Scientometric Analysis of Research in Energy Efficiency and Citizen Science through Projects and Publications

Energy efficiency is part of the commitment to environmental sustainability made by the organizations that promote and finance research and by the researchers that make this field their subject of study. Although there is growing interest in the subject, it is worth asking whether the research has been approached considering citizens’ needs or citizens’ participation. The main objective of this study is to analyse whether energy efficiency research has adopted a citizen science perspective. Using scientometric methods, the SCOPUS and CORDIS databases were consulted and a document search strategy was developed to gather information on publications and projects. The analysis revealed that, out of 265 projects under the Seventh Framework Programme on Energy Efficiency, only seven (3%) were related to citizen science. Although there is a large volume of publications on energy efficiency (over 200,000) and a considerable number of publications on citizen science (>30,000 articles), only 336 documents were identified that deal with both topics. The number of projects and publications on these topics has increased in recent years, with universities being the institutions that have published the most. Content analysis found that the most frequent topics are public perception of the use of renewable energies; citizen participation in measures to address climate change and global warming; and the involvement of different stakeholders in the use and responsible consumption of energy. Finally, information was collected on the impact of these publications on social media and altmetric tools. It was revealed that 33% of the 336 papers have had a presence in different sources, especially Twitter. This is a high figure compared with the dissemination achieved by papers from other disciplines.This project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant 741657, SciShops.e

Unveiling the path towards sustainability: scientific interest at HEIs from a scientometric approach in the period 2008-2017

Mención Internacional en el título de doctorLa humanidad ha experimentado el impacto de un modelo económico insostenible a todos los niveles. Este tema se ha cristalizado en diferentes cumbres y conferencias durante el siglo XX. Como resultado de esta preocupación, surgió el concepto de Desarrollo Sostenible (DS). Sin embargo, este concepto ha recibido muchas críticas por ser altamente antropocéntrico y compartimentado, carente de coherencia conceptual o interconexión entre todos los aspectos involucrados. Más tarde, la aparición de los Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio (ODM) en 2000 y los recientes Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS) en 2015 constituyen una nueva era. Este es el plan para lograr un futuro mejor y más sostenible para todos, en el que todos los agentes involucrados deben participar. En este punto, las instituciones de educación superior (IES) tienen un papel central y la sostenibilidad se ha convertido en una prioridad política para la ciencia. El objetivo de este estudio es conocer los patrones de la investigación llevada a cabo en investigación de sostenibilidad, incluido el flujo de actividad científica, así como la colaboración o el impacto que genera dicha investigación. Este estudio de doctorado explora cómo se puede delinear este concepto desde un enfoque bibliométrico, lo cual conduce a la ‘ciencia de la sostenibilidad’. La producción científica de artículos fue identificada y analizada en el período 2008-2017 en la Web of Science (WoS). Además, este estudio explora las instituciones de educación superior (IES) y su papel en el fomento de la sostenibilidad, mediante la evaluación de su investigación y la implementación de prácticas de sostenibilidad en las IES españolas. Además, presenta una delineación de los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS) y propone una metodología para clasificar la producción científica en cada uno e los objetivos. El análisis de esta producción se realiza a través de indicadores bibliométricos unidimensionales y multidimensionales. Estos indicadores se han dividido y analizado en diferentes niveles de agregación, desde el más general hasta el más específico, comenzando con las características generales de investigación y descendiendo al nivel de país, instituciones o temática, entre otros. Los resultados muestran un interés creciente en la investigación de sostenibilidad y se observa una fuerte influencia del pilar medioambiental. Además, hay países con una alta producción científica pero no tan especializados en el tema como otros con una menor producción. En cuanto a las instituciones, los resultados obtenidos muestran que las IES realizaron un importante esfuerzo de investigación para el desarrollo sostenible y son las que producen un mayor número de documentos. Además, se observa que las instituciones tienden a colaborar con centros geográficamente próximos. Al analizar las Prácticas de sostenibilidad en las IES españolas, se encuentran asociaciones altas entre variables como la presencia de un Plan de Sostenibilidad y de una Oficina Verde. Sin embargo, este estudio demuestra claramente que, aunque se reconoce que el desarrollo sostenible es muy importante para las IES y la sociedad, todavía no está integrado en las estrategias, actividades y políticas de todo el sistema. Como conclusión, se afirma que es esencial identificar estrategias de sostenibilidad e introducir desarrollo sostenible en todas las actividades en el entorno de las IES. Finalmente, esta tesis contribuye a la literatura sobre instituciones de educación superior sostenibles, así como al análisis y la mejora de educación superior para el desarrollo sostenible, especialmente en el sistema de educación superior español. Además, este estudio contribuye al análisis bibliométrico al ofrecer dos propuestas de delineación científica para la ciencia de la sostenibilidad y los objetivos de desarrollo sostenible, así como metodologías para clasificar la producción científica. Este análisis denota la importancia de los estudios bibliométricos para el estudio y la caracterización de la producción científica en un campo transdisciplinario que, además, se puede extrapolar a otros campos de estudio.Humanity has experienced the impact of an unsustainable economic model at all levels. This topic has crystallized in different summits and conferences during the 20th century. As a result of this concern, the concept of sustainable development (SD) emerged. However, it has received much criticism for being highly anthropocentric and compartmentalized, and lacking conceptual coherence or interconnectedness among all the aspects involved. The introduction of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000 and the recent Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 heralded a new era. They represent a blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all, in which all stakeholders need to be involved. At this point, higher education institutions (HEIs) have a central role to play and sustainability has emerged as a policy priority for science. The objective of this study is to investigate the patterns of sustainability research, including the flow of scientific activity, as well as the collaboration or impact that such research generates. This doctoral study explores how can sustainability can be delineated from a bibliometric approach, leading to a new approach of “sustainability science”. The scientific production of articles was identified and analysed for the period 2008–2017 using the Web of Science (WoS). Moreover, this research study explores HEIs and their role in fostering sustainability, by assessing their research and the implementation of sustainability practices in Spanish HEIs. As well, it presents a delineation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and proposes a methodology for classifying the output on each SDG. This analysis is done through unidimensional and multidimensional bibliometric indicators. These indicators have been divided and analysed in different levels of aggregation, from the most general to the most specific, starting with general research features and progressing to country, institutional, and thematic levels, among others. The results indicate a growing interest in sustainability research and a strong influence on the environmental pillar. Moreover, some countries with the highest scientific output are not as specialized in terms of topics as others with a lower output. Regarding institutions, the results obtained indicate that HEIs made an important research contribution to SD and are the ones that produce a higher number of documents. It was found that institutions tend to collaborate with other institutions that are close. By analysing sustainability practices in Spanish HEIs, it was found that there are more associations between variables such as having a sustainability plan and having a green office. However, this study clearly demonstrates that although SD is recognized as being very important to HEIs and society, it is not yet embedded in the whole system’s strategies, activities, and policies. In conclusion, this research study reveals that it is essential to identify sustainability strategies and introduce SD in all activities in the HEI environment. Finally, this thesis contributes to the literature on sustainable HEIs, as well as to how higher education for SD is understood and can be improved, especially in the Spanish higher education system. Moreover, this contributes to bibliometric study by offering two delineation approach to sustainability science and sustainable development goals as well as methodologies for classifying scientific output. This denotes the importante of bibliometric studies for the study and characterization of scientific output in a transdisciplinary field that can be extrapolated to other fields of study.Programa de Doctorado en Documentación: Archivos y Bibliotecas en el Entorno Digital por la Universidad Carlos III de MadridPresidente: Carlos Balaguer Bernaldo de Quirós.- Secretario: Birger Larsen.- Vocal: Sandra Sofía Ferreira Da Silva C

Altmetrics for Digital Libraries: Concepts, Applications, Evaluation, and Recommendations

The volume of scientific literature is rapidly increasing, which has led to researchers becoming overloaded by the number of articles that they have available for reading and difficulties in estimating their quality and relevance (e.g., based on their research interests). Library portals, in these circumstances, are increasingly getting more relevant by using quality indicators that can help researchers during their research discovery process. Several evaluation methods (e.g., citations, Journal Impact Factor, and peer-reviews) have been used and suggested by library portals to help researchers filter out the relevant articles (e.g., articles that have received high citations) for their needs. However, in some cases, these methods have been criticized, and a number of weaknesses have been identified and discussed. For example, citations usually take a long time to appear, and some articles that are important can remain uncited. With the growing presence of social media today, new alternative indicators, known as “altmetrics,” have been encountered and proposed as complementary indicators to traditional measures (i.e., bibliometrics). They can help to identify the online attention received by articles, which might act as a further indicator for research assessment. One often mentioned advantage of these alternative indicators is, for example, that they appear much faster compared to citations. A large number of studies have explored altmetrics for different disciplines, but few studies have reported about altmetrics in the fields of Economics and Business Studies. Furthermore, no studies can be found so far that analyzed altmetrics within these disciplines with respect to libraries and information overload. Thus, this thesis explores opportunities for introducing altmetrics as new method for filtering relevant articles (in library portals) within the discipline of Economic and Business Studies literature. To achieve this objective, we have worked on four main aspects of investigating altmetrics and altmetrics data, respectively, of which the results can be used to fill the gap in this field of research. (1) We first highlight to what extent altmetric information from the two altmetric providers Mendeley and Altmetric.com is present within the journals of Economics and Business Studies. Based on the coverage, we demonstrate that altmetrics data are sparse in these disciplines, and when considering altmetrics data for real-world applications (e.g., in libraries), higher aggregation levels, such as journal level, can overcome their sparsity well. (2) We perform and discuss the correlations of citations on article and journal levels between different types and sources of altmetrics. We could show that Mendeley counts are positive and strongly correlated with citation counts on both article and journal levels, whereas other indicators such as Twitter counts and Altmetric Attention Score are significantly correlated only on journal level. With these correlations, we could suggest Mendeley counts for Economic and Business Studies journals/articles as an alternative indicator to citations. (3) In conjunction with the findings related to altmetrics in Economics and Business Studies journals, we discuss three use cases derived from three ZBW personas in terms of altmetrics. We investigate the use of altmetrics data for potential users with interests in new trends, social media platforms and journal rankings. (4) We investigated the behavior of economic researchers using a survey by exploring the usefulness of different altmetrics on journal level while they make decisions for selecting one article for reading. According to the user evaluation results, we demonstrate that altmetrics are not well known and understood by the economic community. However, this does not mean that these indicators are not helpful at all to economists. Instead, it brings forward the problem of how to introduce altmetrics to the economic community in the right way using which characteristics (e.g., as visible numbers attached at library records or behind the library’s relevance ranking system). Considering the aforementioned findings of this thesis, we can suggest several forms of presenting altmetric information in library portals, using EconBiz as the proof-of-concept, with the intention to assist both researchers and libraries to identify relevant journals or articles (e.g., highly mentioned online and recently published) for their need and to cope with the information overload

Altmetrics for Digital Libraries

The volume of scientific literature is increasing and researchers have difficulties in estimating their quality and relevance. Library portals, therefore, are getting more relevant by using quality indicators to help researchers during their research process. With the growing presence of social media, altmetrics have been proposed as complementary indicators to traditional measures. Altmetrics can help to identify online attention and can appear much faster than citations. This study explores altmetrics for filtering relevant articles (in library portals) within the discipline of Economic and Business Studies literature. Firstly, it highlights the altmetrics presence from Mendeley and Altmetric.com for the journals in the above-mentioned disciplines. It presents correlations between citation and altmetrics on article and journal level, suggesting Mendeley counts as an alternative indicator to citations. Afterward, it investigates the use of altmetrics data for potential users with interests in new trends, social media platforms, and journal rankings. Lastly, it explores the behavior of economic researchers using a survey by discovering the usefulness of different altmetrics. With the findings of this study, several forms of altmetrics in library portals are discussed, using EconBiz as the proof-of-concept, to assist both researchers and libraries to identify relevant journals or articles and to cope with the information overload