Bibliometric Indicators of Young Authors in Astrophysics: Can Later Stars be Predicted?

We test 16 bibliometric indicators with respect to their validity at the level of the individual researcher by estimating their power to predict later successful researchers. We compare the indicators of a sample of astrophysics researchers who later co-authored highly cited papers before their first landmark paper with the distributions of these indicators over a random control group of young authors in astronomy and astrophysics. We find that field and citation-window normalisation substantially improves the predicting power of citation indicators. The two indicators of total influence based on citation numbers normalised with expected citation numbers are the only indicators which show differences between later stars and random authors significant on a 1% level. Indicators of paper output are not very useful to predict later stars. The famous $h$-index makes no difference at all between later stars and the random control group.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figure

A citation-based map of concepts in invasion biology

Invasion biology has been quickly expanding in the last decades so that it is now metaphorically flooded with publications, concepts, and hypotheses. Among experts, there is no clear consensus about the relationships between invasion concepts, and almost no one seems to have a good overview of the literature anymore. Similar observations can be made for other research fields. Science needs new navigation tools so that researchers within and outside of a research field as well as science journalists, students, teachers, practitioners, policy-makers, and others interested in the field can more easily understand its key ideas. Such navigation tools could, for example, be maps of the major concepts and hypotheses of a research field. Applying a bibliometric method, we created such maps for invasion biology. We analysed research papers of the last two decades citing at least two of 35 common invasion hypotheses. Co-citation analysis yields four distinct clusters of hypotheses. These clusters can describe the main directions in invasion biology and explain basic driving forces behind biological invasions. The method we outline here for invasion biology can be easily applied for other research fields

Der Wandel des Benutzerverhaltens in Zeiten des Internet

Im Rahmen eines Projektseminars am Institut für Bibliotheks- und Informationswissenschaft der Humboldt Universität zu Berlin wurden an wissenschaftlichen Bibliotheken Benutzerbefragungen durchgeführt. Wir haben die Antworten auf eine Frage zum Informationsverhalten bibliotheksübergreifend statistisch ausgewertet. Neben Unterschieden zwischen Fächern stellen wir fest, dass sich das Informationsverhalten junger Bibliotheksnutzer oft erheblich von dem älterer Nutzer unterscheidet. Das Verhalten von Bibliotheksnutzern hinsichtlich der Häufigkeit der Nutzung von Bibliotheksangeboten und dem World Wide Web (WWW) ist vorwiegend ähnlich. Nutzer mit konträrem Verhalten sind unterrepräsentiert gegenüber denen, die beides, Bibliothek und Web, oft oder beides wenig nutzen