papers of possible interest to SIGMET readers

Tue Sep 27 16:00:41 EDT 2011

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TITLE:          Measuring research excellence Number of Nobel Prize
                achievements versus conventional bibliometric indicators (Article,
                English)
AUTHOR:         Rodriguez-Navarro, A
SOURCE:         JOURNAL OF DOCUMENTATION 67 (4). 2011. p.582-600 EMERALD
                GROUP PUBLISHING LIMITED, BINGLEY

SEARCH TERM(S):  GARFIELD E  rauth;
                 SEGLEN PO          J AM SOC INFORM SCI    43:628   1992;
                 BIBLIOMETR*  item_title;
                 GARFIELD E         THEORETICAL MED        13:117   1992

KEYWORDS:       Bibliometric indicators; Research performance; Nobel
                prizes; Research results; Research
KEYWORDS+:       HIGHLY CITED PAPERS; IMPACT FACTOR; CITATION ANALYSIS;
                RESEARCH QUALITY; SCIENCE; INSTITUTIONS; PUBLICATION;
                NATIONS; COUNTS; AUTHORS

ABSTRACT:       Purpose - Several bibliometric indicators that are
extensively used to estimate research performance have not been validated against an external criterion of excellence. This paper aims to investigate whether this validation is possible using the number of Nobel Prize awards.

Design/methodology/approach - This study uses several analytical treatments of the data to investigate: whether Nobel Prize awards are sporadic events or they depend on the scientific activity of countries or institutions and can be used in research evaluation; and the association between the number of Nobel Prize achievements and conventional bibliometric indicators across countries and institutions.

Findings - This study finds that conventional bibliometric indicators, numbers of publications, citations, and top 1 per cent most cited publications, correlate with the number of Nobel Prize achievements in several advanced countries with similar research abilities. Contrarily, in countries and institutions with more variable research characteristics, there is no association between conventional bibliometric indicators and the number of Nobel Prize achievements, and their use as indicators of research excellence is not valid. In contrast, the number of national articles in Nature and Science correlates with the number of Nobel Prize achievements across countries and institutions.

Practical implications - Science administrators implementing research evaluations and research incentives based on conventional bibliometric indicators should consider that increasing the scores of these indicators does not imply an improvement in research excellence.

Originality/value - The study demonstrates that Nobel Prize achievements are not singular events that occur by chance. Therefore, the number of Nobel Prize achievements can be used to validate bibliometric indicators.

AUTHOR ADDRESS: A Rodriguez-Navarro, Univ Politecn Madrid, Ctr Biotecnol &
                Genom Plantas, Campus Montegancedo, E-28040 Madrid, Spain
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TITLE:          Testing for Zipf's law: A common pitfall (Article,
                English)
AUTHOR:         Urzua, CM
SOURCE:         ECONOMICS LETTERS 112 (3). SEP 2011. p.254-255 ELSEVIER
                SCIENCE SA, LAUSANNE

SEARCH TERM(S):  ZIPF*  item_title

KEYWORDS:       Zipf's law; Rank-size relation
KEYWORDS+:       CITIES

AUTHOR ADDRESS: CM Urzua, Tecnol Monterrey, Campus Ciudad Mexico,Calle
                Puente 222, Mexico City 14380, DF, Mexico
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TITLE:          One more time: bibliometric analysis of scientific output
                remains complicated (Letter, English)
AUTHOR:         Opthof, T; Wilde, AAM
SOURCE:         NETHERLANDS HEART JOURNAL 19 (7-8). AUG 2011. p.359-360
                BOHN STAFLEU VAN LOGHUM BV, HOUTEN

SEARCH TERM(S):  BIBLIOMETR*  item_title;
                 HIRSCH JE          P NATL ACAD SCI USA   102:16569 2005;
                 LETTER*  doctype

KEYWORDS+:       HIRSCH-INDEX

AUTHOR ADDRESS: T Opthof, Univ Amsterdam, Acad Med Ctr, Dept Cardiol, Dept
                Clin & Expt Cardiol,Heart Failure Res Ctr, Meibergdreef
                9,Room K2-105, NL-1105 AZ Amsterdam, Netherlands
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TITLE:          Trends in publication of research papers by Australian-
                based nurse authors (Article, English)
AUTHOR:         Wilkes, L; Jackson, D
SOURCE:         COLLEGIAN 18 (3). 2011. p.125-130 ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV,
                AMSTERDAM

SEARCH TERM(S):   
                 GARFIELD E         JAMA-J AM MED ASSOC   295:90    2006

KEYWORDS:       Publication; Research; Nursing
KEYWORDS+:       JOURNAL IMPACT

ABSTRACT:       Analysis of Australian nursing research output is
becoming more important as academic institutions move into implementing quality programs of research output. Notable in determining research quality is the publication of research papers in journals with a high ranking within the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) or Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA). This paper reports an analysis of Australian nurse researcher output in journals highly ranked by the ISI and ERA. Research abstracts were analysed for topic, sources of data, location of research and methodological paradigm. A total of 530 articles from five Australian and from five USA and UK journals were analysed. There was an increase in output from the period of prior analyses in 2000. Practice issues are the most common topic followed closely by nurse education. While most studies used nurses as sources of data there were more studies in which consumers of nursing care were the point of inquiry. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were utilised. Given the importance of rationalising nursing practice and adding new knowledge to evidence based care, it is imperative for the nursing profession to disseminate research findings. Failure to do this may result in poor return in investment outcomes for the future of nursing in Australia and internationally. Published by Elsevier Australia (a division of Reed International Books Australia Pty Ltd) on behalf of Royal College of Nursing, Australia.

AUTHOR ADDRESS: L Wilkes, Nepean Hosp, Sydney W Area Hlth Serv, POB 63,
                Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia

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TITLE:          How influential are Technology Innovation Management
                journals-Technology Innovation Management Journal 2010 Impact Factors in
                comparison with Financial Times 45 (Editorial Material, English)
AUTHOR:         Linton, JD
SOURCE:         TECHNOVATION 31 (9). SEP 2011. p.425-426 ELSEVIER
                SCIENCE BV, AMSTERDAM

SEARCH TERM(S):  JOURNALS  item_title; IMPACT FACTOR*  item_title;
                 JOURNAL  item_title; EDITORIAL  doctype

AUTHOR ADDRESS: JD Linton, Univ Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada
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TITLE:          Social Network Analysis (Article, English)
AUTHOR:         Liu, B
SOURCE:         WEB DATA MINING: EXPLORING HYPERLINKS, CONTENTS, AND
                USAGE DATA, SECOND EDITION. 2011. p.269-309
                SPRINGER-VERLAG BERLIN, BERLIN

SEARCH TERM(S):  KESSLER MM         AM DOC                 14:10    1963;
                 SMALL H            J AM SOC INFORM SCI    24:265   1973

KEYWORDS+:       LINK-STRUCTURE; SEARCH ENGINE; WEB; SALSA

AUTHOR ADDRESS: B Liu, Univ Illinois, Dept Comp Sci, 851 S Morgan St,
                Chicago, IL 60607 USA