Håkan Carlsson Gothenburg University Library Bibliometrics – A Tool in the Evaluation of Science
Table of Contents Introduction and definition Different applications of bibliometrics Bibliometric indicators Financial allocaton models based on bibliometrics Conclusions
What is bibliometrics? Definition: “"Bibliometrics can be defined as the quantification of bibliographic information for use in analysis “– Garfield Statistical bibliography
Authors Affiliation Source (journal) Title, Abstract, Keywords Year Metadata
Authors Affiliation Source (journal) Title, Abstract, Keywords Year References Metadata
Major areas of bibliometric research Fundamental statistical relationships Citation analysis Publication indicators for evaluation purposes
Statistical Metods Pioneer: Derek de Solla Price 1963: Little Science, Big Science ”We can say that 80 to 90 percent of all the scientists that have ever lived are alive now”
Power-law
Lotka’s Law
Rosvall M, CT, Maps of Information Flow Reveal Community Structure In Complex Networks
Why Publish?
Research evaluation indicators Production (number of publications, number of collaborators, …) Demand, Impact, Quality (number of citations, number of publications in quality channels, …) Excellence (compared to the field, ratio top5% cited publications) Collaboration (network properties estimated by co-authorships) Internationalization (number of publications in international journals, number of international collaborators) Interdisciplinarity (number of publications in channels in other fields or with co-authors from other fields) … Changes over time or in comparison with the field or specific others
Producation-Based Indicators Straight-forward and fast Time, organisational and document-type limitations Fractionalisation
Publications (fractionalized, source: VR )
Fractionalized publications Gothenburg University (research articles, chapters, books) GUP Februray 2010
How do we publish?
Citation-based indicators Paying homage to pioneers. Giving credit for related work (homage to peers). Identifying methodology, equipment, etc. Providing background reading. Correcting one's own work. Correcting the work of others. Criticizing previous work. Substantiating claims. Alerting to forthcoming work. Providing leads to poorly disseminated, poorly indexed, or uncited work. Identifying original publications in which an idea or concept was discussed. Identifying original publications or other work describing an eponymic concept or term. Disclaiming work or ideas of others (negative claims). Disputing priority claims of others (negative homage). Why cite?
Average citation per publication type and year (Source: WoS analysis by VR)
Citation rate of different fields (source: VR)
Citation window
Field normalized citation (”crown indicator”) CPP (cites per publication) _____________ FCS (Field Citation Score) world average for a specific field, year and article type ’
Endocrinology Letter 2003 CPP (cites per publication) 10 _____________ ________ FCS (Field Citation Score) 10 world average for a specific field, year and article type CPP/FCS 1 Field normalized citation (”crown indicator”)
Endocrinology Letter 2003 Oncology Review 2004 CPP (cites per publication) _____________ ________ ________ FCS (Field Citation Score) world average for a specific field, year and article type CPP/FCS 1 0,5 Field normalized citation (”crown indicator”)
Field normalized citation score, Source: Swedish production of highly cited scientific publikactions (VR, 2010)
Allocation Systems for University Funding
Publications in the database Web of Science (WoS) are aggregated for each university Number of publications and number of citations to the publications are normalized and multiplied together to form the publication indicator ”The Swedish Model”
Coverage GUP in WoS, Scopus and Scholar
”The Norweigan Model” Publications (books, articles, book chapters) are registered in a national database by the researcher A quality indicator is added where extra credit is given to publications in certain publication channels (i.e. journal or publisher determines the extra credit) Publication typeLevel 1Level 2 Article13 Book chapter0,71 Book58
Local Developments The university has decided to allocate part of its funding to the faculties based on publications in GUP and external funds. Faculties have made similar decisions: - Humanities - Social sciences - Medicine - Science
What can we learn? What have you learned from this session that you would bring back and tell a colleague? How would you think strategically about your own publications? Journal choice (target audience, indexing, Web of Science) Visibility (access, promotion, personal webpage)
Håkan Carlsson