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

The use of S&T indicators in science policy: Dutch experiences and theoretical perspectives from policy analysis

The relation between bibliometrics and science policy remains underdeveloped. Relevance of new methods to produce indicators is easily claimed, but often without real insight in the policy processes. Drawing on experiences with the use of S&T indicators in science policy in the Netherlands and on principal-agent theory, I develop an analytical perspective which enbles to assess the role of S&T indicators in science policy. It is argue that the use of S&T indicators can only be understood well if one takes the socio-political context with its specific dynamics and rationalities into account

Forest Ecosystem Services: An Analysis of Worldwide Research

The relevance of forests to sustain human well-being and the serious threats they face have led to a notable increase of research works on forest ecosystem services during the last few years. This paper analyses the worldwide research dynamics on forest ecosystem services in the period from 1998 to 2017. A bibliometric analysis of 4284 articles was conducted. The results showed that the number of published research articles has especially increased during the last five years. In total, 68.63% of the articles were published in this period. This research line experiences a growing trend superior to the general publishing trend on forest research. In spite of this increase, its relative significance within the forest research is still limited. The most productive subject areas corresponded to Environmental Science, Agricultural and Biological Sciences and Social Sciences Economic topics are understudied. The scientific production is published in a wide range of journals. The three first publishing countries are United States, China and the United Kingdom. The most productive authors are attached to diverse research centres and their contributions are relatively recent. A high level of international cooperation has been observed between countries, institutions and authors. The findings of this study are useful for researchers since they give them an overview of the worldwide research trends on forest ecosystem services

Journal of Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (JMBRAS) 1987-1996: a Ten-Year Bibliometric Analysis

Describes and analyses key bibliometric components of articles and book reviews published in the Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (JMBRAS) between 1987-199

Climate Change Research in View of Bibliometrics

This bibliometric study of a large publication set dealing with research on climate change aims at mapping the relevant literature from a bibliometric perspective and presents a multitude of quantitative data: (1) The growth of the overall publication output as well as (2) of some major subfields, (3) the contributing journals and countries as well as their citation impact, and (4) a title word analysis aiming to illustrate the time evolution and relative importance of specific research topics. The study is based on 222,060 papers published between 1980 and 2014. The total number of papers shows a strong increase with a doubling every 5-6 years. Continental biomass related research is the major subfield, closely followed by climate modeling. Research dealing with adaptation, mitigation, risks, and vulnerability of global warming is comparatively small, but their share of papers increased exponentially since 2005. Research on vulnerability and on adaptation published the largest proportion of very important papers. Research on climate change is quantitatively dominated by the USA, followed by the UK, Germany, and Canada. The citation-based indicators exhibit consistently that the UK has produced the largest proportion of high impact papers compared to the other countries (having published more than 10,000 papers). The title word analysis shows that the term climate change comes forward with time. Furthermore, the term impact arises and points to research dealing with the various effects of climate change. Finally, the term model and related terms prominently appear independent of time, indicating the high relevance of climate modeling.Comment: 40 pages, 6 figures, and 4 table

National Systems of Innovation: a bibliometric appraisal

The literature on NSI is a relatively new field of research with a quite impressive diffusion rate in the last 15 years. Although the concept of NSI is nowadays widely used both in academic and policy contexts, and a set of comprehensive theoretical surveys were published in the most recent years, no ‘quantitative’ survey exists on this matter. The present paper aims to fill this gap. We offer a complementary, ‘quantitative’, description of the state-of-the-art in the literature resorting to bibliometric methods. Our exercise shows that the time evolution of articles published was quite irregular, and that the NSI contributions have not converged to an integrated framework. We further evidence that historically detailed descriptions on NSI à la Freeman are rare, and analyses using more rigorous and diversified quantitative methodologies for assessing the performance of NSI are on demand. The huge increase in the share of ‘Conceptual/critical meta-literature on NSI’ in the latter (2001-2007) periods interestingly documents the conceptual dynamism and methodological-analytical challenges faced presently by NSI approach.National Systems of Innovation, Bibliometrics, Econlit

The Sustainable Management of Metals: An Analysis of Global Research

The objective of this study was to analyze research trends in the field of sustainable management of metals on a global level between 1993 and 2017. To do so, a bibliometric analysis was carried out on a total of 6967 articles. The results revealed the growing interest in this research field, particularly over the last five year-period during which 63% of all articles were published. The three journals in which most articles had been published were the Journal of Cleaner Production, ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, and Chemsuschem. The countries that published the most articles were China, the United States, India, Germany, and the United Kingdom. A sizeable network of collaboration has been established between countries for the joint publication of studies. The main lines of research have been focused on metal decontamination in water and soil, waste management oriented towards reuse and recycling, and the innovation of processes for cleaner and more efficient production. The results revealed the need for comprehensive studies that integrate different disciplines within the same analytical framework, and to promote research that contributes to the different dimensions of sustainability (environmental, economic, and social)

Bibliometric indices as a measure of long-term competitive balance in knockout tournaments

We argue for the application of bibliometric indices to quantify long-term uncertainty of outcome in sports. The Euclidean index is proposed to reward quality over quantity, while the rectangle index can be an appropriate measure of core performance. Their differences are highlighted through an axiomatic analysis and several examples. Our approach also requires a weighting scheme to compare different achievements. The methodology is illustrated by studying the knockout stage of the UEFA Champions League in the 16 seasons played between 2003 and 2019: club and country performances as well as three types of competitive balance are considered. Measuring competition at the level of national associations is a novelty. All results are remarkably robust concerning the bibliometric index and the assigned weights. Inequality has not increased among the elite clubs and between the national associations, however, it has changed within some countries. Since the performances of national associations are more stable than the results of individual clubs, it would be better to build the seeding in the UEFA Champions League group stage upon association coefficients adjusted for league finishing positions rather than club coefficients.Comment: 23 pages, 9 figures, 7 table