1,014 research outputs found
A critical cluster analysis of 44 indicators of author-level performance
This paper explores the relationship between author-level bibliometric
indicators and the researchers the "measure", exemplified across five academic
seniorities and four disciplines. Using cluster methodology, the disciplinary
and seniority appropriateness of author-level indicators is examined.
Publication and citation data for 741 researchers across Astronomy,
Environmental Science, Philosophy and Public Health was collected in Web of
Science (WoS). Forty-four indicators of individual performance were computed
using the data. A two-step cluster analysis using IBM SPSS version 22 was
performed, followed by a risk analysis and ordinal logistic regression to
explore cluster membership. Indicator scores were contextualized using the
individual researcher's curriculum vitae. Four different clusters based on
indicator scores ranked researchers as low, middle, high and extremely high
performers. The results show that different indicators were appropriate in
demarcating ranked performance in different disciplines. In Astronomy the h2
indicator, sum pp top prop in Environmental Science, Q2 in Philosophy and
e-index in Public Health. The regression and odds analysis showed individual
level indicator scores were primarily dependent on the number of years since
the researcher's first publication registered in WoS, number of publications
and number of citations. Seniority classification was secondary therefore no
seniority appropriate indicators were confidently identified. Cluster
methodology proved useful in identifying disciplinary appropriate indicators
providing the preliminary data preparation was thorough but needed to be
supplemented by other analyses to validate the results. A general disconnection
between the performance of the researcher on their curriculum vitae and the
performance of the researcher based on bibliometric indicators was observed.Comment: 28 pages, 7 tables, 2 figures, 2 appendice
Citations: Indicators of Quality? The Impact Fallacy
We argue that citation is a composed indicator: short-term citations can be
considered as currency at the research front, whereas long-term citations can
contribute to the codification of knowledge claims into concept symbols.
Knowledge claims at the research front are more likely to be transitory and are
therefore problematic as indicators of quality. Citation impact studies focus
on short-term citation, and therefore tend to measure not epistemic quality,
but involvement in current discourses in which contributions are positioned by
referencing. We explore this argument using three case studies: (1) citations
of the journal Soziale Welt as an example of a venue that tends not to publish
papers at a research front, unlike, for example, JACS; (2) Robert Merton as a
concept symbol across theories of citation; and (3) the Multi-RPYS
("Multi-Referenced Publication Year Spectroscopy") of the journals
Scientometrics, Gene, and Soziale Welt. We show empirically that the
measurement of "quality" in terms of citations can further be qualified:
short-term citation currency at the research front can be distinguished from
longer-term processes of incorporation and codification of knowledge claims
into bodies of knowledge. The recently introduced Multi-RPYS can be used to
distinguish between short-term and long-term impacts.Comment: accepted for publication in Frontiers in Research Metrics and
Analysis; doi: 10.3389/frma.2016.0000
Tracing scientific influence
Scientometrics is the field of quantitative studies of scholarly activity. It
has been used for systematic studies of the fundamentals of scholarly practice
as well as for evaluation purposes. Although advocated from the very beginning
the use of scientometrics as an additional method for science history is still
under explored. In this paper we show how a scientometric analysis can be used
to shed light on the reception history of certain outstanding scholars. As a
case, we look into citation patterns of a specific paper by the American
sociologist Robert K. Merton.Comment: 25 pages LaTe
How are topics born? Understanding the research dynamics preceding the emergence of new areas
The ability to promptly recognise new research trends is strategic for many stake- holders, including universities, institutional funding bodies, academic publishers and companies. While the literature describes several approaches which aim to identify the emergence of new research topics early in their lifecycle, these rely on the assumption that the topic in question is already associated with a number of publications and consistently referred to by a community of researchers. Hence, detecting the emergence of a new research area at an embryonic stage, i.e., before the topic has been consistently labelled by a community of researchers and associated with a number of publications, is still an open challenge. In this paper, we begin to address this challenge by performing a study of the dynamics preceding the creation of new topics. This study indicates that the emergence of a new topic is anticipated by a significant increase in the pace of collaboration between relevant research areas, which can be seen as the ‘parents’ of the new topic. These initial findings (i) confirm our hypothesis that it is possible in principle to detect the emergence of a new topic at the embryonic stage, (ii) provide new empirical evidence supporting relevant theories in Philosophy of Science, and also (iii) suggest that new topics tend to emerge in an environment in which weakly interconnected research areas begin to cross-fertilise
The Self-Organization of Meaning and the Reflexive Communication of Information
Following a suggestion of Warren Weaver, we extend the Shannon model of
communication piecemeal into a complex systems model in which communication is
differentiated both vertically and horizontally. This model enables us to
bridge the divide between Niklas Luhmann's theory of the self-organization of
meaning in communications and empirical research using information theory.
First, we distinguish between communication relations and correlations among
patterns of relations. The correlations span a vector space in which relations
are positioned and can be provided with meaning. Second, positions provide
reflexive perspectives. Whereas the different meanings are integrated locally,
each instantiation opens global perspectives--"horizons of meaning"--along
eigenvectors of the communication matrix. These next-order codifications of
meaning can be expected to generate redundancies when interacting in
instantiations. Increases in redundancy indicate new options and can be
measured as local reduction of prevailing uncertainty (in bits). The systemic
generation of new options can be considered as a hallmark of the
knowledge-based economy.Comment: accepted for publication in Social Science Information, March 21,
201
An Indicator of Research Front Activity: Measuring Intellectual Organization as Uncertainty Reduction in Document Sets
When using scientific literature to model scholarly discourse, a research
specialty can be operationalized as an evolving set of related documents. Each
publication can be expected to contribute to the further development of the
specialty at the research front. The specific combinations of title words and
cited references in a paper can then be considered as a signature of the
knowledge claim in the paper: new words and combinations of words can be
expected to represent variation, while each paper is at the same time
selectively positioned into the intellectual organization of a field using
context-relevant references. Can the mutual information among these three
dimensions--title words, cited references, and sequence numbers--be used as an
indicator of the extent to which intellectual organization structures the
uncertainty prevailing at a research front? The effect of the discovery of
nanotubes (1991) on the previously existing field of fullerenes is used as a
test case. Thereafter, this method is applied to science studies with a focus
on scientometrics using various sample delineations. An emerging research front
about citation analysis can be indicated
Can Intellectual Processes in the Sciences Also Be Simulated? The Anticipation and Visualization of Possible Future States
Socio-cognitive action reproduces and changes both social and cognitive
structures. The analytical distinction between these dimensions of structure
provides us with richer models of scientific development. In this study, I
assume that (i) social structures organize expectations into belief structures
that can be attributed to individuals and communities; (ii) expectations are
specified in scholarly literature; and (iii) intellectually the sciences
(disciplines, specialties) tend to self-organize as systems of rationalized
expectations. Whereas social organizations remain localized, academic writings
can circulate, and expectations can be stabilized and globalized using
symbolically generalized codes of communication. The intellectual
restructuring, however, remains latent as a second-order dynamics that can be
accessed by participants only reflexively. Yet, the emerging "horizons of
meaning" provide feedback to the historically developing organizations by
constraining the possible future states as boundary conditions. I propose to
model these possible future states using incursive and hyper-incursive
equations from the computation of anticipatory systems. Simulations of these
equations enable us to visualize the couplings among the historical--i.e.,
recursive--progression of social structures along trajectories, the
evolutionary--i.e., hyper-incursive--development of systems of expectations at
the regime level, and the incursive instantiations of expectations in actions,
organizations, and texts.Comment: accepted for publication in Scientometrics (June 2015
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