10,651 research outputs found
Diffusion of scientific credits and the ranking of scientists
Recently, the abundance of digital data enabled the implementation of graph
based ranking algorithms that provide system level analysis for ranking
publications and authors. Here we take advantage of the entire Physical Review
publication archive (1893-2006) to construct authors' networks where weighted
edges, as measured from opportunely normalized citation counts, define a proxy
for the mechanism of scientific credit transfer. On this network we define a
ranking method based on a diffusion algorithm that mimics the spreading of
scientific credits on the network. We compare the results obtained with our
algorithm with those obtained by local measures such as the citation count and
provide a statistical analysis of the assignment of major career awards in the
area of Physics. A web site where the algorithm is made available to perform
customized rank analysis can be found at the address
http://www.physauthorsrank.orgComment: Revised version. 11 pages, 10 figures, 1 table. The portal to compute
the rankings of scientists is at http://www.physauthorsrank.or
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
The Hirsch spectrum: a novel tool for analysing scientific journals
This paper introduces the Hirsch spectrum (h-spectrum) for analyzing the academic reputation of a scientific journal. h-Spectrum is a novel tool based on the Hirsch (h) index. It is easy to construct: considering a specific journal in a specific interval of time, h-spectrum is defined as the distribution representing the h-indexes associated to the authors of the journal articles. This tool allows defining a reference profile of the typical author of a journal, compare different journals within the same scientific field, and provide a rough indication of prestige/reputation of a journal in the scientific community. h-Spectrum can be associated to every journal. Ten specific journals in the Quality Engineering/Quality Management field are analyzed so as to preliminarily investigate the h-spectrum characteristic
Citation Counts and Evaluation of Researchers in the Internet Age
Bibliometric measures derived from citation counts are increasingly being
used as a research evaluation tool. Their strengths and weaknesses have been
widely analyzed in the literature and are often subject of vigorous debate. We
believe there are a few fundamental issues related to the impact of the web
that are not taken into account with the importance they deserve. We focus on
evaluation of researchers, but several of our arguments may be applied also to
evaluation of research institutions as well as of journals and conferences.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, 3 table
The role of handbooks in knowledge creation and diffusion: A case of science and technology studies
Genre is considered to be an important element in scholarly communication and
in the practice of scientific disciplines. However, scientometric studies have
typically focused on a single genre, the journal article. The goal of this
study is to understand the role that handbooks play in knowledge creation and
diffusion and their relationship with the genre of journal articles,
particularly in highly interdisciplinary and emergent social science and
humanities disciplines. To shed light on these questions we focused on
handbooks and journal articles published over the last four decades belonging
to the research area of Science and Technology Studies (STS), broadly defined.
To get a detailed picture we used the full-text of five handbooks (500,000
words) and a well-defined set of 11,700 STS articles. We confirmed the
methodological split of STS into qualitative and quantitative (scientometric)
approaches. Even when the two traditions explore similar topics (e.g., science
and gender) they approach them from different starting points. The change in
cognitive foci in both handbooks and articles partially reflects the changing
trends in STS research, often driven by technology. Using text similarity
measures we found that, in the case of STS, handbooks play no special role in
either focusing the research efforts or marking their decline. In general, they
do not represent the summaries of research directions that have emerged since
the previous edition of the handbook.Comment: Accepted for publication in Journal of Informetric
Unraveling the dynamics of growth, aging and inflation for citations to scientific articles from specific research fields
We analyze the time evolution of citations acquired by articles from journals
of the American Physical Society (PRA, PRB, PRC, PRD, PRE and PRL). The
observed change over time in the number of papers published in each journal is
considered an exogenously caused variation in citability that is accounted for
by a normalization. The appropriately inflation-adjusted citation rates are
found to be separable into a preferential-attachment-type growth kernel and a
purely obsolescence-related (i.e., monotonously decreasing as a function of
time since publication) aging function. Variations in the empirically extracted
parameters of the growth kernels and aging functions associated with different
journals point to research-field-specific characteristics of citation intensity
and knowledge flow. Comparison with analogous results for the citation dynamics
of technology-disaggregated cohorts of patents provides deeper insight into the
basic principles of information propagation as indicated by citing behavior.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, Elsevier style, v2: revised version to appear in
J. Informetric
On the compliance of women engineers with a gendered scientific system
There has been considerable effort in the last decade to increase the participation of
women in engineering through various policies. However, there has been little empirical
research on gender disparities in engineering which help underpin the effective preparation,
co-ordination, and implementation of the science and technology (S&T) policies. This article
aims to present a comprehensive gendered analysis of engineering publications across different specialties and provide a cross-gender analysis of research output and scientific
impact of engineering researchers in academic, governmental, and industrial sectors. For
this purpose, 679,338 engineering articles published from 2008 to 2013 are extracted from
the Web of Science database and 974,837 authorships are analyzed. The structures of
co-authorship collaboration networks in different engineering disciplines are examined,
highlighting the role of female scientists in the diffusion of knowledge. The findings reveal
that men dominate 80% of all the scientific production in engineering. Women engineers
publish their papers in journals with higher Impact Factors than their male peers, but their
work receives lower recognition (fewer citations) from the scientific community. Engineers
—regardless of their gender—contribute to the reproduction of the male-dominated scientific structures through forming and repeating their collaborations predominantly with men.
The results of this study call for integration of data driven gender-related policies in existing
S&T discourse
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