ABS: Cybermetrics papers

[Isidro F. Aguillo]

Dear colleagues:

A new volume of the ejounal Cybermetrics has just been published on the
web with two new articles. Commentaries are welcomed. Another papers
too.


Mike Thelwall (2001). The Responsiveness of Search Engine Indexes.
Cybermetrics, 5 (issue 1). Paper 1

http://www.cindoc.csic.es/cybermetrics/articles/v5i1p1.html

m.thelwall at wlv.ac.uk

Abstract
Search engines are an important tool for information foraging on the
web. The broad details of how they work is, therefore, of relevance to
both information seekers and providers. Yet search engines are known to
only index a fraction of the web, up to a maximum of 16% in one recent
study. A search engine must crawl the web periodically in order to
maintain an up to date index, but, given the limitations of total
coverage, how can it decide which sites to cover and which to ignore?
One answer lies in research showing the importance of web links in
identifying useful sources of  information. This paper reports on an
experiment to investigate the effect of link count on the indexing of
1000 sites in three search portals over a period of seven months. It was
found that, although all engines added sites during the period of the
survey, only Google showed evidence of being very responsive to the
existence of links on the test site, whereas AltaVista's results were
very stable over time.

***

Loet Leydesdorff, Loet (2001). Indicators of Innovation in a
Knowledge-based Economy. Cybermetrics, 5 (issue 1). Paper 2

http://www.cindoc.csic.es/cybermetrics/articles/v5i1p2.html

loet at leydesdorff.net

Abstract
The concept of 'modes of knowledge production' was used by Gibbons et
al. (1994) to distinguish between transdisciplinary ('Mode 2') R&D and
more traditional ('Mode 1') research. This paper explores whether the
Internet provides a means to operationalize 'Mode 2' knowledge
production as containing a differently codified communication pattern
which can be compared to co-word and citation patterns in scientometric
databases ('Mode 1'). Innovations on the drugs market, for example, can
be indicated at the commercial end by using the trade names of the drugs
(e.g., Evista), while the very same innovation can be retrieved in the
patent and science citation databases using the generic names of the
active substances involved (in this case, raloxifene). By using the
generic names the new drugs can be traced back into their respective
knowledge bases.
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   Isidro F. AGUILLO                      isidro at cindoc.csic.es
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 CINDOC-CSIC                              Tel: +34-91-563.54.82
 Joaquin Costa, 22                        Móvil: +34-630.858997
 28002 Madrid. ESPAÑA/SPAIN               Fax: +34-91-564.26.44
 Editor
 Cybermetrics, e-Journal (http://www.cindoc.csic.es/cybermetrics)
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