The Wisdom of Citing Scientists

[Katy Borner]

Good discussion. Quick comment:

Work by Bollen et al. shows that science maps generated from download 
(click stream) data have a substantially enlarged medical area. Medical 
papers, e.g., freely available via Medline, are downloaded/read/used 
widely by practitioners/doctors interested to improve health/save lives. 
However, these practitioners/doctors might not necessarily produce 
papers with citation references.

Ideally, 'research evaluation' should aim to capture output and outcomes.

Many of us spent a substantial amount of our time training others, 
developing educational materials, in administration, or improving legal 
regulations. Research Networking systems like VIVO and others, see 
http://nrn.cns.iu.edu, provide access to more holistic data (papers, 
grants, courses; some systems are connected to even more detailed annual 
faculty report data) on scholar's roles in the S&T system--as 
researchers, mentors, administrators.
k

  * http://scimaps.org/maps/map/a_clickstream_map_of_83/
  * Bollen, Johan, Lyudmila Balakireva, Luís Bettencourt, Ryan Chute,
    Aric Hagberg, Marko A. Rodriguez, and Herbert Van de Sompel. 2009.
    “Clickstream Data Yields High-Resolution Maps of Science.” /PLoS
    One/ 4 (3): 1-11.



On 8/9/2013 3:22 AM, Bornmann, Lutz wrote:
>
>
>   The Wisdom of Citing Scientists
>
> Lutz Bornmann 
> <http://arxiv.org/find/cs/1/au:+Bornmann_L/0/1/0/all/0/1>, Werner Marx 
> <http://arxiv.org/find/cs/1/au:+Marx_W/0/1/0/all/0/1>
>
> (Submitted on 7 Aug 2013)
>
> This Brief Communication discusses the benefits of citation analysis 
> in research evaluation based on Galton's "Wisdom of Crowds" (1907). 
> Citations are based on the assessment of many which is why they can be 
> ascribed a certain amount of accuracy. However, we show that citations 
> are incomplete assessments and that one cannot assume that a high 
> number of citations correlate with a high level of usefulness. Only 
> when one knows that a rarely cited paper has been widely read is it 
> possible to say (strictly speaking) that it was obviously of little 
> use for further research. Using a comparison with 'like' data, we try 
> to determine that cited reference analysis allows a more meaningful 
> analysis of bibliometric data than times-cited analysis.
>
> URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/1308.1554
>
> ---------------------------------------
>
> Dr. Dr. habil. Lutz Bornmann
>
> Division for Science and Innovation Studies
>
> Administrative Headquarters of the Max Planck Society
>
> Hofgartenstr. 8
>
> 80539 Munich
>
> Tel.: +49 89 2108 1265
>
> Mobil: +49 170 9183667
>
> Email: bornmann at gv.mpg.de <mailto:bornmann at gv.mpg.de>
>
> WWW: www.lutz-bornmann.de <http://www.lutz-bornmann.de/>
>
> ResearcherID: http://www.researcherid.com/rid/A-3926-2008
>

-- 
Katy Borner
Victor H. Yngve Professor of Information Science
Director, CI for Network Science Center, http://cns.iu.edu
Curator, Mapping Science exhibit, http://scimaps.org

ILS, School of Informatics and Computing, Indiana University
Wells Library 021, 1320 E. Tenth Street, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
Phone: (812) 855-3256  Fax: -6166

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