Edited Volumes, Monographs, and Book Chapters in the Book Citation Index (BKCI) and Science Citation Index (SCI, SoSCI, A&HCI)

In 2011, Thomson-Reuters introduced the Book Citation Index (BKCI) as part of the Science Citation Index (SCI). The interface of the Web of Science version 5 enables users to search for both "Books" and "Book Chapters" as new categories. Books and book chapters, however, were always among the cited references, and book chapters have been included in the database since 2005. We explore the two categories with both BKCI and SCI, and in the sister social sciences (SoSCI) and the arts & humanities (A&HCI) databases. Book chapters in edited volumes can be highly cited. Books contain many citing references but are relatively less cited. This may find its origin in the slower circulation of books than of journal articles. It is possible to distinguish between monographs and edited volumes among the "Books" scientometrically. Monographs may be underrated in terms of citation impact or overrated using publication performance indicators because individual chapters are counted as contributions separately in terms of articles, reviews, and/or book chapters.Comment: Journal of Scientometric Research, 2012, in pres

Web indicators for research evaluation. Part 3: books and non standard outputs

This literature review describes web indicators for the impact of books, software, datasets, videos and other non-standard academic outputs. Although journal articles dominate academic research in the health and natural sciences, other types of outputs can make equally valuable contributions to scholarship and are more common in other fields. It is not always possible to get useful citation-based impact indicators for these due to their absence from, or incomplete coverage in, traditional citation indexes. In this context, the web is particularly valuable as a potential source of impact indicators for non-standard academic outputs. The main focus in this review is on books because of the much greater amount of relevant research for them and because they are regarded as particularly valuable in the arts and humanities and in some areas of the social sciences

The characteristics and impact of non-source items in the social sciences

Publikationen, die nicht in Web of Science bzw. Scopus indexiert sind, werden als sogenannte „non-source items“ bezeichnet. Bislang wurden sie in bibliometrischen Studien vernachlässigt. Das zentrale Anliegen dieser Studie ist die Untersuchung der Publikations- und Zitationscharakteristika von Dokumenten in den Sozialwissenschaften unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von non-source items, unabhängig vom jeweiligen Dokumenttyp. Indem die Publikationen zweier führender deutscher politikwissenschaftlicher Universitätsinstitute ausgewertet werden, werden die Auswirkungen der Berücksichtigung von non-source items in bibliometrischen Evaluationen in den Sozialwissenschaften untersucht und die folgenden drei Forschungsfragen beantwortet: FF1: Was sind die Charakteristika von Publikationen in den Politikwissenschaften? FF2: Was sind Charakteristika von non-source-items und wie ist deren Impact in der Politikwissenschaft? FF3: Wie können non-source items in bibliometrische Evaluation eingeschlossen werden? Kurz gefasst lässt sich festhalten, dass non-source items in bibliometrischen Evaluationen berücksichtigt werden sollten, unabhängig von ihrem Impact oder ihrer Zitationen. Eine umfassendere Zitationsdatenbank ist notwendig, um qualitativ hochwertige Evaluationen in den Sozialwissenschaften zu ermöglichen. Die Autorin schlägt verschiedene Möglichkeiten vor, den Impact von non-source items in der Politikwissenschaft zu untersuchen und macht einen Vorschlag zur alternativen Evaluation basierend auf Publikations- und Zitationsmustern. Die Strukturen der hier erörterten Formel, Datenbank und des Evaluationssystems können gleichermaßen in anderen sozialwissenschaftlichen Disziplinen angewendet werden. Allerdings sind weitere empirische Untersuchungen in anderen Disziplinen notwendig, um die entsprechenden Faktoren und Werte bestimmen zu können, da die Disziplinen stark heterogen sind.Publications that are not indexed by Web of Science or Scopus are named “non-source items”. These have so far been neglected by most bibliometric analyses. The central issue of this study is to investigate the publication and citation characteristics of items in the social sciences with special attention to non-source items of all document types. By analyzing the publications of two top-ranking political science university departments in Germany, this study explores the effect of the inclusion of non-source items in bibliometric evaluations in the social sciences, and answers the following three research questions: RQ1: What are the characteristics of publications in political science? RQ2: What are the characteristics and impact of non-source items in political science? RQ3: How to include non-source items into bibliometric evaluation in political science? In short, the results of this study show that non-source items should be included in bibliometric evaluations, regardless of their impact or the citations from them. The demand for a more comprehensive coverage of bibliometric databases in the social sciences for a higher quality of evaluations is shown. The author proposes several approaches to investigate the impact of non-source items in political science and suggests an alternative to evaluate German political scientists according to their publication and citation patterns. The empirical findings of this study can serve as valuable information to investigators of the social sciences. However, further empirical studies in different fields are needed, due to the significant heterogeneity among fields in the social sciences

Mapping citation patterns of book chapters in the Book Citation Index

Complementary Material to this study can be found at http://hdl.handle.net/10481/22587.In this paper we provide the reader with a visual representation of relationships among the impact of book chapters indexed in the Book Citation Index using information gain values and published by different academic publishers in specific disciplines. The impact of book chapters can be characterized statistically by citations histograms. For instance, we can compute the probability of occurrence of book chapters with a number of citations in different intervals for each academic publisher. We predict the similarity between two citation histograms based on the amount of relative information between such characterizations. We observe that the citation patterns of book chapters follow a Lotkaian distribution. This paper describes the structure of the Book Citation Index using ‘heliocentric clockwise maps’ which allow the reader not only to determine the grade of similarity of a given academic publisher indexed in the Book Citation Index with a specific discipline according to their citation distribution, but also to easily observe the general structure of a discipline, identifying the publishers with higher impact and output.This research was sponsored by the Spanish Board for Science and Technology (MICINN) under grant TIN2010- 15157 co financed with European FEDER funds

El ranking BiPublishers: Principales resultados y problemas metodológicos en la construcción de rankings de editoriales académicas

We present the results of the Bibliometric Indicators for Publishers project (also known as BiPublishers). This project represents the first attempt to systematically develop bibliometric publisher rankings. The data for this project was derived from the Book Citation Index and the study time period was 2009-2013. We have developed 42 rankings: 4 by fields and 38 by disciplines. We display six indicators for publishers divided into three types: output, impact and publisher’s profile. The aim is to capture different characteristics of the research performance of publishers. 254 publishers were processed and classified according to publisher type: commercial publishers and university presses. We present the main publishers by field and then discuss the principal challenges presented when developing this type of tool. The BiPublishers ranking is an on-going project which aims to develop and explore new data sources and indicators to better capture and define the research impact of publishers.Presentamos los resultados del proyecto Bibliometric Indicators for Publishers (BiPublishers). Es el primer proyecto que desarrolla de manera sistemática rankings bibliométricos de editoriales. La fuente de datos empleada es el Book Citation Index y el periodo de análisis 2009-2013. Se presentan 42 rankings: 4 por áreas y 38 por disciplinas. Mostramos seis indicadores por editorial divididos según su tipología: producción, impacto y características editoriales. Se procesaron 254 editoriales y se clasificaron según el tipo: comerciales y universitarias. Se presentan las principales editoriales por áreas. Después, se discuten los principales retos a superar en el desarrollo de este tipo de herramientas. El ranking Bipublishers es un proyecto en desarrollo que persigue analizar y explorar nuevas fuentes de datos e indicadores para captar y definir el impacto de las editoriales académicas

Do prestigious Spanish scholarly book publishers have more teaching impact?

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to assess the educational value of prestigious and productive Spanish scholarly publishers based on mentions of their books in online scholarly syllabi. Design/methodology/approach Syllabus mentions of 15,117 books from 27 publishers were searched for, manually checked and compared with Microsoft Academic (MA) citations. Findings Most books published by Ariel, Síntesis, Tecnos and Cátedra have been mentioned in at least one online syllabus, indicating that their books have consistently high educational value. In contrast, few books published by the most productive publishers were mentioned in online syllabi. Prestigious publishers have both the highest educational impact based on syllabus mentions and the highest research impact based on MA citations. Research limitations/implications The results might be different for other publishers. The online syllabus mentions found may be a small fraction of the syllabus mentions of the sampled books. Practical implications Authors of Spanish-language social sciences and humanities books should consider general prestige when selecting a publisher if they want educational uptake for their work. Originality/value This is the first study assessing book publishers based on syllabus mentions

Reviewing, indicating, and counting books for modern research evaluation systems

In this chapter, we focus on the specialists who have helped to improve the conditions for book assessments in research evaluation exercises, with empirically based data and insights supporting their greater integration. Our review highlights the research carried out by four types of expert communities, referred to as the monitors, the subject classifiers, the indexers and the indicator constructionists. Many challenges lie ahead for scholars affiliated with these communities, particularly the latter three. By acknowledging their unique, yet interrelated roles, we show where the greatest potential is for both quantitative and qualitative indicator advancements in book-inclusive evaluation systems.Comment: Forthcoming in Glanzel, W., Moed, H.F., Schmoch U., Thelwall, M. (2018). Springer Handbook of Science and Technology Indicators. Springer Some corrections made in subsection 'Publisher prestige or quality

Do prestigious Spanish scholarly book publishers have more teaching impact?

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to assess the educational value of prestigious and productive Spanish scholarly publishers based on mentions of their books in online scholarly syllabi. Design/methodology/approach Syllabus mentions of 15,117 books from 27 publishers were searched for, manually checked and compared with Microsoft Academic (MA) citations. Findings Most books published by Ariel, Síntesis, Tecnos and Cátedra have been mentioned in at least one online syllabus, indicating that their books have consistently high educational value. In contrast, few books published by the most productive publishers were mentioned in online syllabi. Prestigious publishers have both the highest educational impact based on syllabus mentions and the highest research impact based on MA citations. Research limitations/implications The results might be different for other publishers. The online syllabus mentions found may be a small fraction of the syllabus mentions of the sampled books. Practical implications Authors of Spanish-language social sciences and humanities books should consider general prestige when selecting a publisher if they want educational uptake for their work. Originality/value This is the first study assessing book publishers based on syllabus mentions