Slutrapport: projektet “Citeringsmönster i Open Access-tidskrifter” inom ramen för programmet OpenAccess.se

Introduction. Along with the great expansion of research being published in Open Access (OA) journals over the last decade, the interest for analysing the OA literature using informetric methods has also increased. Most studies have focused on the citation impact of OA journals and whether OA publishing increases the chances of a research publication being cited. Fewer analyses, however, have investigated whether OA and non-OA journals in the same research fields are citing the same literature; and to what extent this reflects whether it is the same kind (and thus comparable) research that is published in the two forms of scholarly publications. Method. The analyses were performed on articles from 45 journals in five different fields: three OA journals, three non-OA and a control set of three more non-OA journals. The citation structures in the journals were analysed through MDS maps building on co-citation analyses, as well as a more thorough comparison investigating overlaps of cited authors and journals between the different journals. Results. The results are not unambiguous: in biology and biotechnology there are signs of differences of research orientation in-between journals, however not related to whether the journals are OA or non-OA publications; whereas genetics and microbiology show a strong core of journals and authors being cited by all journals. Yet another pattern is found when analysing zoology, where the separation of research areas within the field seems more dependent on whether research was published OA or non-OA.Conclusions. The results of the analyses suggests that it is hard to draw any overall conclusions on the matter of whether research published in OA journals is likely to have a larger citation impact or not. The differences between research fields are simply too substantial to make any claims on a more general level. It should however be noted that the results should be interpreted with some caution. The subject categories used in the analyses are those of Thomson Reuters’ Journal Citation Reports, a subject classification that is not entirely unproblematic. And at the same time: using journals as basis for field definitions, and the journal selection process in itself, is also related to a set of different problems

Changes in the LIS Research Front: Time-Sliced Cocitation Analyses of LIS Journal Articles, 1990–2004

Based on articles published 1990-2004 in 21 LIS journals, a set of co-citation analyses were performed to study changes in research fronts over the last 15 years, where LIS is at now; and to discuss where it is heading. To study research fronts, here defined as current and influential co-cited papers, a citations among documents methodology was applied; and to study changes, the analyses were time-sliced into three five year periods. The results show a stable structure of two distinct research fields: informetrics and information seeking and retrieval (ISR). However, experimental retrieval research and user oriented research have merged into one ISR field; and IR and informetrics also show signs of coming closer together, sharing research interests and methodologies, making informetrics research more visible in mainstream LIS research. Furthermore, the focus on the internet, both in ISR research and in informetrics – where webometrics quickly has become a dominating research area – is an important change. The future was discussed in terms of LIS dependency on technology, how integration of research areas as well as technical systems can be expected to continue characterize LIS research, and how webometrics will continue to develop and find its applications

Outlining an analytical framework for mapping research evaluation landscapes

This paper suggests an infrastructure perspective, as suggested by Star and Bowker (2006), as an analytical framework for studying the research evaluation landscape. An infrastructure is suggested to be understood, not as a concrete technology, but as a system of contextual factors including ‘Actors/Stakeholders’, ‘Technical systems’, and ‘Evaluation practices’. How the framework can be operationationalized is exemplified by examples from previous and ongoing research, as well as by identify gaps in current research

Scholarly publishing: one practice between the two systems of communication and academic meriting

The aim of this paper is to highlight and discuss the complexities of scholarly publishing being a practice closely relating to two different systems, the system of academic merit and the system of scholarly communication, by showing how the two systems work on different sets of logic and therefore needs to be analyzed in different ways and using different kinds of data. These complexities are discussed by looking at the ISI databases by Thomson Reuters, information searching and use among scholars and recent attempts at assessing research by using quantitative indicators; and are viewed in part through the recent development of the digitization of the scholarly communication process; and to a larger extent by relating the issues discussed to two models for understanding how academic research is organized

Conceptualising dimensions of bibliometric assessment: From resource allocation systems to evaluative landscapes

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the conceptualisation of bibliometric analyses in terms of the levels on which they are performed, adding contextual factors to the dimension where the size of the unit being analysed is considered. Based on empirical investigations of resource allocation systems and research evaluation practices, as well as the previous literature conceptualising bibliometric analyses, a framework based on Whitley’s (2000) notion of research fields as ‘reputational work organisations’, is discussed. The results suggest adding a contextual ‘reputational dimension’ to the size-based dimension distinguishing between micro-, meso- and macro-level analyses. Furthermore, we propose that ‘evaluative landscapes’ (Brandter, 2017) might be a fruitful approach for further analysing how complex and multifaceted landscapes of research assessment affects the individual researcher

Models of Scholarly Communication and Citation Analysis

Informetric/bibliometric analyses have to a large extent been relying on an assumption that research is essentially cumulative in its nature, which is not the least visible in the rational for using citation analyses to assess quality of research. However, when reviewing both the theoretical literature on how research is organized and studies analyzing the structures of research fields through informetric mapping methods, it becomes clear that cumulative organization is just one category of several ways of organizing research and scholarly communication, Consequently, the way the role of citations is interpreted in research assessment has to be revised. Based on the review of previous research, this paper suggests a model for categorizing different modes of scholarly communication. We test this model through three different kinds of semantic labelling analyses on abstracts and research papers from the fields of biomedicine, computer science and educational research. The model proposed suggests three main categories of scholarly communication: cumulative, negotiating and distinctive; and when matching the labels identified in the semantic analysis to the three categories, we find evidence of the three different ways of communicating research that supports the model