Citation Indexes for Science: A New Dimension in Documentation through Association of Ideas

Citation Skew in Plastic Surgery Journals: Does the Journal Impact Factor Predict Individual Article Citation Rate?

BACKGROUND

Citation skew refers to the unequal distribution of citations to articles published in a particular journal.

OBJECTIVES

We aimed to assess whether citation skew exists within plastic surgery journals and to determine whether the journal impact factor (JIF) is an accurate indicator of the citation rates of individual articles.

METHODS

We used Journal Citation Reports to identify all journals within the field of plastic and reconstructive surgery. The number of citations in 2018 for all individual articles published in 2016 and 2017 was abstracted.

RESULTS

Thirty-three plastic surgery journals were identified, publishing 9823 articles. The citation distribution showed right skew, with the majority of articles having either 0 or 1 citation (40% and 25%, respectively). A total of 3374 (34%) articles achieved citation rates similar to or higher than their journal's IF, whereas 66% of articles failed to achieve a citation rate equal to the JIF. Review articles achieved higher citation rates (median, 2) than original articles (median, 1) (P < 0.0001). Overall, 50% of articles contributed to 93.7% of citations and 12.6% of articles contributed to 50% of citations. A weak positive correlation was found between the number of citations and the JIF (r = 0.327, P < 0.0001).

CONCLUSIONS

Citation skew exists within plastic surgery journals as in other fields of biomedical science. Most articles did not achieve citation rates equal to the JIF with a small percentage of articles having a disproportionate influence on citations and the JIF. Therefore, the JIF should not be used to assess the quality and impact of individual scientific work.

The impact of J. D. Bernal’s thoughts in the science of science upon China: Implications for today’s quantitative studies of science

John Desmond Bernal (1901–1970) was one of the most eminent scientists in molecular biology and is also regarded as the founding father of the science of science. His book The social function of science laid the theoretical foundations for the discipline. In this article, we summarize four chief characteristics of his ideas in the science of science: the sociohistorical perspective, theoretical models, qualitative and quantitative approaches, and studies of science planning and policy. China has constantly reformed its scientific and technological system based on research evidence of the science of science. Therefore, we analyze the impact of Bernal’s science-of-science thoughts on the development of China’s science of science, and discuss how they might be usefully taken still further in quantitative studies of science.

Gênese, Impacto e Identidade da Revista de Administração Contemporânea

RESUMO Contexto: como as pessoas e as organizações, os periódicos também apresentam uma identidade. Assim, pensar na identidade de um periódico científico remete, em primeiro lugar, a compreender como sua trajetória moldou suas preferências acerca do que seus membros entendem sobre ciência e academia. Em segundo lugar, remete a como ele se projeta na comunidade científica, tanto em termos de regras de julgamento sobre o que é considerado válido como pesquisa quanto da intensidade e do modo como ele impacta o conhecimento científico e a realidade social. Objetivo: diante desse contexto, buscamos, neste artigo, recuperar elementos distintivos da Revista de Administração Contemporânea (RAC) em sua gênese, ressaltando como tal período deixou uma impressão duradoura em sua identidade. Método: utilizamos textos históricos e depoimentos para embasar nossos argumentos, triangulando o material qualitativo com padrões de citação, de referência e de escrita científica para evidenciar a identidade e o impacto da RAC. Resultados: as análises apontam que a RAC, desde sua gênese, diferenciou-se pelo rigor teórico, metodológico e empírico. Isso refletiu, ao longo do tempo, em seu impacto e centralidade na comunidade acadêmica. Conclusão: defendemos que a eficácia na construção da identidade da RAC a levou a ser o periódico mais influente da área de administração.

Detection of Neurological and Ophthalmological Pathologies with Optical Coherence Tomography Using Retinal Thickness Measurements: A Bibliometric Study

We carry out a bibliometric analysis on neurological and ophthalmological pathologies based on retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness measured with optical coherence tomography (OCT). Documents were selected from Scopus database. We have applied the most commonly used bibliometric indicators, both for production and dispersion, as Price’s law of scientific literature growth, Lotka’s law, the transient index, and the Bradford model. Finally, the participation index of the different countries and affiliations was calculated. Two-hundred-and-forty-one documents from the period 2000–2019 were retrieved. Scientific production was better adjusted to linear growth (r = 0.88) than exponential (r = 0.87). The duplication time of the documents obtained was 5.6 years. The transience index was 89.62%, which indicates that most of the scientific production is due to very few authors. The signature rate per document was 5.2. Nine journals made up the Bradford core. USA and University of California present the highest production. The most frequently discussed topics on RNFL thinning are glaucoma and neurodegenerative diseases (NDD). The growth of the scientific literature on RNFL thickness was linear, with a very high rate of transience, which indicates low productivity and the presence of numerous authors who sporadically publish on this topic. No evidence of a saturation point was observed. In the last 10 years, there has been an increase in documents relating the decline of RNFL to NDD.

Bringing the doctoral thesis by published papers to the Social Sciences and the Humanities: A quantitative easing? A small study of doctoral thesis submission rules and practice in two disciplines in the UK

This paper examines how an alternative to the traditional monograph form of the doctoral thesis is emerging that reflects a new approach to the valuation and designation of scientific outputs. This new approach, based on co-citation as underpinning principle for the measurement of knowledge structures, values knowledge and knowledge producers in increasingly quantitative terms. Such a change aligns with wider institutional market-based approaches that have been transforming higher education sectors world-wide. Under these influences, which prioritize quantification and tangibility of output, with quality equated with citation, the thesis, a key institution of the university, is now subject to pressures to transform and be constituted by a series of publishable papers, referred to by a variety of terms, the most common being ‘Thesis by Published Papers’, although ‘Journal Format Thesis’, ‘Alternative Format Thesis’, and ‘Integrated Thesis’ are also used. While the scientific disciplines have traditionally been closer to this paper-based model, albeit with significant national variations, Social Sciences and Humanities subjects are now being affected. We present evidence from a small study of the UK higher education sector of organisational regulations in 54 departments concerning doctoral degree submission formats in two disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences (History and Sociology). We investigate the prevalence of this new practice, investigate some of its key aspects, and identify a number of questions for future research on this emerging and important topic.

The challenge of discovering the threshold concepts of medical research areas: A bibliometrics-based approach

During the last XX century, several changes were applied to traditional educational methods, positioning the student as a central actor in the learning process. One of the pedagogical theories developed was the Threshold Concepts (TC) educational framework, based on education as a space of uncertainty, where the student needs to learn a certain concept or learning experiences that allow developing a new way of thinking. In medical education, written accounts about significant learning experiences, analysis of practice essays and semi-structured focus groups interviews have been applied to identify TC. In that way, our hypothesis is that the use of bibliometrics, as a tool to discover hidden relations between keywords, can overcome traditional difficulties related to TC identification. Keywords are applied to highlight the content of a digital object; they are concepts with a special meaning, similar to TC. Our challenge is to identify the bibliometric indexes that are able to show the relationship between the keywords that make them TC, especially in a medical context. In previous scientific literature, several methods were applied, mainly based on qualitative assessment. In this sense, we propose a quantitative, objective, and reproducible approach that can enrich the learning process from a scientific-based perspective.

Co-author Weighting in Bibliometric Methodology and Subfields of a Scientific Discipline

Purpose

To give a theoretical framework to measure the relative impact of bibliometric methodology on the subfields of a scientific discipline, and how that impact depends on the method of evaluation used to credit individual scientists with citations and publications. The authors include a study of the discipline of physics to illustrate the method. Indicators are introduced to measure the proportion of a credit space awarded to a subfield or a set of authors.

Design/methodology/approach

The theoretical methodology introduces the notion of credit spaces for a discipline. These quantify the total citation or publication credit accumulated by the scientists in the discipline. One can then examine how the credit is divided among the subfields. The design of the physics study uses the American Physical Society print journals to assign subdiscipline classifications to articles and gather citation, publication, and author information. Credit spaces for the collection of Physical Review Journal articles are computed as a proxy for physics.

Findings

There is a substantial difference in the value or impact of a specific subfield depending on the credit system employed to credit individual authors.

Research limitations

Subfield classification information is difficult to obtain. In the illustrative physics study, subfields are treated in groups designated by the Physical Review journals. While this collection of articles represents a broad part of the physics literature, it is not all the literature nor a random sample.

Practical implications

The method of crediting individual scientists has consequences beyond the individual and affects the perceived impact of whole subfields and institutions.

Originality/value

The article reveals the consequences of bibliometric methodology on subfields of a disciple by introducing a systematic theoretical framework for measuring the consequences.

Discipline Impact Factor: Some of Its History, Some of the Author's Experience of Its Application, the Continuing Reasons for Its Use and… Next Beyond

Purpose

This work aims to consider the role and some of the 42-year history of the discipline impact factor (DIF) in evaluation of serial publications. Also, the original “symmetric” indicator called the “discipline susceptibility factor” is to be presented.

Design/methodology/approach

In accordance with the purpose of the work, the methods are analytical interpretation of the scientific literature related to this problem as well as speculative explanations. The information base of the research is bibliometric publications dealing with impact, impact factor, discipline impact factor, and discipline susceptibility factor.

Findings

Examples of the DIF application and modification of the indicator are given. It is shown why research and university libraries need to use the DIF to evaluate serials in conditions of scarce funding for subscription to serial publications, even if open access is available. The role of the DIF for evaluating journals by authors of scientific papers when choosing a good and right journal for submitting a paper is also briefly discussed. An original indicator “symmetrical” to the DIF (the “discipline susceptibility factor”) and its differences from the DIF in terms of content and purpose of evaluation are also briefly presented.

Research limitations

The selection of publications for the information base of the research did not include those in which the DIF was only mentioned, used partially or not for its original purpose. Restrictions on the length of the article to be submitted in this special issue of the JDIS also caused exclusion even a number of completely relevant publications. Consideration of the DIF is not placed in the context of describing other derivatives from the Garfield impact factor.

Practical implications

An underrated bibliometric indicator, viz. the discipline impact factor is being promoted for the practical application. An original indicator “symmetrical” to DIF has been proposed in order of searching serial publications representing the external research fields that might fit for potential applications of the results of scientific activities obtained within the framework of the specific research field represented by the cited specialized journals. Both can be useful in research and university libraries in their endeavors to improve scientific information services. Also, both can be used for evaluating journals by authors of scientific papers when choosing a journal to submit a paper.

Originality/value

The article substantiates the need to evaluate scientific serial publications in library activities—even in conditions of access to huge and convenient databases (subscription packages) and open access to a large number of serial publications. It gives a mini-survey of the history of one of the methods of such evaluation, and offers an original method for evaluating scientific serial publications.

Research Synthesis and Thematic Analysis of Twitter Through Bibliometric Analysis

In literature, there is a shortage of comprehensive documents that can provide proper details about Twitter in research community. This study conducted a first descriptive bibliometric analysis to examine the most influential journals, institutions, and countries on Twitter. Similarly, bibliometric mapping analysis is carried out to explore different research themes in Twitter publications. VOSviewer was employed to process the 11,006 Twitter publications retrieved from the Web of Science (WoS) from 2009 to 2018. Obtained results suggest that USA and China received the highest number of publications on Twitter research, while the University of Illinois was the most productive institute. Furthermore, the five major themes have emerged in Twitter publications, and its remarkable role has been found in event detection, sentiment analysis, education, health, politics, and crisis as well as risk management. The authors believe that this study will open new doors for researchers to use online Twitter social networking communities in beauty salons, consulting companies, banks, and airlines.

Three dimensions of scientific impact

The growing popularity of bibliometric indexes (whose most famous example is the h index by J. E. Hirsch [J. E. Hirsch, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 102, 16569-16572 (2005)]) is opposed by those claiming that one's scientific impact cannot be reduced to a single number. Some even believe that our complex reality fails to submit to any quantitative description. We argue that neither of the two controversial extremes is true. By assuming that some citations are distributed according to the rich get richer rule (success breeds success, preferential attachment) while some others are assigned totally at random (all in all, a paper needs a bibliography), we have crafted a model that accurately summarizes citation records with merely three easily interpretable parameters: productivity, total impact, and how lucky an author has been so far.

The relationship between citations, downloads and alternative metrics in rheumatology publications: a bibliometric study

OBJECTIVE

Scientific journals and authors are frequently judged on 'impact'. Commonly used traditional metrics are the Impact Factor and H-index. However, both take several years to formulate and have many limitations. Recently, Altmetric-a metric that measures impact in a non-traditional way-has gained popularity. This project aims to describe the relationships between subject matter, citations, downloads and Altmetric within rheumatology.

METHODS

Data from publications in Rheumatology were used. Articles published from 2010 to 2015 were reviewed. Data were analysed using Stata 14.2 (StataCorp, College Station, TX, USA). Correlation between citations, downloads and Altmetric were quantified using linear regression, comparing across disease topics. Relationship between downloads and months since publications were described using negative binomial regression, clustering on individual articles.

RESULTS

A total of 1460 Basic Science and Clinical Science articles were identified, with the number of citations, downloads and Altmetric scores. There were no correlations between disease topic and downloads (R2 = 0.016, P = 0.03), citations (R2 = 0.011, P = 0.29) or Altmetric (R2 = 0.025, P = 0.02). A statistically significant positive association was seen between the number of citations and downloads (R2 = 0.29, P < 0.001). No correlations were seen between Altmetric and downloads (R2 = 0.028, P < 0.001) or citations (R2 = 0.004, P = 0.445).

CONCLUSION

Disease area did not correlate with any of the metrics compared. Correlations were apparent with clear links between downloads and citations. Altmetric identified different articles as high impact compared with citation or download metrics. In conclusion: tweeting about your research does not appear to influence citations.

An Empirical Test of the Inter-Relationships between Various Bibliometric Creative Scholarship Indicators

Quantifying the creative quality of scholarly work is a difficult challenge, and, unsurprisingly, empirical research in this area is scarce. This investigation builds on the theoretical distinction between impact (e.g., citation counts) and creative quality (e.g., originality) and extends recent work on using objective measures to assess the originality of scientific publications. Following extensive evidence from creativity research and theoretical deliberations, we operationalized multiple indicators of openness and idea density for bibliometric research. Results showed that in two large bibliometric datasets (creativity research: N = 1643; bibliometrics dataset: N = 2986) correlations between impact and the various indicators for openness, idea density, and originality were negligible to small; this finding supports the discriminant validity of the new creative scholarship indicators. The convergent validity of these indicators was not as clear, but correlations were comparable to previous research on bibliometric originality. Next, we explored the nomological net of various operationalizations of openness and idea density by means of exploratory graph analysis. The openness indicators of variety (based on cited journals and cited first authors) were found to be made up of strongly connected nodes in a separate cluster; the idea density indicators (those based on abstracts or titles of scientific work) also formed a separate cluster. Based on these findings, we discuss the problems arising from the potential methodological overlap among indicators and we offer future directions for bibliometric explorations of the creative quality of scientific publications.

Publication Productivity Among Academic Orthopaedic Surgeons in Canada

Objective The Hirsch Index (h-index) and m-index are often utilized to assess academic productivity and have been widely found to have a positive association with academic promotion and grant selection. The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between these indices and academic ranks among Canadian orthopaedic surgery faculty members. Methods Five hundred and sixty-seven Canadian orthopaedic surgery faculty members associated with residency training programs were included in the study. H-indices of individual faculty members were obtained through Elsevier's Scopus database. Faculty members' year of residency graduation was recorded from their respective licensing body database and was utilized as a surrogate for the start of their academic career to determine career duration and calculate the m-index. Faculty members were divided based on their academic rank (assistant, associate and full professors) and subspecialty. Results Increased h-index, m-index and long career duration were associated with increased academic rank, while gender did not demonstrate an association. Overall, males had a significantly higher h-index compared to females, but no significant difference was observed when comparing the m-index between genders. The m-index varied between subspecialties among senior faculty, but not among junior-ranked faculty. Conclusion Bibliometric academic productivity using h-index and m-index is associated with academic ranking among Canadian orthopaedic surgeons at training institutions. Although these indices may provide insight into the academic merits of faculty members, caution must be taken about utilizing it indiscriminately and their limitations must be strongly considered.

How has the dental literature evolved over time? Analyzing 20 years of journal self-citation rates and impact factors

Objective: As journal impact factors (IFs) can be artificially inflated by excessive journal self-citation practices, research quality evaluation based solely on IF ranking may be manipulated and, therefore, ethically challenged. This study aimed to analyze the longitudinal development of journal self-citation rates (SCRs) and IFs in dental literature and to determine possible confounders.Methods: Twenty-eight journals with scope within general dentistry and (sub)specialties listed in 1997-2016 Journal of Citation Reports^® were scrutinized. The following information was retrieved: publication year, total number of citations, number of self-citations, IF, corrected IF, and SCR.Results: Endodontic journals had the highest SCR (median = 35.3, IQR = 21.6-47.5), journals related to periodontics had the lowest (median = 14.7, IQR = 8.9-25.5). Periodontics had the highest IF (median = 2.1, IQR= 1.7-2.8) and general dentistry had the lowest (median = 0.9, IQR = 0.7-1.2). SCR significantly decreased over time (p < .0001) by 1 unit per year. Additionally, 1 unit increase in corrected IF resulted in 15.2 units decrease in SCR. IFs significantly increased 0.06 units per year (p < .000).Conclusions: Overall, favourable changes in citation metrics have been observed for dental journals during the 20-year observation period. SCR significantly decreased per observation year whereas IFs significantly increased, indicating a healthy publishing environment in the dental literature. SCR was regulated both by time and corrected IF.

Clinicians’ Publication Output: Self-Report Survey and Bibliometric Analysis

The uncertainties around disease management and control measures have not only motivated clinicians to keep abreast of new evidence available in the scholarly literature, but also to be rigorously engaged in medical research, dissemination and knowledge transfer. We aimed to explore clinicians’ publication output from the Malaysian perspective. A self-report survey and bibliometric analysis was conducted. A total of 201/234 clinicians participated in the survey. Items consisted of demographics, researching habits, publication output and level of importance of journal selection metrics. Descriptive, bivariate and multivariate analyses were conducted. Bibliometric analysis using retrieved records from PubMed between 2009 and October 2019 was conducted and co-occurrence and co-authorship analyses were executed. Self-reported publication output was 16.9%. In the logistic regression model, publication output was significantly higher amongst consultants or clinical specialists (aOR = 2.5, 95% CI 1.1–10.0, p = 0.023); clinicians previously involved in research (aOR = 4.2, 95% CI 1.5–11.4, p = 0.004); clinicians who ever used reference citation managers (aOR = 3.2, 95% CI 1.3–7.7, p = 0.010); and journal publication speed (aOR = 2.9, 95% CI 1.2–7.1, p = 0.019). Most clinicians published original research papers (76.4%) in international journals (78.2%). Published papers were mostly observational studies, genetic, stroke and health services or systems research. In conclusion, socio-demographics, researching habits and journal selection metrics were significantly associated with self-reported publication output. Real outputs from bibliometrics were predominantly focused across five clusters.

Can usage be used for scholars’ evaluation in the construction of smart libraries?

Purpose

With the development of Web2.0 and publishing digitalization, traditional libraries and evaluation citation system can no longer indicate academic paper influence validly. Therefore, it is necessary to construct smart library and find the evaluation effect of Internet metrics-Usage.

Design/methodology/approach

This study puts forward four indexes of scholars’ evaluation based on Usage (total Usage (U), average Usage rate (U/N), hu-index and pu-index), which refer to citation indexes, takes the 35 high-output scholars in the field of library and information science in the WoS database as examples, analyzes performance of different scholars evaluation indexes based on Usage and compares the differences and correlations between “citation indicators” and “usage indicators.”

Findings

This study results show that pu-index is the strongest index to evaluate scholars. Second, there is a high correlation and strong mechanism based on time dependence and interactions between Usage and citation. Third, compared to “citation indicators”, the “usage indicators” has a larger numerical value and wider measurement range, which can break the time limitation of citation, and scientifically evaluate young scholars and newly published paper by scholars.

Originality/value

This paper proposes the pu-index – a relatively superior mathematical model for Usage and provides reference for the scholars’ evaluation policy of the smart library. This model can not only provide fair evaluation conditions for young scientists but also shorten the evaluation effect of the time lag of cited indicators. In addition, the “usage indicators” in this paper are new scientific evaluation indicators generated in the network environment. Applying it to the academic evaluation system will make the research papers widely accepted by the public and will also encourage scientists to follow the development of the Internet age and pursue research with equal emphasis on quantity and quality.

Setting the Standards: Examining Research Productivity Among Academic Urologists in the USA and Canada in 2019

BACKGROUND

Research productivity among academic urologists is strongly encouraged, but little data are available on productivity metrics within the field.

OBJECTIVE

To provide the first comprehensive survey of research productivity among academic urologists in the USA and Canada.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS

Using the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, the Canadian Resident Matching Service, and individual program websites, all active accredited urology faculties were identified. For each individual, we collected data on American Urological Association section, title, gender, fellowship training, Scopus H-index, and citations. Comprehensive searches were completed during March-May 2019.

OUTCOME MEASUREMENTS AND STATISTICAL ANALYSIS

Descriptive statistics for demographic comparisons were performed using analysis of variance for continuous variables and chi-square test for categorical variables. Multivariable logistic regressions were used to identify the predictors of H-index greater than the median.

RESULTS AND LIMITATIONS

A total of 2214 academic urology faculties (2015 in USA and 199 in Canada) were identified. The median and mean H-indices for the entire cohort of physicians were 11 and 16.1, respectively. On multivariable analysis, physicians in the North Central and Western Sections (vs mid-Atlantic), who were fellowship trained (vs no fellowship training), and of higher academic rank (professor and associate professor vs clinical instructor) were more likely to have H-index values greater than the median. Additionally, female physicians (vs male) were more likely to have H-index values less than the median.

CONCLUSIONS

This study represents the first comprehensive assessment of research productivity metrics among academic urologists. These represent key benchmarks for trainees considering careers in academics and for practicing physicians gauging their own productivity in relation to their peers.

PATIENT SUMMARY

In this study, we provide the first comprehensive assessment of research productivity among academic urologists in the USA and Canada. Our results help provide key benchmarks for trainees considering careers in academics and for practicing physicians gauging their own productivity in relation to peers.

An analysis of citations of publications in anaesthesia journals

Which journals cite work published in anaesthetic journals is of potential interest to authors, editors and publishers. We analysed citations made in 2017-2018 for articles, reviews, editorials and letters published by 12 anaesthetic journals in 2016, using the Web of Science™ citation index platform. We analysed 12,544 citations made for 3518 items. Citations were most often made by specialist anaesthesia journals and critical care journals, and occurred most commonly in articles, followed by reviews, editorials and letters. The median (IQR [range]) number of citations made per item was 3.3 (2.6-4.1 [1.6-5.1]). The median (IQR [range]) number of journals that cited the 12 source journals was 302 (236-449 [139-671]). The median (IQR [range]) proportion of citations made by the same journal that published the items (i.e. 'self-citations') was 15% (11-17% [5-32%]). There were 1305/1932 (68%) citations made by North American journals for items published in North American journals and 1712/2063 (83%) citations made by European journals for items published in European journals, p < 0.0001. Our analysis may inform authors, editors and publishers where to submit work, what editorial policy to pursue and what journal strategy to follow, respectively.

Microsoft Academic Graph: When experts are not enough

An ongoing project explores the extent to which artificial intelligence (AI), specifically in the areas of natural language processing and semantic reasoning, can be exploited to facilitate the studies of science by deploying software agents equipped with natural language understanding capabilities to read scholarly publications on the web. The knowledge extracted by these AI agents is organized into a heterogeneous graph, called Microsoft Academic Graph (MAG), where the nodes and the edges represent the entities engaging in scholarly communications and the relationships among them, respectively. The frequently updated data set and a few software tools central to the underlying AI components are distributed under an open data license for research and commercial applications. This paper describes the design, schema, and technical and business motivations behind MAG and elaborates how MAG can be used in analytics, search, and recommendation scenarios. How AI plays an important role in avoiding various biases and human induced errors in other data sets and how the technologies can be further improved in the future are also discussed.

Co-citations in context: Disciplinary heterogeneity is relevant

Citation analysis of the scientific literature has been used to study and define disciplinary boundaries, to trace the dissemination of knowledge, and to estimate impact. Co-citation, the frequency with which pairs of publications are cited, provides insight into how documents relate to each other and across fields. Co-citation analysis has been used to characterize combinations of prior work as conventional or innovative and to derive features of highly cited publications. Given the organization of science into disciplines, a key question is the sensitivity of such analyses to frame of reference. Our study examines this question using semantically themed citation networks. We observe that trends reported to be true across the scientific literature do not hold for focused citation networks, and we conclude that inferring novelty using co-citation analysis and random graph models benefits from disciplinary context.

Bibliometric-Enhanced Information Retrieval 10th Anniversary Workshop Edition

The Bibliometric-enhanced Information Retrieval workshop series (BIR) was launched at ECIR in 2014 [19] and it was held at ECIR each year since then. This year we organize the 10th iteration of BIR. The workshop series at ECIR and JCDL/SIGIR tackles issues related to academic search, at the crossroads between Information Retrieval, Natural Language Processing and Bibliometrics. In this overview paper, we summarize the past workshops, present the workshop topics for 2020 and reflect on some future steps for this workshop series.

Analysis of the original influencing factors and secondary influencing factors of academic papers

Purpose

The influencing factors of academic papers have always been the focus of attention in the field of Scientometrics. Exploring the influencing factors of altmetrics indicators and traditional literature indicators on academic papers is beneficial to better explore the potential significance and value of academic papers in the evaluation of scientific research. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on the latest JCR citation report, this paper selects 22 academic journals in the JIF Quartile Q1 journal of Information Science and Library Science, and then obtains the evaluation data of these journal papers from WOS database and Altmetric.com. This paper uses literature measurement, correlation analysis and regression analysis to explore the influencing factors of the paper.

Findings

The results show that the original influencing factors of academic papers have a significant impact on secondary influencing factors. What is more obvious is that the number of references (nr) presents a significant positive correlation with the total number of times (Z9), the number of uses (U1) and (U2).

Originality/value

This paper combines traditional literature indicators with Altmetrics indicators to study the influencing factors through primary influencing factors and secondary influencing factors. Through research, it denies the phenomenon that academic circles have published academic papers in the world in recent years to overemphasize certain factors to improve the influence of the paper.

A new database of the references on international clinical practice guidelines: a facility for the evaluation of clinical research

Although there are now several bibliographic databases of research publications, such as Google Scholar, Pubmed, Scopus, and the Web of Science (WoS), and some also include counts of citations, there is at present no similarly comprehensive database of the rapidly growing number of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs), with their references, which sometimes number in the hundreds. CPGs have been shown to be useful for the evaluation of clinical (as opposed to basic) biomedical research, which often suffers from relatively low counts of citations in the serial literature. The objectives were to introduce a new citation database, clinical impact®, and demonstrate how it can be used to evaluate research impact of clinical research publications by exploring the characteristics of CPG citations of two sets of papers, as well as show temporal variation of clinical impact® and the WoS. The paper includes the methodology used to retain the data and also the rationale adopted to achieve data quality. The analysis showed that although CPGs tend preferentially to cite papers from their own country, this is not always the case. It also showed that cited papers tend to have a more clinical research level than uncited papers. An analysis of diachronous citations in both clinical impact® and the WoS showed that although the WoS citations showed a decreasing trend after a peak at 2–3 years after publication, this was less clear for CPG citations and a longer timescale would be needed to evaluate their impact on these documents.

A Review of Microsoft Academic Services for Science of Science Studies

Since the relaunch of Microsoft Academic Services (MAS) 4 years ago, scholarly communications have undergone dramatic changes: more ideas are being exchanged online, more authors are sharing their data, and more software tools used to make discoveries and reproduce the results are being distributed openly. The sheer amount of information available is overwhelming for individual humans to keep up and digest. In the meantime, artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have made great strides and the cost of computing has plummeted to the extent that it has become practical to employ intelligent agents to comprehensively collect and analyze scholarly communications. MAS is one such effort and this paper describes its recent progresses since the last disclosure. As there are plenty of independent studies affirming the effectiveness of MAS, this paper focuses on the use of three key AI technologies that underlies its prowess in capturing scholarly communications with adequate quality and broad coverage: (1) natural language understanding in extracting factoids from individual articles at the web scale, (2) knowledge assisted inference and reasoning in assembling the factoids into a knowledge graph, and (3) a reinforcement learning approach to assessing scholarly importance for entities participating in scholarly communications, called the saliency, that serves both as an analytic and a predictive metric in MAS. These elements enhance the capabilities of MAS in supporting the studies of science of science based on the GOTO principle, i.e., good and open data with transparent and objective methodologies. The current direction of development and how to access the regularly updated data and tools from MAS, including the knowledge graph, a REST API and a website, are also described.

Size matters! Association between journal size and longitudinal variability of the Journal Impact Factor

Analyses of the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) have grown to be a major topic in scientometric literature. Despite widespread and justified critique concerning the JIF and its application, the size of a journal as a predictor for its longitudinal variability–or stability–on a long-term level has not yet comprehensively been analyzed. This study aims to provide robust evidence for an association between JIF variability and the size of journals, expressed by the number of published articles (citable items). For this purpose, the complete set of journals included in the Incite Journal Citation Reports (JCR) with an JIF in the 2017 JCR edition (n = 8750) were analyzed for the association between journal size and longitudinal JIF dynamics. Our results, based on n = 4792 journals with a complete JIF data set over the timespan of 12 annual JIF changes show that larger journals publishing more citable items experience smaller annual changes of the JIF than smaller journals, yet with this association being reversed for journals with a very large number of total cites. Consequently and in accordance with the genuine intention of the JIF to serve as a basis for decisions on journal subscriptions, evaluation of current changes of the JIF have to be accompanied by consideration of the journal’s size in order to be accurate and sensible.

Early coauthorship with top scientists predicts success in academic careers

We examined the long-term impact of coauthorship with established, highly-cited scientists on the careers of junior researchers in four scientific disciplines. Here, using matched pair analysis, we find that junior researchers who coauthor work with top scientists enjoy a persistent competitive advantage throughout the rest of their careers, compared to peers with similar early career profiles but without top coauthors. Such early coauthorship predicts a higher probability of repeatedly coauthoring work with top-cited scientists, and, ultimately, a higher probability of becoming one. Junior researchers affiliated with less prestigious institutions show the most benefits from coauthorship with a top scientist. As a consequence, we argue that such institutions may hold vast amounts of untapped potential, which may be realised by improving access to top scientists.

By examining publication records of scientists from four disciplines, the authors show that coauthoring a paper with a top-cited scientist early in one's career predicts lasting increases in career success, especially for researchers affiliated with less prestigious institutions.

Authorship trend and content analysis

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the classic characteristics of highly cited articles (HCAs) of top-ranked library and information science (LIS) journals and get acquainted with the high-quality works in specific areas of LIS for distinguishing what gets cited and who the prolific authors are.

Design/methodology/approach

The HCAs published across the top four LIS journals were downloaded, coded and a database was developed with basic metadata elements for analysis using bibliometric indicators. Lotka’s Inverse Square Law of Scientific Productivity was applied to assess the author’s productivity of HCA. The content analysis method was also used to find out the emerging areas of research that have sought high citations.

Findings

Inferences were drawn for the proposed five number of research questions pertaining to individual productivity, collaboration patterns country and institutional productivity, impactful areas of research. The Netherland found to be the potential player among all the affiliating countries of authors and Loet Leydesdorff tops the list among the prolific authors. It is observed that Lotka’s Classical Law also fits the HCA data set in LIS. “Research impact measurement and research collaboration,” “Social networking” and “Research metrics and citation-based studies” are found to be the emerging areas of LIS research.

Practical implications

Researchers may find a way what gets cited in specific areas of LIS literature and why along with who are the prolific authors.

Originality/value

This study is important from the perspective of the growing research field of the LIS discipline to identify the papers that have influenced others papers as per citation count, spot the active and more impactful topics in LIS research.

Measuring originality in science

Originality has self-evident importance for science, but objectively measuring originality poses a formidable challenge. We conceptualise originality as the degree to which a scientific discovery provides subsequent studies with unique knowledge that is not available from previous studies. Accordingly, we operationalise a new measure of originality for individual scientific papers building on the network betweenness centrality concept. Specifically, we measure the originality of a paper based on the directed citation network between its references and the subsequent papers citing it. We demonstrate the validity of this measure using survey information. In particular, we find that the proposed measure is positively correlated with the self-assessed theoretical originality but not with the methodological originality. We also find that originality can be reliably measured with only a small number of subsequent citing papers, which lowers computational cost and contributes to practical utility. The measure also predicts future citations, further confirming its validity. We further characterise the measure to guide its future use.

A bibliometric approach to finding fields that co-evolved with information technology

Among the declining industries, for example music industry, some have been revived by information technology (IT). At the same time, in academic fields, some have expected co-evolutions between IT and other fields to cause the resurgence of either field. In this research, the clustering of citation networks with 14,438 academic papers resulted in the identification of 28 academic fields in the areas “Computer Science” or “Information Science and Library Science.” Co-evolutions between these 28 fields and citing fields to the 28 fields were evaluated by an investigation of contents; a methodology to search co-evolutions was also proposed. This paper proposes that pairs of academic fields (with both high correlation and high dissimilarity) co-evolve, and some co-evolving pairs of academic fields were found. This research contributes to the discovery of the co-evolution between academic fields.