CFP workshop on Methodological Issues in Using Curricula Vitae

[Loet Leydesdorff]

> The main and obvious reason for doing so was the desire to 
> compare journals with similar ones, and in 
> particular with others in the same field that might be 
> expected to have the same pattern of citation, in order 
> to prevent the unfairness of comparing impact factors across 
> fields with different publication patterns. They 
> do fairly well for this. 

The question, indeed, is whether the journals within a set can be expected
to have the same pattern of citation. I question both this expectation and
the evidence that "they do fairly well for this." The expectation is not
warranted by an ad-hoc classification, however smart the classifiers are and
the evidence is not convincing. See my reply to Kevin about this. 

My initial mail was mainly concerned with some colleagues organizing a
workshop of scientometrics at Madrid based on this erroneous assumption. I
understand that one sometimes has to be pragmatical, but not in the
scholarly debate, in my opinion.

With best wishes, 


Loet
________________________________

Loet Leydesdorff 
Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR)
Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam
Tel.: +31-20- 525 6598; fax: +31-20- 525 3681 
loet at leydesdorff.net ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/