlink,
e-journal
articles, with scholarly works comprising a very small percentage of
backlinking files. These findings call into question the legitimacy of using
backlink searches
to evaluate the scholarly impact of e-journals and e-journal articles (and
by extension, e-journal authors).

KeyWords Plus:
ACCESSING ELECTRONIC JOURNALS

Addresses:
Harter SP, Indiana Univ, Sch Lib & Informat Sci, Bloomington, IN 47405 USA.
Indiana Univ, Sch Lib & Informat Sci, Bloomington, IN 47405 USA.
Birmingham So Coll Lib, Birmingham, AL 35254 USA.

Publisher:
JOHN WILEY & SONS INC, NEW YORK

IDS Number:
370PU

ISSN:
0002-8231

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