1. WISER: Bibliometrics II The Black Art of Citation Rankings Angela Carritt Juliet Ralph March 2011 These slides are available on http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/services/training /wiser/presentations

2. Overview of Session What are bibliometrics? Why bother? Problems Calculating impact factors using Web of Science …for an article …for a researcher …for a department / institution Calculating impact factors using Scopus Calculating journal impact factors using the Journal Citation Reports

3. What are bibliometrics? …the statistical analysis of books, articles, or other publications. Oxford English Dictionary …”ways of measuring patterns of authorship, publication and the use of literature” HEFCE, Bibliometrics and the Research Excellence Framework (REF) Use of citation information to measure the impact of research

4. 2008 2010 2009 2010 2008 Citations to an individual paper

5. Citations to a researcher

6. Citations to a research group/department

7. Citations to a journal

8. Continued…. Wide range of formulae developed which aim to use citation information to assess research impact accurately Some of the things that are sometimes considered… Number of articles published Number of self citations Type of article Period over which articles were published Prestige of citing journal Subject/discipline…

9. The power behind

11. Why bother?... REF “The pilot exercise showed that citation information is not sufficiently robust to be used formulaically or as a primary indicator of quality; but there is considerable scope for it to inform and enhance the process of expert review” HEFCE www.hefce.ac.uk/research/ref/Biblio/www.hefce.ac.uk/research/ref/Biblio/ Research Excellence Framework 2014 quality of research outputs (65% weighting 2014) wider impact of research – (20% weighting in 2014) - measured by case studies vitality of the research environment 15% weighting in 2014) Expert panels decide whether or not to use citation information under the “quality of research outputs” heading Panels to annouce their “criteria statements” in late 2011 - watch this space

12. HEFCE, REF and citation information Central guidance to ensure that departments are not disadvantaged by missing data Information will be standardized, simplified…and made available to universities for a small fee HEFCE will assess the (financial) cost of using citation information More @ http://www.hefce.ac.uk/research/ref/Biblio/

13. Why bother Benchmarking of departments and research groups Grant applications Recruitment of individuals

14. Lots of problems... Self-citations Negative citations Insignificant citations Multiple authors/research groups Incomplete citation lists - does not include citations in books... or other publications not indexed by Web of Science/Scopus…poor coverage of conferences Not comparable across disciplines – may disadvantage researchers in interdisciplinary fields Review articles are more highly cited than original research More...

15. http://www.slideshare.net/guest633b30/bibliometrics-and-scientometrics-1065282

16. © http://ceochef.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/pinch-of-salt.jpg

17. Individual articles On Web of Science - use Cited Reference Search Better than General Search at retrieving Variants (incorrect citations). Example: Effectiveness of PowerPoint presentations in lectures. Author(s): Bartsch RA, Cobern KMBartsch RACobern KM Source: COMPUTERS & EDUCATION Volume: 41 Issue: 1 Pages: 77-86 Published: AUG 2003.

19. Cited reference variant

20. Analyzing a highly cited article

21. Analyzing the Citing articles

22. …by highest citing Authors

23. …by highest citing Journals

24. or create a Citation Map

25. Citation map

26. Impact factors for a researcher

28. Citation report for an author

29. h-index=75

30. 75 articles cited 75 times or more

31. Citation tracking & analysis in SCOPUS Scopus covers 18,000 journals in Science, Mecicine, Social Sciences & Humanities Results include journal articles & conference proceedings Each record for a paper shows the number of times it has been cited in Scopus since 1996 Similar analytical tools to Web of Science www.scopus.com

32. Citation analysis in Scopus

33. h-index = 73 based on citations in Scopus post-1996 to 537 papers

34. h-index = 63 if exclude self-citations

35. …for a department or institution Not always easy! Web of Science - Search the Address field Must use standard abbreviations, e.g: oxford univ But word order makes a difference! univ oxford retrieves thousands more results more researchers use University of Oxford - not Oxford University - in their address Can also search by postcode, e.g. OX1 2JD (Wellington Square)

36. Searching by Address

37. Check the abbreviations lists

38. Searching by department or college Postcode or name Tip: include univ oxford same or oxford same in search string to weed out other institutions, e.g. univ oxford same pathol oxford same trinity oxford same Ludwig Inst Canc Res

40. Scopus has Affiliation Search Search by institution name not postcode university of oxford retrieves same results as oxford university

41. Scopus Affiliation Search

43. Scopus Affiliation ID

46. Symplectic Elements

47. record keeping tool for research outputs automatic searching of databases such as Web of Science & Scopus Facility to run reports for a department For more information go to www.admin.ox.ac.uk/pras/research/symplectic/ The solution for your department? Contact symplectic@admin.ox.ac.uksymplectic@admin.ox.ac.uk

48. Impact Factors - Journal Citation Reports (JCR) Compare relative importance of journals using citation information Based on citation data from Web of Science Covers > 5,900 journals in science and technology > 1,700 journals in the social sciences

49. Uses & Abuses Uses Help you to decide where to publish Help librarians to make decisions about journal purchase etc Abuses Have been used to measure research impact of individual and research groups

53. Impact Factor - Number of times the “average” article published in the previous 2 (or 5) years was cited this year. Calculated: no. of citations to articles published in the last 2 (or 5) years ÷ no. of articles published in same period. Immediacy Index Measures how quickly articles are cited. Calculated: no. of citations to articles published this year ÷ no. of articles published this year. Cited Half-Life - How many years you have to go back to account for 50% of citations to the journal. e.g. 50% of citations were to articles published in the last 3.5 years. The rest cited earlier articles.

54. Detailed view

55. Detailed view continued

56. Citations TO the journal by year of cited article (e.g. 333 of this year’s citations to Biological Review were to articles published in in 2005 ) Detailed view continued

57. Citations from Biological Review (to other journals and self cites) by year of cited article E.g. 334 citations from Biological Reviews journal cited articles published in 2007 Detailed view continued

58. Type of articles included

59. Eigenfactor Metrics Take into account prestige of citing sources Use “Google style” algorithms Attempts to measure how often the average researcher would encounter the journal http://well- formed.eigenfactor.org/http://well- formed.eigenfactor.org/ Google’s PageRank from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank

60. Eigenfactor: Score & Article Influence Eigenfactor – increases with the size of the journal Article Influence – Takes into account number of articles published. More comparable to the JCR impact factor

62. Journal Impact Factors: Problems Use with caution…Results are skewed by many factors… Size Frequency / time of publication Type of content - review articles are more heavily cited than original research… Journals that are not indexed by WOS are disadvantaged Non English Language journals disadvantaged “Cited” only journals Problems when journals change names Results are not comparable across discipline (some journals in the wrong discipline) Journal impact factors should NEVER be used to assess impact of researchers / groups etc

63. Brief bibliography General Broadus, R. N., “Towards a definition of Bibliometrics” Scientometrics, vol. 12, nos 5-6, (1987) 373-379 @ www.springerlink.com/content/v111750n14086384/fulltext.pdf www.springerlink.com/content/v111750n14086384/fulltext.pdf HEFCE papers, reports, papers and pilots on the use of bibliometrics in the REF @ www.hefce.ac.uk/research/ref/Biblio/www.hefce.ac.uk/research/ref/Biblio/ H-Index Hirsch, J. E. (15 November 2005). "An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output". PNAS 102 (46): 16569–16572 @ www.pnas.org/content/102/46/16569.abstract www.pnas.org/content/102/46/16569.abstract Ball, P. “Index aims for fair ranking of scientists”, Nature 2005 Aug 18 436: 900

64. Brief bibliography Journal Impact Factors and the JCR The Thomson Reuters Impact Factor (originally published in the Current Contents print editions June 20, 1994) @ http://thomsonreuters.com/products_services/science/free/essays/impact_factor/ http://thomsonreuters.com/products_services/science/free/essays/impact_factor/ Garfield, E. "The agony and the ecstasy: the history and meaning of the Journal Impact Factor“ Paper at the International Congress on Peer Review And Biomedical Publication, Chicago, September 16, 2005 @ http://garfield.library.upenn.edu/papers/jifchicago2005.pdf http://garfield.library.upenn.edu/papers/jifchicago2005.pdf Want more… Wikipedia entries on the following topics include useful bibliographies: the h-index, journal impact factors and the Eigenfactor A Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.co.uk/) search will return many useful articles including subject studies on the use of bibliometrics