12 research outputs found
Comparing People with Bibliometrics
Bibliometric indicators, citation counts and/or download counts are
increasingly being used to inform personnel decisions such as hiring or
promotions. These statistics are very often misused. Here we provide a guide to
the factors which should be considered when using these so-called quantitative
measures to evaluate people. Rules of thumb are given for when begin to use
bibliometric measures when comparing otherwise similar candidates.Comment: to appear in Proceedings of Library and Information Science in
Astronomy VIII (LISA-8
Usage History of Scientific Literature: Nature Metrics and Metrics of Nature Publications
In this study, we analyze the dynamic usage history of Nature publications
over time using Nature metrics data. We conduct analysis from two perspectives.
On the one hand, we examine how long it takes before the articles' downloads
reach 50%/80% of the total; on the other hand, we compare the percentage of
total downloads in 7 days, 30 days, and 100 days after publication. In general,
papers are downloaded most frequently within a short time period right after
their publication. And we find that compared with Non-Open Access papers,
readers' attention on Open Access publications are more enduring. Based on the
usage data of a newly published paper, regression analysis could predict the
future expected total usage counts.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures and 4 table
Towards a data publishing framework for primary biodiversity data: challenges and potentials for the biodiversity informatics community
Background: Currently primary scientific data, especially that dealing with biodiversity, is neither
easily discoverable nor accessible. Amongst several impediments, one is a lack of professional
recognition of scientific data publishing efforts. A possible solution is establishment of a ‘Data
Publishing Framework’ which would encourage and recognise investments and efforts by
institutions and individuals towards management, and publishing of primary scientific data
potentially on a par with recognitions received for scholarly publications.
Discussion: This paper reviews the state-of-the-art of primary biodiversity data publishing, and
conceptualises a ‘Data Publishing Framework’ that would help incentivise efforts and investments by
institutions and individuals in facilitating free and open access to biodiversity data. It further
postulates the institutionalisation of a ‘Data Usage Index (DUI)’, that would attribute due recognition
to multiple players in the data collection/creation, management and publishing cycle.
Conclusion: We believe that institutionalisation of such a ‘Data Publishing Framework’ that
offers socio-cultural, legal, technical, economic and policy environment conducive for data
publishing will facilitate expedited discovery and mobilisation of an exponential increase in quantity
of ‘fit-for-use’ primary biodiversity data, much of which is currently invisible
Indicators for the Data Usage Index (DUI): an incentive for publishing primary biodiversity data through global information infrastructure
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>A professional recognition mechanism is required to encourage expedited publishing of an adequate volume of 'fit-for-use' biodiversity data. As a component of such a recognition mechanism, we propose the development of the Data Usage Index (DUI) to demonstrate to data publishers that their efforts of creating biodiversity datasets have impact by being accessed and used by a wide spectrum of user communities.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>We propose and give examples of a range of 14 absolute and normalized biodiversity dataset usage indicators for the development of a DUI based on search events and dataset download instances. The DUI is proposed to include relative as well as species profile weighted comparative indicators.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We believe that in addition to the recognition to the data publisher and all players involved in the data life cycle, a DUI will also provide much needed yet novel insight into how users use primary biodiversity data. A DUI consisting of a range of usage indicators obtained from the GBIF network and other relevant access points is within reach. The usage of biodiversity datasets leads to the development of a family of indicators in line with well known citation-based measurements of recognition.</p
Electronic Journals and Changes in Scholarly Article Seeking and Reading Patterns
By tracking the information-seeking and reading patterns of science, technology, medical and social science faculty members from 1977 to the present, this paper seeks to examine how faculty members locate, obtain, read, and use scholarly articles and how this has changed with the widespread availability of electronic journals and journal alternatives
The Product and System Specificities of Measuring Curation Impact
Using three datasets archived at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), we describe the creation of a ‘data usage index’ for curation-specific impact assessments. Our work is focused on quantitatively evaluating climate and weather data used in earth and space science research, but we also discuss the application of this approach to other research data contexts. We conclude with some proposed future directions for metric-based work in data curation