19 research outputs found
A new reference standard for citation analysis in chemistry and related fields based on the sections of Chemical Abstracts
Citation analysis for evaluative purposes requires reference standards, as publication activity and citation habits differ considerably among fields. Reference standards based on journal classification schemes are fraught with problems in the case of multidisciplinary and general journals and are limited with respect to their resolution of fields. To overcome these shortcomings of journal classification schemes, we propose a new reference standard for chemistry and related fields that is based on the sections of the Chemical Abstracts database. We determined the values of the reference standard for research articles published in 2000 in the biochemistry sections of Chemical Abstracts as an example. The results show that citation habits vary extensively not only between fields but also within fields. Overall, the sections of Chemical Abstracts seem to be a promising basis for reference standards in chemistry and related fields for four reasons: (1) The wider coverage of the pertinent literature, (2) the quality of indexing, (3) the assignment of papers published in multidisciplinary and general journals to their respective fields, and (4) the resolution of fields on a lower level (e.g. mammalian biochemistry) than in journal classification schemes (e.g. biochemistry & molecular biology
Citation analysis may severely underestimate the impact of clinical research as compared to basic research
Background: Citation analysis has become an important tool for research
performance assessment in the medical sciences. However, different areas of
medical research may have considerably different citation practices, even
within the same medical field. Because of this, it is unclear to what extent
citation-based bibliometric indicators allow for valid comparisons between
research units active in different areas of medical research.
Methodology: A visualization methodology is introduced that reveals
differences in citation practices between medical research areas. The
methodology extracts terms from the titles and abstracts of a large collection
of publications and uses these terms to visualize the structure of a medical
field and to indicate how research areas within this field differ from each
other in their average citation impact.
Results: Visualizations are provided for 32 medical fields, defined based on
journal subject categories in the Web of Science database. The analysis focuses
on three fields. In each of these fields, there turn out to be large
differences in citation practices between research areas. Low-impact research
areas tend to focus on clinical intervention research, while high-impact
research areas are often more oriented on basic and diagnostic research.
Conclusions: Popular bibliometric indicators, such as the h-index and the
impact factor, do not correct for differences in citation practices between
medical fields. These indicators therefore cannot be used to make accurate
between-field comparisons. More sophisticated bibliometric indicators do
correct for field differences but still fail to take into account within-field
heterogeneity in citation practices. As a consequence, the citation impact of
clinical intervention research may be substantially underestimated in
comparison with basic and diagnostic research
A recursive field-normalized bibliometric performance indicator: An application to the field of library and information science
Two commonly used ideas in the development of citation-based research
performance indicators are the idea of normalizing citation counts based on a
field classification scheme and the idea of recursive citation weighing (like
in PageRank-inspired indicators). We combine these two ideas in a single
indicator, referred to as the recursive mean normalized citation score
indicator, and we study the validity of this indicator. Our empirical analysis
shows that the proposed indicator is highly sensitive to the field
classification scheme that is used. The indicator also has a strong tendency to
reinforce biases caused by the classification scheme. Based on these
observations, we advise against the use of indicators in which the idea of
normalization based on a field classification scheme and the idea of recursive
citation weighing are combined
Large-Scale Analysis of the Accuracy of the Journal Classification Systems of Web of Science and Scopus
Journal classification systems play an important role in bibliometric
analyses. The two most important bibliographic databases, Web of Science and
Scopus, each provide a journal classification system. However, no study has
systematically investigated the accuracy of these classification systems. To
examine and compare the accuracy of journal classification systems, we define
two criteria on the basis of direct citation relations between journals and
categories. We use Criterion I to select journals that have weak connections
with their assigned categories, and we use Criterion II to identify journals
that are not assigned to categories with which they have strong connections. If
a journal satisfies either of the two criteria, we conclude that its assignment
to categories may be questionable. Accordingly, we identify all journals with
questionable classifications in Web of Science and Scopus. Furthermore, we
perform a more in-depth analysis for the field of Library and Information
Science to assess whether our proposed criteria are appropriate and whether
they yield meaningful results. It turns out that according to our
citation-based criteria Web of Science performs significantly better than
Scopus in terms of the accuracy of its journal classification system
The Usefulness of Peer Review for Selecting Manuscripts for Publication: A Utility Analysis Taking as an Example a High-Impact Journal
Background: High predictive validity – that is, a strong association between the outcome of peer review (usually, reviewers’ ratings) and the scientific quality of a manuscript submitted to a journal (measured as citations of the later published paper) – does not as a rule suffice to demonstrate the usefulness of peer review for the selection of manuscripts. To assess usefulness, it is important to include in addition the base rate (proportion of submissions that are fundamentally suitable for publication) and the selection rate (the proportion of submissions accepted). Methodology/Principal Findings: Taking the example of the high-impact journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition (AC-IE), we present a general approach for determining the usefulness of peer reviews for the selection of manuscripts for publication. The results of our study show that peer review is useful: 78 % of the submissions accepted by AC-IE are correctly accepted for publication when the editor’s decision is based on one review, 69 % of the submissions are correctly accepted for publication when the editor’s decision is based on two reviews, and 65 % of the submissions are correctly accepted for publication when the editor’s decision is based on three reviews. Conclusions/Significance: The paper points out through what changes in the selection rate, base rate or validity coefficient a higher success rate (utility) in the AC-IE selection process could be achieved
Does the Committee Peer Review Select the Best Applicants for Funding? An Investigation of the Selection Process for Two European Molecular Biology Organization Programmes
Does peer review fulfill its declared objective of identifying the best science and the best scientists? In order to answer this question we analyzed the Long-Term Fellowship and the Young Investigator programmes of the European Molecular Biology Organization. Both programmes aim to identify and support the best post doctoral fellows and young group leaders in the life sciences. We checked the association between the selection decisions and the scientific performance of the applicants. Our study involved publication and citation data for 668 applicants to the Long-Term Fellowship programme from the year 1998 (130 approved, 538 rejected) and 297 applicants to the Young Investigator programme (39 approved and 258 rejected applicants) from the years 2001 and 2002. If quantity and impact of research publications are used as a criterion for scientific achievement, the results of (zero-truncated) negative binomial models show that the peer review process indeed selects scientists who perform on a higher level than the rejected ones subsequent to application. We determined the extent of errors due to over-estimation (type I errors) and under-estimation (type 2 errors) of future scientific performance. Our statistical analyses point out that between 26% and 48% of the decisions made to award or reject an application show one of both error types. Even though for a part of the applicants, the selection committee did not correctly estimate the applicant's future performance, the results show a statistically significant association between selection decisions and the applicants' scientific achievements, if quantity and impact of research publications are used as a criterion for scientific achievement
Source normalized indicators of citation impact: An overview of different approaches and an empirical comparison
Different scientific fields have different citation practices. Citation-based
bibliometric indicators need to normalize for such differences between fields
in order to allow for meaningful between-field comparisons of citation impact.
Traditionally, normalization for field differences has usually been done based
on a field classification system. In this approach, each publication belongs to
one or more fields and the citation impact of a publication is calculated
relative to the other publications in the same field. Recently, the idea of
source normalization was introduced, which offers an alternative approach to
normalize for field differences. In this approach, normalization is done by
looking at the referencing behavior of citing publications or citing journals.
In this paper, we provide an overview of a number of source normalization
approaches and we empirically compare these approaches with a traditional
normalization approach based on a field classification system. We also pay
attention to the issue of the selection of the journals to be included in a
normalization for field differences. Our analysis indicates a number of
problems of the traditional classification-system-based normalization approach,
suggesting that source normalization approaches may yield more accurate
results
A delineating procedure to retrieve relevant publication data in research areas: the case of nanocellulose
Advances concerning publication-level classification system have been
demonstrated striking results by dealing properly with emergent, complex and interdisciplinary
research areas, such as nanotechnology and nanocellulose. However, less attention
has been paid to propose a delineating method to retrieve relevant research areas on
specific subjects. This study aims at proposing a procedure to delineate research areas
addressed in case nanocellulose. We investigate how a bibliometric analysis could provide
interesting insights into research about this sustainable nanomaterial. The research topics
clustered by a Publication-level Classification System were used. The procedure involves
an iterative process, which includes developing and cleaning a set of core publication
regarding the subject and an analysis of clusters they are associated with. Nanocellulose
was selected as the subject of study, but the methodology may be applied to any other
research area or topic. A discussion about each step of the procedure is provided. The
proposed delineation procedure enables us to retrieve relevant publications from research
areas involving nanocellulose. Seventeen research topics were mapped and associated with
current research challenges on nanocellulose.Merit, Expertise and Measuremen