Levitt, JM; Thelwall, M Is multidisciplinary research more highly cited? A macrolevel study JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 59 (12): 1973-1984 OCT 2008

[Eugene Garfield]

E-mail Address: j.m.levitt at wlv.ac.uk; m.thelwall at wlv.ac.uk 

Author(s): Levitt, JM (Levitt, Jonathan M.); Thelwall, M (Thelwall, Mike) 

Title: Is multidisciplinary research more highly cited? A macrolevel study 

Source: JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND 
TECHNOLOGY, 59 (12): 1973-1984 OCT 2008 

Language: English 

Document Type: Article 

Keywords Plus: INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH; CROSS-DISCIPLINARY; INFORMATION-
SCIENCE; SCIENTIFIC-RESEARCH; CITATION PATTERNS; GOOGLE SCHOLAR; H-INDEX; 
COLLABORATION; IMPACT; CLASSIFICATION 

Abstract: Interdisciplinary collaboration is a major goal in research 
policy. This study uses citation analysis to examine diverse subjects in 
the Web of Science and Scopus to ascertain whether, in general, research 
published in journals classified in more than one subject is more highly 
cited than research published in journals classified in a single subject. 
For each subject, the study divides the journals into two disjoint sets 
called Multi and Mono. Multi consists of all journals in the subject and 
at least one other subject whereas Mono consists of all journals in the 
subject and in no other subject. The main findings are: (a) For social 
science subject categories in both the Web of Science and Scopus, the 
average citation levels of articles in Mono and Multi are very similar; 
and (b) for Scopus subject categories within life sciences, health 
sciences, and physical sciences, the average citation level of Mono 
articles is roughly twice that of Multi articles. Hence, one cannot assume 
that in general, multidisciplinary research will be more highly cited, and 
the converse is probably true for many areas of science. A policy 
implication is that, at least in the sciences, multidisciplinary 
researchers should not be evaluated by citations on the same basis as 
monodisciplinary researchers. 

Addresses: [Levitt, Jonathan M.; Thelwall, Mike] Wolverhampton Univ, Sch 
Comp & Informat Technol, Stat Cybermetr Res Grp, Wolverhampton WV1 1SB, W 
Midlands, England 

Reprint Address: Levitt, JM, Wolverhampton Univ, Sch Comp & Informat 
Technol, Stat Cybermetr Res Grp, Wulfruna St, Wolverhampton WV1 1SB, W 
Midlands, England. 

E-mail Address: j.m.levitt at wlv.ac.uk; m.thelwall at wlv.ac.uk 

Cited Reference Count: 39 

Times Cited: 0 

Publisher: JOHN WILEY & SONS INC 

Publisher Address: 111 RIVER ST, HOBOKEN, NJ 07030 USA 

ISSN: 1532-2882 

DOI: 10.1002/asi.20914 

29-char Source Abbrev.: J AM SOC INF SCI TECHNOL 

ISO Source Abbrev.: J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci. Technol. 

Source Item Page Count: 12 

Subject Category: Computer Science, Information Systems; Information 
Science & Library Science 

ISI Document Delivery No.: 351WB 

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