Shelton, RD (Shelton, R. D.); Foland, P (Foland, Patricia); Gorelskyy, R (Gorelskyy, Roman) Do new SCI journals have a different national bias?

[Eugene Garfield]

Email address: shelton at wtec.org

Author(s): Shelton, RD (Shelton, R. D.); Foland, P (Foland, Patricia); 
Gorelskyy, R (Gorelskyy, Roman) 

Title: Do new SCI journals have a different national bias? 

Editor(s): TorresSalinas, D; Moed, HF 

Source: PROCEEDINGS OF ISSI 2007: 11TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE 
INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR SCIENTOMETRICS AND INFORMETRICS, VOLS I AND II 
708-717, 2007 

Language: English 
Document Type: Article 

Conference Title: 11th International Conference of the International-
Society-for-Scientrometrics-and-Informetrics
 
Conference Date: JUN 25-27, 2007 

Conference Location: Madrid, SPAIN 

Conference Sponsors: Int Soc Scientrometr & Informetr, CSIC, Minist Educ & 
Ciencia, FECYT, Comunidad Madrid, Eugene Garfield Fdn, Thomson Sci, 
Elsevier, Journal Informetr, Scopus, Ayuntamiento Madrid, Sci Metrix, Univ 
Carlos III Madrid 

Author Keywords: science citation index; bias; science leadership; 
publication share; American paradox 

KeyWords Plus: SCIENCE; CHINA 

Abstract: National shares of worldwide publications in the Science 
Citation Index (SCI) have shifted recently. The long-term decline in U.S. 
share accelerated in the mid-1990s, and now the EU has joined this 
decline. Not coincidentally, the shares of some countries have increased 
sharply, particularly those of China, S. Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. 
Since the SCI constantly adds new journals, one reason might be that newly 
added journals were more favorable to them. To test this, the database was 
partitioned into "old journals" (added before 1995) and "new journals," 
added afterward. The analysis was done for eight of the 20 fields of 
science defined by the National Science Indicator CD. In some fields, new 
journals were indeed much more favorable to the Asians. In some fields, 
however, new journals were actually more favorable to the U.S. In 
aggregate over the eight fields analyzed, the size of this effect was too 
small to account for much of the sharp changes in national shares. 
Furthermore tests between old and new journals find that differences in 
most fields are not statistically significant. The results provide 
evidence that the SCI can be used to accurately track national publication 
chances over time. 

Addresses: WTEC, Baltimore, MD 21210 USA. 

Publisher Name: INT SOC SCIENTOMETRICS & INFORMETRICS-ISSI 
Publisher Address: KATHOLIEKE UNIV LEUVEN, FACULTEIT E T E W, DEKENSTRAAT 
2, LEUVEN, B-3000, BELGIUM 

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