announcements Intro to Legal Research on Wednesday Keep track of your searching to document on the search log…for each search instance: – what database you use – what subject terms you identify – what search strings you formulate – what results (# and how relevant) – if/how you modify your search – I’m looing for diverse array of information sources Search template spreadsheet on website

today’s lineup… How do we measure impact in different contexts/fields? How do we rank people and things? How do we determine expertise? How do we traditionally look at “impact” in science and academic realms? (bibliometrics and citation analysis) Are traditional methods of measuring impact changing? If so, how?

how do we rank things & people in terms of impact?

Forbes Most Powerful People power over lots of people control large financial resources powerful in multiple spheres actively use their power

page rank

How do we traditionally look at “impact” in science and academic realms?

BIBLIOMETRICS Books Publications Bibliography Count Measurement Math / Statistical Analysis

8 Alan Pritchard 1969 Coined the term "bibliometrics" "the application of mathematics and statistical methods to books and other media of communication“ Journal of Documentation (1969) 25(4):

Journal of Mammalogy, Vol. 64, No. 3. (Aug., 1983), pp

CITEDCITING

seminal work

co-citation author institution topic country language journal these two articles are likely related

what is citation analysis? utilizes quantitative analysis and statistics to describe patterns of publication within a given field or body of literature [Write on board: relationships amongst reference lists]

what do you do with citation analysis? researchers may use bibliometric methods of evaluation to determine the influence of a single writer, for example, or to describe the relationship between two or more writers or works – production and productivity – impact – co-publication patterns – connections between subject areas

useful to you…right now Articles that cite the article you found may be of similar interest – some databases include info/links (cited in this database) – Google Scholar also offers this feature

useful to you…right now Articles that cite the article you found may be of similar interest – some databases include info/links (cited in this database) – Google Scholar also offers this feature If other publications are citing a source, that may lend credence to its importance/impact – useful in evaluating a source

Institute for Scientific Information Building, Philadelphia Architect: Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, Completed

JCR

Author Co-Citation Arts & Humanities Citation Index authors co-cited most often with…WHITMAN-W

80’s

90’s

00’s

Science Citation Index

Social Sciences Citation Index

>> E-Research by Discipline >> Frequently Used >> Web of Science (ISI) Example: Dr. Aziz Sancar, Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Scholarly communication process Traditional example

Scholarly communication process What’s captured traditionally

How is scholarly communication changing? Think of scholarly communication as continuous process instead of single product (journal publication). Capture significant changes/versions of a work. Include all criticisms and comments about work (all stages). Support normal scholarly discourse, including authors responses as well as others’ comments. Add reviewer’s quantitative rating of material to allow better filtering based on absolute quality metric during retrieval. Add machine (automated) reviews. Include other forms of information (audio, pictures, video, graphs, datasets, statistics)

Provocative Questions for Discussion What/why do you (and scholars cite? What do you infer from a reference list? Are all citations equal?

points to take away Cite sources you use – Supports your case/research – Avoid plagiarism – Places your work within scholarly dialogue Use reference lists to find additional/relevant material Look for material that cites your source – will be more recent Web of Science can also be used as a regular lit database