Information Metrics (iMetrics): A Research Specialty with a Socio-Cognitive Identity?

"Bibliometrics", "scientometrics", "informetrics", and "webometrics" can all be considered as manifestations of a single research area with similar objectives and methods, which we call "information metrics" or iMetrics. This study explores the cognitive and social distinctness of iMetrics with respect to the general information science (IS), focusing on a core of researchers, shared vocabulary and literature/knowledge base. Our analysis investigates the similarities and differences between four document sets. The document sets are drawn from three core journals for iMetrics research (Scientometrics, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, and Journal of Informetrics). We split JASIST into document sets containing iMetrics and general IS articles. The volume of publications in this representation of the specialty has increased rapidly during the last decade. A core of researchers that predominantly focus on iMetrics topics can thus be identified. This core group has developed a shared vocabulary as exhibited in high similarity of title words and one that shares a knowledge base. The research front of this field moves faster than the research front of information science in general, bringing it closer to Price's dream.Comment: Accepted for publication in Scientometric

Ekologija pojave sluzavog morskog snijega u sjevernom Jadranu

The development, aggregation, and senescence of amorphous marine snow aggregates in the northern Adriatic Sea off Rovinj, Croatia were investigated during an aggregation event from July to September, 1997. Aggregates and surrounding ambient water were sampled using SCUBA for bacterial and cyanobacterial abundance, dissolved oxygen, primary production, bacterial secondary production, dissolved organic carbon and dry weight measurements. Marine snow aggregates appear to be a rich protected environment that favors primary production and bacterial growth by making readily available marine organic moieties present in the gel’s matrix. Aged aggregates form two separate zones: an outer well oxygenated almost transparent gel-like zone, and a dark almost‑anoxic/anoxic central zone. The interstices of the aggregates contained high concentrations of dissolved organic carbon, especially in the central almost anoxic-anoxic zone, which can be correlated to microbial activity. When sinking below the pycnocline they efficiently bypass mid-water biota thus becoming an important component of the marine biological pump and a major mechanism for the movement of particulate and dissolved organic carbon towards the sea floor.U ovom radu je opisan razvoj, nakupljanje i starenje amorfnih nakupina morskog snijega u sjevernom jadranu tijekom jedinstvene pojave u smislu trajanja i veličine organskih nakupina tijekom ljeta 1997. Istraživanja su provedena od lipnja do rujna 1997. u sjevernom jadranu sa postajama uzorkovanja dvije nautičke milje od Rovinja, Hrvatska. Da bi se prikazao razvoj odvajanja unutrašnjih zona unutar čestica morskog snijega, SCUBA ronioci su uzorkovali nakupine sličnih oblika. Uzorci nakupina i mora oko agregata su prikupljeni za određivanje brojnosne koncentracije bakterija i cijanobakterija, mjerenje otopljenog kisika, primarne proizvodnje, bakterijske sekundarne produkcije, otopljenog organskog ugljika i suhe tvari. Čestice morskog snijega imaju karakteristike nezavisnih i samoodržavajućih i mogu značajno doprinijeti nakupljanju i taloženju novoproizvedene organske tvari iz vodenog stupca. U specifičnim uvjetima nakupine ne podliježu razgradnji, remineralizaciji ili kolonizaciji zooplanktona. Tijekom tonjenja ispod piknokline čestice učinkovito zaobilaze biološke zajednice srednjeg sloja vodenog stupca i tako postaju možda najvažniji čimbenik sekvestracije morske biološke pumpe i puta čvrstog organskog ugljika prema morskom dnu

Katalogizacija i klasifikacija u Sjedinjenim Američkim Državama

In the Paper are treated the Principles and the Implementation of the Cataloguization and Classification in USA, with a special overview on modern streams. The main goal of the organization of Library Holdings is the satisfaction of different User’s needs for Information. The organization of Knowledge in the Libraries implies the organization of several different types of information and media. In the Paper are described the Anglo-American Rules for Cataloguization and MARC, as standards for the alphabetical Cataloguization. As well the influence of the cooperative cataloguization and the usage of computer technology within the development of these Standards. One can find also a brief description of Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) and the Classification of the Congress Library in Washington D.C, as the two dominating classificational Systems. Followed by the description of the controled dictionnaries, with special overview on Subject Heading of the Congress Library. The Paper treats also the Problem of Information on the Internet, as well proliferation of the Material in electronic format, which requires the incorporation in traditional library Catalogues

Citations: Indicators of Quality? The Impact Fallacy

We argue that citation is a composed indicator: short-term citations can be considered as currency at the research front, whereas long-term citations can contribute to the codification of knowledge claims into concept symbols. Knowledge claims at the research front are more likely to be transitory and are therefore problematic as indicators of quality. Citation impact studies focus on short-term citation, and therefore tend to measure not epistemic quality, but involvement in current discourses in which contributions are positioned by referencing. We explore this argument using three case studies: (1) citations of the journal Soziale Welt as an example of a venue that tends not to publish papers at a research front, unlike, for example, JACS; (2) Robert Merton as a concept symbol across theories of citation; and (3) the Multi-RPYS ("Multi-Referenced Publication Year Spectroscopy") of the journals Scientometrics, Gene, and Soziale Welt. We show empirically that the measurement of "quality" in terms of citations can further be qualified: short-term citation currency at the research front can be distinguished from longer-term processes of incorporation and codification of knowledge claims into bodies of knowledge. The recently introduced Multi-RPYS can be used to distinguish between short-term and long-term impacts.Comment: accepted for publication in Frontiers in Research Metrics and Analysis; doi: 10.3389/frma.2016.0000

Towards a more realistic citation model: The key role of research team sizes

We propose a new citation model which builds on the existing models that explicitly or implicitly include "direct" and "indirect" (learning about a cited paper's existence from references in another paper) citation mechanisms. Our model departs from the usual, unrealistic assumption of uniform probability of direct citation, in which initial differences in citation arise purely randomly. Instead, we demonstrate that a two-mechanism model in which the probability of direct citation is proportional to the number of authors on a paper (team size) is able to reproduce the empirical citation distributions of articles published in the field of astronomy remarkably well, and at different points in time. Interpretation of our model is that the intrinsic citation capacity, and hence the initial visibility of a paper, will be enhanced when more people are intimately familiar with some work, favoring papers from larger teams. While the intrinsic citation capacity cannot depend only on the team size, our model demonstrates that it must be to some degree correlated with it, and distributed in a similar way, i.e., having a power-law tail. Consequently, our team-size model qualitatively explains the existence of a correlation between the number of citations and the number of authors on a paper.Comment: Published in journal Entropy. Open access article available at https://www.mdpi.com/journal/entrop