Open Access Scientometrics and the UK Research Assessment Exercise

Scientometric predictors of research performance need to be validated by showing that they have a high correlation with the external criterion they are trying to predict. The UK Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) -- together with the growing movement toward making the full-texts of research articles freely available on the web -- offer a unique opportunity to test and validate a wealth of old and new scientometric predictors, through multiple regression analysis: Publications, journal impact factors, citations, co-citations, citation chronometrics (age, growth, latency to peak, decay rate), hub/authority scores, h-index, prior funding, student counts, co-authorship scores, endogamy/exogamy, textual proximity, download/co-downloads and their chronometrics, etc. can all be tested and validated jointly, discipline by discipline, against their RAE panel rankings in the forthcoming parallel panel-based and metric RAE in 2008. The weights of each predictor can be calibrated to maximize the joint correlation with the rankings. Open Access Scientometrics will provide powerful new means of navigating, evaluating, predicting and analyzing the growing Open Access database, as well as powerful incentives for making it grow faster

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

Evolution of Physical Therapy Scholarship in the Philippines: A Scientometric Analysis of Peer-Reviewed Publications

ABSTRACT Introduction. The Philippine Journal of Physical Therapy began publication in 2021. The editorial board identified as a high-priority project to undertake a detailed analysis of current publishing practice among physical therapy researchers in the Philippines. Methods. This study systematically mined publications from Web of Science, Scopus and PubMed using the keywords “physical therapy” OR “physiotherapy” OR “physical therapist” OR “physiotherapist.” Results were further refined to only include English publications by authors from the Philippines. Publication, citation, collaboration, and text-co-occurrence network analysis were done using RStudio and VOSViewer. Results. A total of 122 publications from 1987 to 2022 were identified. Majority of the literature was primary studies (70.49%), secondary or review articles (13.93%) and proceedings of national and/or international conferences (10.65%). The most common and earliest collaborators of Filipino authors were from Australia, United States of America and Hong Kong. Five clusters of co-occurring keywords were identified: (1) case report, validity, function, mobility; (2) meta-analysis, systematic review, database, search; (3) perception, qualitative, barrier, value; (4) Evidence-based practice, attitude, need, confidence; and (5) COVID-19, pandemic, filipino, cross-sectional. Discussion. This study provides an overview and valuable guidance for physical therapy researchers, practitioners, educators, and policymakers to plan for the future direction of physical therapy research in the country. Stakeholders should consider the results of the study in identifying future projects to build capacity, develop research agendas and policy guidelines, and create collaborative opportunities to further improve physical therapy research productivity in the country

Determinants of the international influence of a R&D organisation: a bibliometric approach

Traditionally, studies on the influence and impact of knowledge-producing organisations have been addressed by means of strict economic analysis, stressing their economic impact to a local, regional or national extent. In the present study, an alternative methodology is put forward in order to evaluate the international scientific impact and influence of a knowledge-producing and -diffusing institution. We introduce a new methodology, based on scientometric and bibliometric tools, which complement traditional assessments by considering the influence of a R&D institution when looking at the scientific production undertaken and the recognition of its relevance by its international peer community. Focusing on the most prolific scientific areas of INESC Porto, and resorting to published scientific work recorded in the Science Citation Index (SCI), we show that INESC Porto has enlarged its international scientific network. The logit estimations demonstrate that the wide geographical influence of INESC Porto scientific research is a result not of its international positioning in terms of co-authorships, but rather a result of the quality of its scientific output.Impact and influence assessment methods; R&D Institutions; Bibliometrics, Scientometrics; knowledge network; INESC Porto

Bibliometrics and scientometrics in India: An overview of studies during 1995-2014Part II: Contents of the articles in terms of disciplines and their bibliometric aspects

This part of the study highlights the contents of the published articles in terms of various disciplines or sub-disciplines and the bibliometric aspects discussed in these articles. The analysis of 902 papers published by Indian scholars during1995-2014 indicates that the main focus of bibliometrics/scientometrics is on assessment of science and technology in India in different sub-disciplines including contributions by Indian states and other individual countries followed by bibliometric analysis of individual journals. Papers dealing with bibliometric laws received a low priority as compared to other subdisciplines of bibliometrics/scientometrics. The analysis of data indicates that the share of theoretical studies using mathematical and statistical techniques which were missing in the earlier period (1970-1994) has increased during 1995-2014. The field of medicine as a discipline received the highest attention as compared to other disciplines

Scientometric Profile of Biochemistry research in India: A Study based on Web of Science.

The paper examines 25,132 biochemistry research contributions of Indian scientists covered in the Web of Science for a period of 10 years (2004-2013). It was found that the biochemistry research is gradually growing and average annual growth rate was 36.84 per cent. The solo research was not prevalent and team research is more in the Indian biochemistry research and 97.46 per cent publications were contributed by multi- authors. It was observed that the value of co- authorship index was generally increasing and it varied from 93 to 105 during the period of study. Journal articles contribute 89.43 per cent of the total output followed by reviews (7.14 %). Indian researchers collaborate largely with the researchers of USA (2.49 %). The geographical distribution shows that Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi lead the list. The study shows that, C. Abdul Jaleel (58) and L. Pai (37) are the top ranked authors in the field. ‘Plos One’ is the top ranked journal and it published 296 papers during the study period. Academic institutions contribute more number of papers (50.26 %) followed by research institutions (28.24 %). The Lotka’s law was not found fit with the observed author productivity distribution of Indian biochemistry research

Determinants of the international influence of a R&D organisation: a bibliometric approach

Traditionally, studies on the influence and impact of knowledge-producing organisations have been addressed by means of strict economic analysis, stressing their economic impact to a local, regional or national extent. In the present study, an alternative methodology is put forward in order to evaluate the international scientific impact and influence of a knowledge-producing and -diffusing institution. We introduce a new methodology, based on scientometric and bibliometric tools, which complement traditional assessments by considering the influence of a R&D institution when looking at the scientific production undertaken and the recognition of its relevance by its international peer community. Focusing on the most prolific scientific areas of INESC Porto, and resorting to published scientific work recorded in the Science Citation Index (SCI), we show that INESC Porto has enlarged its international scientific network. The logit estimations demonstrate that the wide geographical influence of INESC Porto scientific research is a result not of its international positioning in terms of co-authorships, but rather a result of the quality of its scientific output.Impact and influence assessment methods; R&D Institutions; Bibliometrics, Scientometrics; knowledge network; INESC Porto

Research Productivity of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS): A Scientometric Analysis

This study evidences the growth of research literature produced by AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences) for the period of 2007 to 2016. A total of 14410 records were retrieved from the Scopus database. Descriptive statistics for the research publication output revealed mean = 1441, Sd = 318.92, minimum = 1087, maximum = 2141 at 95.0% confidence level. The curve fitting methodology was used to fit the growth of research publication of AIIMS. R square value for exponential growth model is higher (0.908) than the linear growth model (0.849). Journals are identified as most preferred publication pattern (69.42%). The research output of top 20 department aggregates to 57.77% of total productivity. This study also identified the top 20 most preferred journals by the faculties of AIIMS and comparison was made with the previous study revealed Indian Journal of Pediatrics, Indian Journal of Medical Research, and Indian Pediatrics were the most preferred journals among the faculties. The observation of this study exhibits that AIIMS plays a vital role in reducing disease burden of India by means of quantitative and qualitative research publications

Research Productivity of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS): A Scientometric Analysis

This study evidences the growth of research literature produced by AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences) for the period of 2007 to 2016. A total of 14410 records were retrieved from the Scopus database. Descriptive statistics for the research publication output revealed mean = 1441, Sd = 318.92, minimum = 1087, maximum = 2141 at 95.0% confidence level. The curve fitting methodology was used to fit the growth of research publication of AIIMS. R square value for exponential growth model is higher (0.908) than the linear growth model (0.849). Journals are identified as most preferred publication pattern (69.42%). The research output of top 20 department aggregates to 57.77% of total productivity. This study also identified the top 20 most preferred journals by the faculties of AIIMS and comparison was made with the previous study revealed Indian Journal of Pediatrics, Indian Journal of Medical Research, and Indian Pediatrics were the most preferred journals among the faculties. The observation of this study exhibits that AIIMS plays a vital role in reducing disease burden of India by means of quantitative and qualitative research publications