The Wisdom of Citing Scientists
Katy Borner
katy at INDIANA.EDU
Fri Aug 9 09:29:25 EDT 2013
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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