Web of Science: The Use & Abuse of Citation Data Mark Robertson & Adam Taves Scott Library Reference Dept.

What is Citation Data? Generated by counting numbers of times publications have been cited Allows for the analysis of relationships between publications Measure of importance and usage Another name for this field: Bibliometrics First proposed by Eugene Garfield in 1955 Garfield founded Institute for Scientific Information (ISI)

3 Kinds of Citation Data Articles Citation Impact Authors h-index & g-index Journals Journal Impact Factor

Kinds of Citation Data Counting Articles Times Cited

Kinds of Citation Data Measuring Author Impact & Productivity h-index: a scholar with an index of h has published h papers with at least h citations each

Kinds of Citation Data Measuring Journal Quality Impact Factor Definition: The average number of times published papers are cited in the two calendar years following publication

Sources of Citation Data ISI Products Web of Science (ISI) Journal Citation Reports (ISI) Other Products Google Scholar Scopus

The Uses of Citation Data By Researchers –To look for research which up- dates earlier findings –Identify more articles on same topic –To look for replications of empirical research –To follow a scholarly debate through time –To identify significant publications –Historians examining scholarly trends

The Uses of Citation Data Administrative Purposes –Tenure & promotion –Funding / grant proposals –Deciding where to publish –Libraries use to make collection decisions

Demonstrations Web of Science Journal Citation Reports Google Scholar Publish or Perish

Thinking Critically About Citation Analysis

Is It Comprehensive? Excludes citations in books SCI indexes 5,900 journals SSCI indexes 1,725 journals A&HSI indexes 1,144 journals In 1997 estimated that SCI covers only 2.5% of world’s scientific journals

Apples & Oranges? All articles are not the same (review articles vs. case studies) Disciplinary Cultures: History vs. Immunology

Psychiatry journals

Developmental Psychology journals

Manipulation of Rankings Self-citation Journals publish more review articles, etc. Some journals encourage citation from same journal Speeding up publication cycle increases impact factor

The Matthew Effect “The rich get richer and poor get poorer” A centrifugal effect High journals rankings are self- perpetuating Hard for new journals to break into high rankings Anglo-American bias Non-English language citations undercounted

What Does It Really Measure? Use not quality Consider case of Google result rankings