Zitt, M; et al; Revisiting country and institution indicators from citation distributions: Profile performance measures

[Eugene Garfield]

Email address: zitt at nantes.inra.fr

Author(s): Zitt, M (Zitt, Michel); Bassecoulard, E (Bassecoulard, Elise); 
Filliatreau, G (Filliatreau, Ghislaine); Ramanana-Rahary, S (Ramanana-
Rahary, Suzy) 

Title: Revisiting country and institution indicators from citation 
distributions: Profile performance measures 

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 
797-802, 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 indicators; excellence measures; database 
coverage; citation distributions; relative impact; power laws 

KeyWords Plus: INFORMETRIC DISTRIBUTIONS; FIELD-NORMALIZATION; CROSS-
FIELD; PUBLICATION; IMPACT; EXCELLENCE; AMBIGUITY 

Abstract: This communication presents some aspects of an on-going research 
on a class of indicators of scientific visibility Relying on a new usage 
of classic citation distribution studies, the "activity index in citation 
classes" (AIC) describes the "relative citation profile" or distribution 
of actors' articles among quantile classes of citations defined by the 
world reference. AIC exists in multiple variants reproducing various types 
of field-normalization, as well as direct or cumulative (AICC) 
presentation. The profiles of AIC can be summarized by empirical indexes, 
or parameters of simple laws, which are good candidates for indicators of 
overall citation performance. As profile performance indicators derived 
from AICC and classical "relative impact" (RI) indicators basically 
reflect the same information, their comparison is appealing. Empirical 
profiles obtained for national or institutional actors also raise the 
question of homogeneity of scientific literature: the high tail 
(excellence) and especially the low tail of the profile can show large 
deviations to the medium range of profile reflecting the general 
performance. 

Addresses: INRA, Lereco, Nantes, F-44026 France. 

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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