Personal Research Database

Full Text: 2007\Scientometrics72, 105.pdf

Abstract: Multinational papers are defined here as ones written by authors who reside in different countries during the course of research. For each of 16 fields of science, I scanned the first 200 papers in 2005 in four major journals publishing original research papers. Those journals produced 40% of all the citations among those journals with Impact Factors greater than 1.0. The frequencies of multinational papers ranged from 13% in surgery to 55% in astronomy. Although one can list a dozen factors which might contribute toward multinational papers, I lack the data to test most of those. There are only minor correlations with team sizes and Impact Factors, inadequate to explain the range. There is a larger, but not convincing, dependence upon the fractions of single-author papers and its cause, if real, is unclear. However, the most prominent factor seems to be the nature of the objects studied, if they are usually local (e.g. in one hospital or in one laboratory), the papers tend to be domestic but if most of the objects are available simultaneously to scientists in many countries (e .g. the sky in astronomy or the oceans and the Earth’s atmosphere in geosciences or widespread diseases in the area of infectious diseases or plants and animals widely distributed in biology), the papers are often international. Auxiliary results for 2005 are an average of 5.5±0.3 authors per paper and 6.6±1.0% one-author papers.

Keywords: Atmosphere, Biology, Citations, Correlations, Course, Dependence, Diseases, Fractions, Hospital, Infectious Diseases, International Scientific Collaboration, Local, Multilateral Co-Authorship, Paper, Plants, Publishing, Range, Research, Science, Sciences, Surgery, Team, Test, Trends

? Porter, A.L., Cohen, A.S., Roessner, J.D. and Perreault, M. (2007), Measuring researcher interdisciplinarity. Scientometrics, 72 (1), 117-147.

Full Text: 2007\Scientometrics72, 117.pdf

Abstract: We offer two metrics that together help gauge how interdisciplinary a body of research is. Both draw upon Web of Knowledge Subject Categories (SCs) as key units of analysis. We have assembled two Substantial Web of Knowledge samples from which to determine how closely individual SCs relate to each other. ‘Integration’ measures the extent to which a research article cites diverse SCs. ‘Specialization’ considers the spread of SCs in which the body of research (e.g., the work of a given author in a specified time period) is published. Pilot results for a sample of researchers show a surprising degree of interdisciplinarity.

Keywords: Analysis, Interdisciplinary, Key, Metrics, Research, Science

? He, Z.L. and Deng, M. (2007), The evidence of systematic noise in non-patent references: A study of New Zealand companies’ patents. Scientometrics, 72 (1), 149-166.

Full Text: 2007\Scientometrics72, 149.pdf

Abstract: Since the pioneering studies of CARPENTER & NARIN (1983), and NARIN & NOMA (1985), non-patent references (NPRs) in patent documents have been widely used as an indicator of science-technology links. MEYER (2000) reviewed previous work in the patent citation literature and found that citation links between patents and papers are, if not explicitly, at least implicitly viewed as an indication of the contribution of science to technology. Using a sample of 850 patents of New Zealand companies granted by the USPTO between 1976 and 2004, we find evidence of systematic noise in NPR data. We suggest that future research should pay close attention to heterogeneity among countries, and that one should demonstrate more caution in applying and interpreting results based on the NPR methodology.

Keywords: Attention, Citation, Citations, Domains, Heterogeneity, Indicator, Innovation, Knowledge, Linkage, Methodology, New Zealand, Noise, Patents, Patterns, Research, Science, Technology

? Costas, R. and Iribarren-Maestro, I. (2007), Variations in content and format of ISI databases in their different versions: The case of the Science Citation index in CD-ROM and the web of science. Scientometrics, 72 (2), 167-183.

Full Text: 2007\Scientometrics72, 167.pdf

Abstract: The CD-ROM and web versions of the Science Citation Index databases are compared as to their content and format features. Several differences have been detected such as the use of different punctuation marks in both versions and a different organisation of author’s affiliation data. These differences make automatic comparisons of ISI products difficult and they should be considered when matching both databases. Some recommendations to ensure more normalisation and reliability of data are pointed out.

Keywords: CD-ROM, Databases, Features, Impact-Factors, Index, ISI, Matching, Products, Recommendations, Reliability, Science, Science Citation Index

? Zhou, P. and Leydesdorff, L. (2007), The citation impacts and citation environments of Chinese journals in mathematics. Scientometrics, 72 (2), 185-200.

Full Text: 2007\Scientometrics72, 185.pdf

Abstract: Based on the citation data of journals covered by the China Scientific and Technical Papers and Citations Database (CSTPCD), we obtained aggregated journal-journal citation environments by applying routines developed specifically for this purpose. Local citation impact of journals is defined as the share of the total citations in a local citation environment, which is expressed as a ratio and can be visualized by the size of the nodes. The vertical size of the nodes varies proportionally to a journal’s total citation share, while the horizontal size of the nodes is used to provide citation information after correction for the within-journal (self-) citations. In the ‘citing’ environment, the equivalent of the local citation performance can also be considered as a citation activity index. Using the ‘citing’ patterns as variables one is able to map how the relevant journal environments are perceived by the collective of authors of a journal, while the ‘cited’ environment reflects the impact of journals in a local environment. In this study, we analyze citation impacts of three Chinese journals in mathematics and compare local citation impacts with impact factors. Local citation impacts reflect a journal’s status and function better than (global) impact factors. We also found that authors in Chinese journals prefer international instead of domestic ones as sources for their citations.

Keywords: Activity, Algorithm, China, Chinese, Citation, Citations, Environment, Function, Global, Impact, Impact Factors, Impacts, Index, Information, Journal, Journals, Local, Matrices, Performance, Science, Size, Sources, Technical-Papers

? Chuang, K.Y., Huang, Y.L. and Ho, Y.S. (2007), A bibliometric and citation analysis of stroke-related research in Taiwan. Scientometrics, 72 (2), 201-212.

Full Text: 2007\Scientometrics72, 201.pdf

Abstract: As the population ages in Taiwan, stroke research has received greater attention in recent years. Strokes have significant impacts on the health and well-being of the elderly. To formulate future research policy, information on stroke publications should be collected. In this research, we studied stroke-related research articles published by Taiwan researchers which were indexed in the Science Citation Index from 1991 to 2005. We found that the quantity of publications has increased at a quicker pace than the worldwide trend. Over the years, there has been an increase in international collaboration, mainly with researchers in the U. S. Article visibility, measured as the frequency of being cited, also increased during the period. It appears that stroke research in Taiwan has become more globally connected and has also improved in quality. The publication output was concentrated in a few institutes, but there was a wide variation among these institutes in the ability to independently conduct research. A wide array of keywords indicated a probable lack of continuity in research. Nevertheless, there was an inverse relationship between stroke mortality and number of published articles in Taiwan. To improve the quality and efficiency of stroke research, continuity in research focuses needs to be maintained, and thus funding should be allocated on a long-term basis to institutes with a proven record of success.

Keywords: Ability, Analysis, Attention, Bibliometric, Citation, Citation Analysis, Collaboration, Efficiency, Elderly, Funding, Health, Impacts, Information, International, Long Term, Long-Term, Mortality, Needs, Policy, Population, Publication, Publications, Quality, Record, Relationship, Research, Research Policy, Science, Science Citation Index, Stroke, Success, Taiwan, the Elderly, Trend, U, Visibility, Well-Being, Wellbeing

? Gordon, A. (2007), Transient and continuant authors in a research field: The case of terrorism. Scientometrics, 72 (2), 213-224.

Full Text: 2007\Scientometrics72, 213.pdf

Abstract: The issue of research continuance in a scientific discipline was analyzed and applied to the field of terrorism. The growing amount of literature in this field is produced mostly by one- timers who ‘visit’ the field, contribute one or two articles, and then move to another subject area. This research pattern does not contribute to the regularity and constancy of publication by which a scientific discipline is formed and theories and paradigms of the field are created. This study observed the research continuance and transience of scientific publications in terrorism by using obtainable ‘most prolific terrorism authors’ lists at different points in time. These lists designed by several terrorism researchers, presented a few researchers who contributed to the field continuously and many others whose main research interest lay in another discipline. The four lists observed included authors who were continuants, transients, new-comers, and terminators (who left the field). The lack of continuous, full-time research in a research field is typical of many disciplines, but the influence of this research pattern on a field’s growth and stability is different for older, established disciplines than for new and formative fields of study. With in the former, intellectual mobility could contribute to the rise of new topics and probably enrich the particular scientific field, with the latter, by contrast, it could hamper the formation and growth of the field.

Keywords: Formation, Growth, Mobility, Older, Publication, Publications, Research, Science, Scientific Publications, Stability, Terrorism, Time

? Pinto, M. and Doucet, A.V. (2007), An educational resource for information literacy in higher education: Functional and users analyses of the e-COMs academic portal. Scientometrics, 72 (2), 225-252.

Full Text: 2007\Scientometrics72, 225.pdf

Abstract: As in today’s knowledge society the Internet is playing an important role in the information literacy of university students the goal of this paper is to analyse, after its first year on the Web, the informational impact of an e-learning resource developed by Granada’s University lecturers (the e-COMS educational portal), a pioneer in Spain for training in information literacy. From the objective and subjective data provided by the own portal and by it users, two different and complementary kinds of analysis (functional and users’) are performed. Assessment of various capabilities, among which visibility and usability stand out, is provided. The highly positive but improvable results offer a detailed analysis of the functional aspects of the portal itself and of the users’ relations with this information resource. From these analyses strengths and weaknesses are extracted and some proposals for improvement are derived.

Keywords: Academic, Analysis, E-Learning, Education, Functional, Goal, Higher Education, Impact, Information, Internet, Knowledge, Links, Literacy, Paper, Role, Site, Society, Spain, Strengths, Students, Training, Universities, Usability, Visibility, World-Wide-Web

? Sidiropoulos, A., Katsaros, D. and Manolopoulos, Y. (2007), Generalized Hirsch h-index for disclosing latent facts in citation networks. Scientometrics, 72 (2), 253-280.

Full Text: 2007\Scientometrics72, 253.pdf

Abstract: What is the value of a scientist and its impact upon the scientific thinking? How can we measure the prestige of a journal or a conference? The evaluation of the scientific work of a scientist and the estimation of the quality of a journal or conference has long attracted significant interest, due to the benefits by obtaining an unbiased and fair criterion. Although it appears to be simple, defining a quality metric is not an easy task. To overcome the disadvantages of the present metrics used for ranking scientists and journals, J. E. Hirsch proposed a pioneering metric, the now famous h-index. In this article we demonstrate several inefficiencies of this index and develop a pair of generalizations and effective variants of it to deal with scientist ranking and publication forum ranking. The new citation indices are able to disclose trendsetters in scientific research, as well as researchers that constantly shape their field with their influential work, no matter how old they are. We exhibit the effectiveness and the benefits of the new indices to unfold the full potential of the h-index, with extensive experimental results obtained from the DBLP, a widely known on-line digital library.

Keywords: Citation, Effectiveness, Evaluation, Experimental, Global Perceptions, h Index, h-Index, Hirsch, Hirsch h-Index, Impact, Journal, Journals, Metrics, Potential, Publication, Quality, Quality of, Ranking, Research, Scholars, Scientific Research, Scientists, Value, Work

? Soler, J.M. (2007), Separating the articles of authors with the same name. Scientometrics, 72 (2), 281-290.

Full Text: 2007\Scientometrics72, 281.pdf

Abstract: I describe a method to separate the articles of different authors with the same name. It is based on a distance between any two publications, defined in terms of the probability that they would have as many coincidences if they were drawn at random from all published documents. Articles with a given author name are then clustered according to their distance, so that all articles in a cluster belong very likely to the same author. The method has proven very useful in generating groups of papers that are then selected manually. This simplifies considerably citation analysis when the author publication lists are not available.

Keywords: Analysis, Citation, Citation Analysis, Cluster, Groups, Nonlinear Dimensionality Reduction, Probability, Publication, Publications, Similarity

? Nadarajah, S. and Kotz, S. (2007), Models for citation behavior. Scientometrics, 72 (2), 291-305.

Full Text: 2007\Scientometrics72, 291.pdf

Abstract: The number of citations of journal papers is an important measure of the impact of research. Thus, the modeling of citation behavior needs attention. Burrell, Egghe, Rousseau and others pioneered this type of modeling. Several models have been proposed for the citation distribution. In this note, we derive the most comprehensive collection of formulas for the citation distribution, covering some 17 flexible families. The corresponding estimation procedures are also derived by the method of moments. We feel that this work could serve as a useful reference for the modeling of citation behavior.

Keywords: Attention, Behavior, Citation, Citations, Distribution, Estimation, Families, Flexible, Impact, Journal, Method of Moments, Modeling, Models, Obsolescence, Paper, Reference, Research

? Ouimet, M., Amara, N., Landry, R. and Lavis, J. (2007), Direct interactions medical school faculty members have with professionals and managers working in public and private sector organizations: A cross-sectional study. Scientometrics, 72 (2), 307-323.

Full Text: 2007\Scientometrics72, 307.pdf

Abstract: The research questions are as follows: to what extent do Canadian medical school faculty members have person-to-person interactions with individuals working in public and private sector organizations? What are the characteristics of Canadian medical school faculty members who interact with individuals working in these work settings? Are these different network patterns complementary or substitute? The data used for this study are from a cross-sectional survey of Canadian medical school faculty members (n = 907). Structural multivariate ordered probit models were estimated to explore the characteristics of faculty members with different network patterns and to see if these network patterns are complementary or substitute. Study results suggest that the different network patterns considered in the study are not conflicting, but that some patterns correspond to different faculty member profiles.

Keywords: Canada, Care, Characteristics, Evidence Based Policy, Faculty, Foundation, Interactions, Knowledge, Medical, Model, Models, Multivariate, Organizations, Profiles, Research, School, Survey

Adams, J., Gurney, K. and Marshall, S. (2007), Profiling citation impact: A new methodology. Scientometrics, 72 (2), 325-344.

Full Text: 2007\Scientometrics72, 325.pdf

Abstract: A methodology for creating bibliometric impact profiles is described. The advantages of such profiles as a management tool to supplement the reporting power of traditional average impact metrics are discussed. The impact profile for the UK as a whole reveals the extent to which the median and modal UK impact values differ from and are significantly below average impact. Only one-third of UK output for 1995-2004 is above world average impact although the UK’s average world-normalised impact is 1.24. Time-categorised impact profiles are used to test hypotheses about changing impact and confirm that the increase in average UK impact is due to real improvement rather than a reduction in low impact outputs. The impact profile methodology has been applied across disciplines as well as years and is shown to work well in all subject categories. It reveals substantial variations in performance between disciplines. The value of calculating the profile median and mode as well as the average impact are demonstrated. Finally, the methodology is applied to a specific data-set to compare the impact profile of the elite Laboratory of Molecular Biology (Cambridge) with the relevant UK average. This demonstrates an application of the methodology by identifying where the institute’s exceptional performance is located. The value of impact profiles lies in their role as an interpretive aid for non-specialists, not as a technical transformation of the data for scientometricians.

Keywords: Bibliometric, Citation, Impact, Low, Management, Methodology, Metrics, Nations, Output, Performance, Profile, Profiles, Reduction, Reporting, Role, Science, Test, Transformation, UK

? Pinto, M., Sales, D., Doucet, A.V., Fernandez-Ramos, A. and Guerrero, D. (2007), Metric analysis of the information visibility and diffusion about the European Higher Education Area on Spanish University websites. Scientometrics, 72 (2), 345-370.

Full Text: 2007\Scientometrics72, 345.pdf

Abstract: The purpose of the study proposed in this paper is to evaluate the Spanish public university websites dedicated to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). To do so, the quality of these resources has been analysed in the light of data provided by a series of indicators grouped in seven criteria, most of which were used to determine what information is made available and in what way. The criteria used in our analysis are: visibility, authority, updatedness, accesibility, correctness and completeness, quality assessment and navigability. All in all, the results allow us to carry out an overall diagnosis of the situation and also provide us with information about the situation at each university, thus revealing their main strengths, namely authority and navegability, and also their chief shortcomings: updatedness, accessibility and quality assessment. In this way it is possible to detect the best practices in each of the aspects evaluated so that they can serve as an example and guide for universities with greater deficiencies and thus help them to improve their EHEA websites.

Keywords: Accessibility, Analysis, Assessment, Criteria, Diagnosis, Diffusion, Health Information, Indicators, Information, Light, Made, Paper, Quality, Sites, Strengths, Universities, Visibility, World-Wide-Web

? Kim, M.J. (2007), A bibliometric analysis of the effectiveness of Korea’s Biotechnology Stimulation Plans, with a comparison with four other Asian nations. Scientometrics, 72 (3), 371-388.

Full Text: 2007\Scientometrics72, 371.pdf

Abstract: This study investigates the scientific output and publication patterns of Korean biotechnology before and after the start of the Korean Biotechnology Stimulation Plans (1994-2007), and then compares the results with publication data from the same time periods for Japan, the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan and Singapore. For this study, 14,704 publications, published by at least one researcher from one of the five Asian nations (indexed by SCI Expanded during the years 1990-1993 and the years 2000-2003), were considered. A marked increase of Korean research output in biotechnology was largely influenced by an increasing tendency for researchers to enter the field of biotechnology and by increased expenditures for R&D activity through the Korean Biotechnology Stimulation Plans. In addition, the SCI Expanded coverage of national journals affected the scientific output and publication patterns of Japanese and Korean researchers. Looking at the Korean publications by collaboration type, international collaboration leads to more publications in mainstream journals of high impact factors than local and domestic collaborations for the two periods. However, although the Korean Biotechnology Stimulation Plans were followed by a remarkable increase in South Korea’s research output, this increase has not been accompanied by growth in the quality of those publications in terms of impact factors of journals for Korean publications.

Keywords: Activity, Analysis, Asian, Bibliometric, Bibliometric Analysis, Biotechnology, China, Collaboration, Comparison, Effectiveness, Expenditures, Growth, Impact, Impact Factors, Indicators, International Collaboration, Japan, Journals, Local, Output, Patent Statistics, Publication, Publications, Quality, Research, SCI, Scientific Output, Singapore, Taiwan, Time

? Hu, X.J. (2007), Relative Superiority Coefficient of papers: A new dimension for institutional research performance in different fields. Scientometrics, 72 (3), 389-402.

Full Text: 2007\Scientometrics72, 389.pdf

Abstract: Cross-field comparison of citation measures of scientific achievement or research quality is severely hindered by the diversity of the stage of development and citation habits of different disciplines or fields. Based on the same principles of RCR (Relative Citation Rate) and RW (Relative Subfield Citedness), a new dimension - the Relative Superiority Coefficient (SC (n)) in research quality was introduced. This can indicate clearly the relative research level for research groups at multiple levels in the respective field by consistent criteria in terms of research quality. Comparison of the SC (n) within or across 22 broad fields among 5 countries were presented as an application model. Hierarchical Cluster and One-Way ANOVA were applied and processed by the statistical program SPSS. All original data were from Essential Science Indicators (ESI) 1996-2006.

Keywords: Achievement, Anova, Citation, Comparison, Development, Diversity, Groups, Indicators, Journal Impact Factor, Levels, Model, Performance, Program, Quality, Research, Research Performance, Research Quality, Science-Citation-Index, UK

? Guan, J.C. and He, Y. (2007), Patent-bibliometric analysis on the Chinese science - technology linkages. Scientometrics,