3,456 research outputs found
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
An empirical analysis of the use of alphabetical authorship in scientific publishing
There are different ways in which the authors of a scientific publication can
determine the order in which their names are listed. Sometimes author names are
simply listed alphabetically. In other cases, authorship order is determined
based on the contribution authors have made to a publication.
Contribution-based authorship can facilitate proper credit assignment, for
instance by giving most credits to the first author. In the case of
alphabetical authorship, nothing can be inferred about the relative
contribution made by the different authors of a publication. In this paper, we
present an empirical analysis of the use of alphabetical authorship in
scientific publishing. Our analysis covers all fields of science. We find that
the use of alphabetical authorship is declining over time. In 2011, the authors
of less than 4% of all publications intentionally chose to list their names
alphabetically. The use of alphabetical authorship is most common in
mathematics, economics (including finance), and high energy physics. Also, the
use of alphabetical authorship is relatively more common in the case of
publications with either a small or a large number of authors
Do age and professional rank influence the order of authorship in scientific publications? Some evidence from a micro-level perspective
Scientific authorship has important implications in science since it reflects the contribution to research of the different individual scientists and it is considered by evaluation committees in research assessment processes. This study analyses the order of authorship in the scientific output of 1,064 permanent scientists at the Spanish CSIC (WoS, 1994-2004). The influence of age, professional rank and bibliometric profile of scientists over the position of their names in the byline of publications is explored in three different research areas: Biology and Biomedicine, Materials Science and Natural Resources. There is a strong trend for signatures of younger researchers and those in the lower professional ranks to appear in the first position (junior signing pattern), while more veteran or highly-ranked ones, who tend to play supervisory functions in research, are proportionally more likely to sign in the last position (senior signing pattern). Professional rank and age have an effect on authorship order in the three fields analysed, but there are inter-field differences. Authorship patterns are especially marked in the most collaboration-intensive field (i.e. Biology and Biomedicine), where professional rank seems to be more significant than age in determining the role of scientists in research as seen through their authorship patterns, while age has a more significant effect in the least collaboration-intensive field (Natural Resources).Peer reviewe
An empirical review of the different variants of the Probabilistic Affinity Index as applied to scientific collaboration
Responsible indicators are crucial for research assessment and monitoring.
Transparency and accuracy of indicators are required to make research
assessment fair and ensure reproducibility. However, sometimes it is difficult
to conduct or replicate studies based on indicators due to the lack of
transparency in conceptualization and operationalization. In this paper, we
review the different variants of the Probabilistic Affinity Index (PAI),
considering both the conceptual and empirical underpinnings. We begin with a
review of the historical development of the indicator and the different
alternatives proposed. To demonstrate the utility of the indicator, we
demonstrate the application of PAI to identifying preferred partners in
scientific collaboration. A streamlined procedure is provided, to demonstrate
the variations and appropriate calculations. We then compare the results of
implementation for five specific countries involved in international scientific
collaboration. Despite the different proposals on its calculation, we do not
observe large differences between the PAI variants, particularly with respect
to country size. As with any indicator, the selection of a particular variant
is dependent on the research question. To facilitate appropriate use, we
provide recommendations for the use of the indicator given specific contexts.Comment: 35 pages, 3 figures, 5 table
Four decades of health economics through a bibliometric lens
This paper takes a bibliometric tour of the past 40 years of health economics using bibliographic"metadata"from EconLit supplemented by citation data from Google Scholar and the authors'topical classifications. The authors report the growth of health economics (33,000 publications since 1969 -- 12,000 more than in the economics of education) and list the 300 most-cited publications broken down by topic. They report the changing topical and geographic focus of health economics (the topics'Determinants of health and ill-health'and'Health statistics and econometrics'both show an upward trend, and the field has expanded appreciably into the developing world). They also compare authors, countries, institutions, and journals in terms of the volume of publications and their influence as measured through various citation-based indices (Grossman, the US, Harvard and the JHE emerge close to or at the top on a variety of measures).Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Health Systems Development&Reform,Health Economics&Finance,Rural Development Knowledge&Information Systems,Health Law
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