Accuracy of Thomson data - decentralising data collection and enhancing the scope of scientometrics?

[Armbruster, Chris]

To the list:

Would you trust the situation to improve if digital repositories (institutional, disciplinary and/or national) were to provide data in future? 
One would possibly expect that a decentralised solution would provide more comprehensive (types of publication, languages etc.) and more accurate coverage, but one might also worry that the corpus will be less well defined.... Hence, what would you think if repositories developed a system of author registration (unique identifier, institutional affiliation) and provided data?

What is the scope for delivering scientometrics to the digital workbench of scientists?
I have anecdotal evidence that review panels (for major grants, tenure etc. - often very senior scientists) routinely use software and search engines to look up the citation data and indices of applicants and candidates. If we were not to dismiss this simply as evaluation mania, but to say that all scientists (senior and junior) now need tools for metric research evaluation to reduce complexity on an everyday basis (and develop strategies for research, teaching, publishing and networking) - is scientometrics developed enough to be a reliable tool?

Context: for the Max Planck Digital Library I am looking into the potential of digital libraries and repositories for the generation, collection and evaluation of scientometric data.

Chris Armbruster
http://ssrn.com/author=434782 




-----Original Message-----
From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics on behalf of Loet Leydesdorff
Sent: Tue 18/12/2007 20:50
To: SIGMETRICS at listserv.utk.edu
Subject: Re: [SIGMETRICS] FW: GENERAL: accuracy of Thomson data
 

Dear Christina and colleagues:

Incorrect journal abbreviations and non-ISI sources

Citations 

http://users.fmg.uva.nl/lleydesdorff/list.htm 

Table 4: Non-ISI sources and incorrect journal abbreviations with more than
10,000 citations in the JCR 2005.

"With its 54,139 citations, the J Phys Chem-US would belong to the top-50
journals of the database if it were included. However, this journal is
included in the ISI-database under the abbreviations J Phys Chem A and J
Phys Chem B with 32,086 and 59,826 citations, respectively. For some
journals, however, the different spellings in the references may have large
implications. Bornman et al. (2007, at p. 105) found 21.5% overestimation of
the impact factor of Angewandte Chemie in 2005 because of authors providing
references to both the German and international editions of this journal
(Marx, 2001)." 
 
Source: " <blocked::http://www.leydesdorff.net/cit_indicators/index.htm>
Caveats for the Use of Citation Indicators in Research and Journal
Evaluations," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and
Technology, February 2008 (forthcoming; available as Early View). 
 
With best wishes, 

Loet Leydesdorff 
Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR)
Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam
http://users.fmg.uva.nl/lleydesdorff/list.htm


> -----Original Message-----
> From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics
> [mailto:SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU] On Behalf Of Pikas, Christina K.
> Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2007 3:37 PM
> To: SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU
> Subject: [SIGMETRICS] FW: GENERAL: accuracy of Thomson data
>
> Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe):
> http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
>
> 
> Interesting article -- this came across another listserv I'm on. 
> - Calls for an audit of WoS data. 
> - Suggests median measure
> - Points to errors caused by article type designations.
>
>
> Christina K. Pikas, MLS
> R.E. Gibson Library & Information Center
> The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
> Voice  240.228.4812 (Washington), 443.778.4812 (Baltimore)
> Fax 443.778.5353
>
>