4,309 research outputs found
A systematic empirical comparison of different approaches for normalizing citation impact indicators
We address the question how citation-based bibliometric indicators can best
be normalized to ensure fair comparisons between publications from different
scientific fields and different years. In a systematic large-scale empirical
analysis, we compare a traditional normalization approach based on a field
classification system with three source normalization approaches. We pay
special attention to the selection of the publications included in the
analysis. Publications in national scientific journals, popular scientific
magazines, and trade magazines are not included. Unlike earlier studies, we use
algorithmically constructed classification systems to evaluate the different
normalization approaches. Our analysis shows that a source normalization
approach based on the recently introduced idea of fractional citation counting
does not perform well. Two other source normalization approaches generally
outperform the classification-system-based normalization approach that we
study. Our analysis therefore offers considerable support for the use of
source-normalized bibliometric indicators
A review of the literature on citation impact indicators
Citation impact indicators nowadays play an important role in research
evaluation, and consequently these indicators have received a lot of attention
in the bibliometric and scientometric literature. This paper provides an
in-depth review of the literature on citation impact indicators. First, an
overview is given of the literature on bibliographic databases that can be used
to calculate citation impact indicators (Web of Science, Scopus, and Google
Scholar). Next, selected topics in the literature on citation impact indicators
are reviewed in detail. The first topic is the selection of publications and
citations to be included in the calculation of citation impact indicators. The
second topic is the normalization of citation impact indicators, in particular
normalization for field differences. Counting methods for dealing with
co-authored publications are the third topic, and citation impact indicators
for journals are the last topic. The paper concludes by offering some
recommendations for future research
A Review of Theory and Practice in Scientometrics
Scientometrics is the study of the quantitative aspects of the process of science as a communication system. It is centrally, but not only, concerned with the analysis of citations in the academic literature. In recent years it has come to play a major role in the measurement and evaluation of research performance. In this review we consider: the historical development of scientometrics, sources of citation data, citation metrics and the âlaws" of scientometrics, normalisation, journal impact factors and other journal metrics, visualising and mapping science, evaluation and policy, and future developments
Investigating the interplay between fundamentals of national research systems: performance, investments and international collaborations
We discuss, at the macro-level of nations, the contribution of research
funding and rate of international collaboration to research performance, with
important implications for the science of science policy. In particular, we
cross-correlate suitable measures of these quantities with a
scientometric-based assessment of scientific success, studying both the average
performance of nations and their temporal dynamics in the space defined by
these variables during the last decade. We find significant differences among
nations in terms of efficiency in turning (financial) input into
bibliometrically measurable output, and we confirm that growth of international
collaboration positively correlate with scientific success, with significant
benefits brought by EU integration policies. Various geo-cultural clusters of
nations naturally emerge from our analysis. We critically discuss the possible
factors that potentially determine the observed patterns
A framework for the measurement and prediction of an individual scientist's performance
Quantitative bibliometric indicators are widely used to evaluate the
performance of scientists. However, traditional indicators do not much rely on
the analysis of the processes intended to measure and the practical goals of
the measurement. In this study, I propose a simple framework to measure and
predict an individual researcher's scientific performance that takes into
account the main regularities of publication and citation processes and the
requirements of practical tasks. Statistical properties of the new indicator -
a scientist's personal impact rate - are illustrated by its application to a
sample of Estonian researchers.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figure
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