Papers of interest to SIG-Metrics Listserv readers
Eugene Garfield
eugene.garfield at THOMSONREUTERS.COM
Fri Mar 23 11:50:48 EDT 2012
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TITLE: Skewed citation distributions and bias factors: Solutions
to two core problems with the journal impact factor (Article, English)
AUTHOR: Mutz, R; Daniel, HD
SOURCE: JOURNAL OF INFORMETRICS 6 (2). APR 2012. p.169-176
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV, AMSTERDAM
SEARCH TERM(S):
GARFIELD E JAMA-J AM MED ASSOC 295:90 2006;
GARFIELD E SCIENCE 122:108 1955;
GARFIELD E CAN MED ASSOC J 161:979 1999
KEYWORDS: Journal impact factor; Normalization; McCall's area
transformation; Rubin Causal Model
KEYWORDS+: PUBLICATION; SCIENCE; APPROPRIATE; INDICATORS; INFERENCE;
SCORES; INDEX
ABSTRACT: The journal impact factor (JIF) proposed by Garfield in
the year 1955 is one of the most prominent and common measures of the prestige, position, and importance of a scientific journal. The JIF may profit from its comprehensibility, robustness, methodological reproducibility, simplicity, and rapid availability, but it is at the expense of serious technical and methodological flaws. The paper discusses two core problems with the JIF: first, citations of documents are generally not normally distributed, and, furthermore, the distribution is affected by outliers, which has serious consequences for the use of the mean value in the JIF calculation. Second, the JIF is affected by bias factors that have nothing to do with the prestige or quality of a journal (e.g., document type). For solving these two problems, we suggest using McCall's area transformation and the Rubin Causal Model. Citation data for documents of all journals in the ISI Subject Category "Psychology, Mathematical" (Journal Citation Report) are used to illustrate the proposal. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
AUTHOR ADDRESS: R Mutz, Swiss Fed Inst Technol, Muhlegasse 21, CH-8001
Zurich, Switzerland
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TITLE: A sensitivity analysis of researchers' productivity
rankings to the time of citation observation (Article, English)
AUTHOR: Abramo, G; Cicero, T; D'Angelo, CA
SOURCE: JOURNAL OF INFORMETRICS 6 (2). APR 2012. p.192-201
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV, AMSTERDAM
SEARCH TERM(S): MACROBERTS MH rauth; PENDLEBURY DA rauth;
CITATION item_title; CITATION* item_title
KEYWORDS: Research evaluation; Bibliometrics; Citation window;
Individual productivity; Sensitivity analysis
KEYWORDS+: BIBLIOMETRIC INDICATORS; RESEARCH PERFORMANCE; UNIVERSITY
ABSTRACT: In this work we investigate the sensitivity of individual
researchers' productivity rankings to the time of citation observation.
The analysis is based on observation of research products for the 2001-
2003 triennium for all research staff of Italian universities in the hard sciences, with the year of citation observation varying from 2004 to 2008. The 2008 rankings list is assumed the most accurate, as citations have had the longest time to accumulate and thus represent the best possible proxy of impact. By comparing the rankings lists from each year against the 2008 benchmark we provide policy-makers and research organization managers a measure of trade-off between timeliness of evaluation execution and accuracy of performance rankings. The results show that with variation in the evaluation citation window there are variable rates of inaccuracy across the disciplines of researchers. The inaccuracy results negligible for Physics, Biology and Medicine. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
AUTHOR ADDRESS: G Abramo, Univ Roma Tor Vergata, Dipartimento Ingn Impresa,
Via Politecn 1, I-00133 Rome, Italy
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TITLE: The case of scientometricians with the "absolute
relative" impact indicator (Article, English)
AUTHOR: Vinkler, P
SOURCE: JOURNAL OF INFORMETRICS 6 (2). APR 2012. p.254-264
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV, AMSTERDAM
SEARCH TERM(S): MORAVCSIK MJ rauth;
HIRSCH JE P NATL ACAD SCI USA 102:16569 2005;
KEYWORDS: Relative impact indicator; "crown" indicator; Relative
citation rate; Relative subfield citedness
KEYWORDS+: HIGHLY CITED PAPERS; BIBLIOMETRIC INDICATORS; RESEARCH
PERFORMANCE; CITATION IMPACT; CROWN INDICATOR; G-INDEX;
PUBLICATIONS; UNIVERSITY; CHARTS; OUTPUT
ABSTRACT: The effect of two different calculation methods for
obtaining relative impact indicators is modelled. Science policy considerations make it clear that evaluating the sets of publications, the "ratio of the sums" method should be preferred over the "mean of the ratios" method. Accordingly, determining the relative total impact against the mean relative impact of the publications of teams or institutes may be preferred. The special problem caused by relating the number of citations of an individual article to the Garfield (Impact) Factor (or mean citedness) of the publishing journal (or a set of journals selected as standard) lower than zero is demonstrated by examples. The possible effects of the different share of publications in different fields on the value of the "new crown" index are also modelled.
The assessment methods using several appropriately weighted indicators which result in a composite index are recommended. The acronym "BMV" is suggested to term the relative impact indicators (e.g. RCR, CPP/JCS(m), CPP/FCSm and RW) in scientometrics. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
AUTHOR ADDRESS: P Vinkler, Hungarian Acad Sci, Chem Res Ctr, POB 17, H-1525
Budapest, Hungary
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TITLE: Consensus formation in science modeled by aggregated
bibliographic coupling (Article, English)
AUTHOR: Nicolaisen, J; Frandsen, TF
SOURCE: JOURNAL OF INFORMETRICS 6 (2). APR 2012. p.276-284
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV, AMSTERDAM
SEARCH TERM(S): KESSLER MM AM DOC 14:10 1963;
BIBLIOGRAPHIC* item_title
KEYWORDS: Bibliographic coupling; Consensus formation
KEYWORDS+: JOURNAL REJECTION RATES; SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS; HIERARCHY;
GRAPHS
ABSTRACT: The level of consensus in science has traditionally been
measured by a number of different methods. The variety is important as each method measures different aspects of science and consensus. Citation analytical studies have previously measured the level of consensus using the scientific journal as their unit of analysis. To produce a more fine grained citation analysis one needs to study consensus formation on an even more detailed level - i.e. the scientific document or article. To do so, we have developed a new technique that measures consensus by aggregated bibliographic couplings (ABC) between documents. The advantages of the ABC-technique are demonstrated in a study of two selected disciplines in which the levels of consensus are measured using the proposed technique. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
AUTHOR ADDRESS: TF Frandsen, Univ So Denmark, Campusvej 55, DK-5230 Odense
M, Denmark
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TITLE: HistCite analysis of papers constituting the h index
research front (Article, English)
AUTHOR: Bornmann, L; Marx, W
SOURCE: JOURNAL OF INFORMETRICS 6 (2). APR 2012. p.285-288
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV, AMSTERDAM
SEARCH TERM(S):
HIRSCH JE P NATL ACAD SCI USA 102:16569 2005;
GARFIELD E J INFORM SCI 30:119 2004;
GARFIELD E SCIENCE 178:471 1972
KEYWORDS: h index; Research front; HistCite
KEYWORDS+: SCIENTIFIC-RESEARCH OUTPUT; HIRSCH-TYPE INDEXES;
BIBLIOMETRIC INDICATORS; IMPACT; JOURNALS; RANKING;
SCIENCE
ABSTRACT: In the Essential Science Indicators (Thomson Reuters), a
research front exists to the h index (entitled "GOOGLE SCHOLAR H-INDEX; SCIENCE CITATION INDEX; GENERALIZED HIRSCH H-INDEX; H INDEX; GOOGLE SCHOLAR CITATIONS") consisting of a group of highly cited papers. We used HistCite to analyze the structure and relationships of the 45 papers forming the h index research front. Since we were interested in the topics of research on the h index at the front, we classified each paper according to its main topic. Six topics (inductively generated) were sufficient to classify the 45 papers: (1) citation database, (2) empirical validation study, (3) new application, (4) theoretical analysis, (5) new index development, and (6) literature review. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
AUTHOR ADDRESS: L Bornmann, Max Planck Soc, Hofgartenstr 8, D-80539 Munich,
Germany
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TITLE: A sensitivity analysis of research institutions'
productivity rankings to the time of citation observation (Article,
English)
AUTHOR: Abramo, G; Cicero, T; D'Angelo, CA
SOURCE: JOURNAL OF INFORMETRICS 6 (2). APR 2012. p.298-306
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV, AMSTERDAM
SEARCH TERM(S): PENDLEBURY DA rauth;
KEYWORDS: Research evaluation; Bibliometrics; Citation window;
Productivity; Universities; Rankings
ABSTRACT: One of the critical issues in bibliometric research
assessments is the time required to achieve maturity in citations.
Citation counts can be considered a reliable proxy of the real impact of a work only if they are observed after sufficient time has passed from publication date. In the present work the authors investigate the effect of varying the time of citation observation on accuracy of productivity rankings for research institutions. Research productivity measures are calculated for all Italian universities active in the hard sciences in the 2001-2003 period, by individual field and discipline, with the time of the citation observation varying from 2004 to 2008. The objective is to support policy-makers in choosing a citation window that optimizes the tradeoff between accuracy of rankings and timeliness of the exercise. (C)
2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
AUTHOR ADDRESS: G Abramo, Univ Roma Tor Vergata, Dipartimento Ingn Impresa,
Via Politecn 1, I-00133 Rome, Italy
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TITLE: Interactive overlays: A new method for generating global
journal maps from Web-of-Science data (Article, English)
AUTHOR: Leydesdorff, L; Rafols, I
SOURCE: JOURNAL OF INFORMETRICS 6 (2). APR 2012. p.318-332
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV, AMSTERDAM
SEARCH TERM(S): PRICE DJD rauth;
SMALL H J INF SCI 11:147 1985;
JOURNAL item_title;
GARFIELD E SCIENCE 178:471 1972;
PUDOVKIN AI J AM SOC INF SCI TEC 53:1113 2002
KEYWORDS: Map; Journal; Overlay; VOSViewer; Gephi
KEYWORDS+: PEARSONS CORRELATION-COEFFICIENT; SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS;
COMMUNITY STRUCTURE; CITATION RELATIONS; INFORMATION-
THEORY; SALTONS COSINE; MAPPING CHANGE; NETWORKS;
COMMUNICATION; INDICATORS
ABSTRACT: Recent advances in methods and techniques enable us to
develop interactive overlays to a global map of science based on aggregated citation relations among the 9162 journals contained in the Science Citation Index and Social Science Citation Index 2009. We first discuss the pros and cons of the various options: cited versus citing, multidimensional scaling versus spring-embedded algorithms, VOSViewer versus Gephi, and the various clustering algorithms and similarity criteria. Our approach focuses on the positions of journals in the multidimensional space spanned by the aggregated journal-journal citations. Using VOSViewer for the resulting mapping, a number of choices can be left to the user; we provide default options reflecting our preferences. Some examples are also provided; for example, the potential of using this technique to assess the interdisciplinarity of organizations and/or document sets. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
AUTHOR ADDRESS: L Leydesdorff, Univ Amsterdam, ASCoR, Kloveniersburgwal 48,
NL-1012 CX Amsterdam, Netherlands
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TITLE: Which are the best performing regions in information
science in terms of highly cited papers? Some improvements of our
previous mapping approaches (Article, English)
AUTHOR: Bornmann, L; Leydesdorff, L
SOURCE: JOURNAL OF INFORMETRICS 6 (2). APR 2012. p.336-345
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV, AMSTERDAM
SEARCH TERM(S):
GARFIELD E JAMA-J AM MED ASSOC 295:90 2006;
GARFIELD E SCIENTOMETRICS 1:359 1979
KEYWORDS: Scientific excellence; Highly cited papers; I3; Geography
of science; Spatial scientometrics; Google map
KEYWORDS+: RELATIVE INDICATORS; IMPACT FACTOR; GEOGRAPHY;
PUBLICATION; CITIES; CHARTS; MAPS
ABSTRACT: Bornmann and Leydesdorff (2011) proposed methods based on
Web of Science data to identify field-specific excellence in cities where highly cited papers were published more frequently than can be expected.
Top performers in output are cities in which authors are located who publish a number of highly cited papers that is statistically significantly higher than can be expected for these cities. Using papers published between 1989 and 2009 in information science improvements to the methods of Bornmann and Leydesdorff (2011) are presented and an alternative mapping approach based on the Integrated Impact Indicator
(I3) is introduced here. The I3 indicator was developed by Leydesdorff and Bornmann (2011b). (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
AUTHOR ADDRESS: L Bornmann, Max Planck Soc, Hofgartenstr 8, D-80539 Munich,
Germany
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TITLE: Zipf's law and goffman's transition point in
automatic indexing (Article, Spanish)
AUTHOR: Alvarado, RU; Arango, CR
SOURCE: INVESTIGACION BIBLIOTECOLOGICA 25 (54). MAY-AUG 2011.
p.71-92 UNIV NACIONAL AUTONOMA MEXICO, MEXICO CITY
SEARCH TERM(S): ZIPF* item_title;
LUHN HP IBM J RES DEV 1:309 1957
KEYWORDS: Zipf's law; Goffman's Transition Point; Bibliometrics;
Scientometrics; Infometrics
KEYWORDS+: INFORMATION; EVOLUTION
ABSTRACT: To identify keywords with high semantic value in the
thematic content of a scientific paper the Goffman's transition Point is applied. A total of 1,644 different words were identified in the text.
These words were arranged in descending order of frequency to explore four possibilities. In the first examination both, functional words and words with high semantic value were taken into account. In the second examination, the functional words were removed; and in the third examination both functional words as well as words with high semantic content, were lemmatized. In the fourth examination only functional word were eliminated. The result shows the identification of specific keywords.
AUTHOR ADDRESS: RU Alvarado, Univ Calif Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521 USA
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