Applying research collaboration as a new way of measuring research performance in Korean universities

The purpose of this study is to explore the possibility of applying research collaboration as a new way of measuring research performance in Korean universities. In this study, we examine whether the activeness of research collaboration between university–government–industry can also enact as a way to measure the research performance aside from the typical indicators such as number of published articles or citations resulted from universities. Also this study focuses to analyze whether such performance differs according to universities’ characteristics and disciplines. For the analysis of the study, we gathered publication and citation data (2000–2009) of 46 Korean universities that are actively involved in research and analyzed their science citation index-expanded and the social sciences citation index (SSCI) data. Notable findings include (1) Several low ranked universities have shown rapid improvement with their research performance despite the rigid hierarchical characteristic of Korean higher education system, (2) Although universities in Korea are involved in various kinds of collaboration methods, it was evident that such dynamic is not necessarily reflected in existing hierarchy structure, (3) Academic relations with education oriented universities and research oriented universities have different dynamics and patterns in research collaboration, (4) In terms of the collaborative publication rate, private universities collaborate more actively amongst university sector whereas public universities collaborate more with government and industry. (5) Due to the nature of the social science subject itself, it was found that the research in SSCI is inevitably more based on the researcher’s independence, hence more international collaboration was found amongst researchers in natural science and engineering subjects.     

Self-reported and observed seat belt use – A case study: Bosnia and Herzegovina

The issue of seat belt use in middle- and low-income countries is strongly evident and has as a result higher rates of fatalities and seriously injured on the roads. The first systematic field research of the seat belt use while driving was carried out in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in 2011–2012. Research methodology consisted of two mutually conditioned parts (observation and self-reported behavior). Specific features of the methodology used are in the relationship between the observed and interviewed drivers which enabled the analysis of their observed and self-reported behavior while driving. The logistic regression method was used in this work to make the analysis of the influence of personal human characteristics (gender, age, education, exposure) and vehicles’ characteristics (age) on the observed and self-reported driving behavior, from the point of view of seat belt use while driving. The influence of the listed factors on driving behavior, depending on road type (urban or rural), was given special attention in the analysis. The paper shows that certain factors do not have the same impact on driving behavior, in various conditions. Based on results from this study, it will be possible to define certain critical groups of road users and the way in which they must be addressed in order to increase the seat belt wearing rate.     

Exploring differential item functioning (DIF) with the Rasch model: a comparison of gender differences on eighth grade science items in the United States and Spain

Traditionally, women and minorities have not been fully represented in science and engineering. Numerous studies have attributed these differences to gaps in science achievement as measured by various standardized tests. Rather than describe mean group differences in science achievement across multiple cultures, this study focused on an in-depth item-level analysis across two countries: Spain and the United States. This study investigated eighth-grade gender differences on science items across the two countries. A secondary purpose of the study was to explore the nature of gender differences using the many-faceted Rasch Model as a way to estimate gender DIF. A secondary analysis of data from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) was used to address three questions: 1) Does gender DIF in science achievement exist? 2) Is there a relationship between gender DIF and characteristics of the science items? 3) Do the relationships between item characteristics and gender DIF in science items replicate across countries. Participants included 7,087 eight grade students from the United States and 3,855 students from Spain who participated in TIMSS. The Facets program (Linacre and Wright, 1992) was used to estimate gender DIF. The results of the analysis indicate that the content of the item seemed to be related to gender DIF. The analysis also suggests that there is a relationship between gender DIF and item format. No pattern of gender DIF related to cognitive demand was found. The general pattern of gender DIF was similar across the two countries used in the analysis. The strength of item-level analysis as opposed to group mean difference analysis is that gender differences can be detected at the item level, even when no mean differences can be detected at the group level.     

The invisible college of cluster research: a bibliometric core–periphery analysis of the literature

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the evolutionary trajectories of cluster research, building upon the sociology of science concept of the invisible college, and it undertakes a core–periphery analysis of the literature. We build a database that includes 8,381 articles, collected from Web of Science, that cite the foundational works of cluster research, and we perform a longitudinal analysis of its evolution from 1985 onward, identifying the core and periphery, in terms of keywords and concepts, for each period (six-year window). We find evidence that cluster research has a core–periphery structure. Literature develops thanks to new inputs from the periphery, which increases over time as the core progressively shrinks. The periphery becomes fragmented and is characterised by subgroups of small communities. Drawing on the metaphor of the invisible college, we argue that this evolutionary trajectory is not exclusive of the cluster but might possibly characterise other scientific concepts.     

Is there a gender-based fragmentation of communication science? An investigation of the reasons for the apparent gender homophily in citations

Multiple studies report that male scholars cite publications of male authors more often than their female colleagues do—and vice versa. This gender homophily in citations points to a fragmentation of science along gender boundaries. However, it is not yet clear whether it is actually (perceived) gender characteristics or structural conditions related to gender that are causing the heightened citation frequency of same-sex authors. A bibliometric study on the two leading German communication science journals Publizistik and Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft was employed to further analyze the causes of the phenomenon. As scholars tend to primarily cite sources from their own area of research, differences among male and female scholars regarding their engagement in certain research fields become relevant. It was thus hypothesized that the research subject might mediate the relationship between the citing and cited authors’ genders. A first analysis based on n = 917 papers published in the period from 1970 to 2009 confirmed the expected gender-differences regarding research-activity in certain fields. Subsequently, structural equation modeling was employed to test the suggested mediation model. Results show the expected mediation to be a complementary one indicating that gender homophily in citations is partly due to topical boundaries. While there are alternative explanations for the remaining direct effect, it may suggest that a fragmentation of science along gender boundaries is indeed an issue that communication science must face.     

Phases of growth in a green tech research network: a bibliometric evaluation of fuel cell technology from 1991 to 2010

This study uncovers the evolution of a fuel cell research network through a bibliometric study focusing on a period from 1991 to 2010. From a dataset of 37,435 research articles, the study focuses on the evolution of fuel cell research networks at a national level. Focusing solely on the expansion of the research networks, and the policies effecting collaboration, the paper poses three research questions (1) Is research into fuel cells more unconcentrated than in science overall and if so, (2) is there changes within time and (3) can we identify a cluster among certain countries. To answer the research questions, the data was compared to findings on the overall scientific output worldwide. In addition, an ego network analysis was performed and a modularity algorithm was used in order to identify clusters from the network data. The study showed that fuel cell research co-operation has had a distinct evolution within the time frame of the study. Research has increased in both volume and in co-operation, but research co-operation is more unconcentrated than in science overall. Non-TRIAD countries have a stronger role in fuel cell research than in science overall. Clusters in research co-operation have evolved into two modes of co-operation—one around Asia and North America and the second around European co-operation with US and Asia.     

A comparative study of interdisciplinary changes between information science and library science

This study employs the method of direct citation to analyze and compare the interdisciplinary characteristics of the two disciplines of library science and information science during the period of 1978–2007. Based on the research generated by five library science journals and five information science journals, library science researchers tend to cite publications from library and information science (LIS), education, business/management, sociology, and psychology, while researchers of information science tend to cite more publications from LIS, general science, computer science, technology, and medicine. This means that the disciplines with larger contributions to library science are almost entirely different from those contributing to information science. In addition, researchers of library science frequently cite publications from LIS; the rate is as high as 65.61%, which is much higher than the rate for information science, 49.50%. However, a decreasing trend in the percentage of LIS in library science indicates that library science researchers tend to cite more publications from non-LIS disciplines. A rising trend in the proportion of references to education sources is reported for library science articles, while a rising trend in the proportion of references to computer science sources has been found for information science articles. In addition, this study applies an interdisciplinary indicator, Brillouin’s Index, to measurement of the degree of interdisciplinarity. The results confirm that the trend toward interdisciplinarity in both information science and library science has risen over the years, although the degree of interdisciplinarity in information science is higher than that in library science.     

Web links and gender in science: An exploratory analysis

Gender inequalities are prevalent in science despite many initiatives to try to eradicate them. Given the deep-rooted and complex nature of these inequalities there is a continuing need for research into their causes and manifestations. This study analyses one aspect of web communication, hyperlinks, to explore whether they are a potential source of insights into gender differences in this important scientific communication medium. A study of links to life sciences research groups in nine European found little evidence of gender differences, except in Germany. As a consequence, it is argued that hyperlinks are not a promising source of quantitative information about gender differences in communication strategies or online visibility, at least for senior researchers or research groups.     

Assessing gender balance among journal authors and editorial board members

The study of journal authorship and editorial board membership from a gender perspective is addressed in this paper following international recommendations about the need to obtain science and technology indicators by gender. Authorship informs us about active scientists who contribute to the production and dissemination of new knowledge through journal articles, while editorial board membership tells us about leading scientists who have obtained scientific recognition within the scientific community. This study analyses by gender the composition of the editorial boards of 131 high-quality Spanish journals in all fields of science, the presence of men and women as authors in a selection of 36 journals, and the evolution of these aspects from 1998 to 2009. Female presence is lower than male presence in authorship, editorial board membership and editorship. The presence of female authors is slightly lower than the presence of women in the Spanish Higher Education sector and doubles female presence in editorial boards, which mirrors female presence in the highest academic rank. The gender gap tends to diminish over the years in most areas, especially in authorship and very slightly in editorial board membership. Large editorial boards and having a female editor-in-chief are positively correlated with women presence in editorial boards. The situation of women in Spanish science is further assessed in an international context analysing a selection of international reference journals. The usefulness of journal-based indicators to monitor the situation of men and women in science and to assess the success of policies oriented to enhance gender equality in science is finally discussed.     

Artificial intelligence adoption in the physical sciences,natural sciences,life sciences,social sciences and the arts and humanities: A bibliometric analysis of research publications from 1960-2021

Analysing historical patterns of artificial intelligence (AI) adoption can inform decisions about AI capability uplift, but research to date has provided a limited view of AI adoption across different fields of research. In this study we examine worldwide adoption of AI technology within 333 fields of research during 1960–2021. We do this by using bibliometric analysis with 137 million peer-reviewed publications captured in The Lens database. We define AI using a list of 214 phrases developed by expert working groups at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). We found that 3.1 million of the 137 million peer-reviewed research publications during the entire period were AI-related, with a surge in AI adoption across practically all research fields (physical science, natural science, life science, social science and the arts and humanities) in recent years. The diffusion of AI beyond computer science was early, rapid and widespread. In 1960 14% of 333 research fields were related to AI (many in computer science), but this increased to cover over half of all research fields by 1972, over 80% by 1986 and over 98% in current times. We note AI has experienced boom-bust cycles historically; the AI “springs” and “winters”. We conclude that the context of the current surge appears different, and that interdisciplinary AI application is likely to be sustained.     

The interdisciplinary structure of research on intercultural relations: a co-citation network analysis study

This study aims to map the content and structure of the knowledge base of research on intercultural relations as revealed in co-citation networks of 30 years of scholarly publications. Source records for extracting co-citation information are retrieved from Web of Science (1980–2010) through comprehensive keyword search and filtered by manual semantic coding. Exploratory network and content analysis is conducted (1) to discover the development of major research themes and the relations between them over time; (2) to locate representative core publications (the stars) that are highly co-cited with others and those (the bridges) connecting more between rather than within subfields or disciplines. Structural analysis of the co-citation networks identifies a core cluster that contains foundational knowledge of this domain. It is well connected to almost all the other clusters and covers a wide range of subject categories. The evolutionary path of research themes shows trends moving towards (e.g. psychology and business and economics) and away from (e.g. language education and communication) the core cluster over time. Based on the results, a structural framework of the knowledge domain of intercultural relations research is proposed to represent thematic relatedness between topical groups and their relations.     

International collaboration in higher education research: A gravity model approach

Although geographical distance has become less relevant in co–authorship for monodisciplinary fields such as economics, mathematics, and physics, little is known about international collaboration in multidisciplinary fields such as higher education. This paper studies collaboration patterns in higher education research using the Scopus database with the application of the gravity model. The results show that the intensity of collaboration is negatively associated with geographical distance and positively associated with linguistic commonality but these findings differ significantly between various world regions. European scholars appear to give preference to linguistically proximate partners over geographical neighbours. Although English is the lingua franca in science, language is not a significant factor for the formation of collaboration for North American and Asian researchers. These findings have policy implications for fostering multidisciplinary research in international partnerships.

     

Research fronts in library and information science in Spain (1985–1994)

Publications and author cocitations in library and information science in Spain during the period from 1985 to 1994 were analyzed as a measure of the structure, specificity and composition of research fronts in this country. A cocitation matrix developed from an ad hoc database was subjected to cluster analysis, multidimensional scaling and principal components analysis. The resulting cocitation maps identified specific areas of research and their knowledge bases. We inferred the degree of consolidation of the discipline of library and information science, and of the subdisciplines informetrics, librarianship and university affiliation, from the research activities revealed. In this respect, the conclusions from the study show the existence of several research fronts in Spanish literature the contents of which are in most cases difficult to compare with those in other countries. A lesser degree of maturity of research in this field is shown.     

Development of Engineering Education as a Rigorous Discipline: A Study of the Publication Patterns of Four Coalitions

A combination of publication analysis and faculty interviews was employed to study four NSF‐sponsored engineering education coalitions as a case study of the recent history of engineering education. Current calls within the engineering education community for increased rigor can be understood in terms of the ways similar disciplines have emerged. In science education, for example, time was needed to develop consensus on important research questions, accepted methods, and standards of rigor. The abstracts of 700 publications listed on active engineering education coalition Web sites were analyzed over time by type of intervention, population of focus, and product. A picture consistent with other reports of coalition contributions emerged. Early focus was on freshman courses and integrating across disciplines, with teamwork, design and other active learning activities. Students and course improvement remained the dominant focus, but efforts increased over time in assessment, faculty development, and research. Interviews with coalition leaders and leading authors supplement the publication analysis and describe how coalition work helped lay the foundation for more rigorous engineering education research.     

Reception of integrative and complementary medicine (ICM) in scientific journals: a citation and co-word analysis

Even if integrative and complementary medicine (ICM) is a growing scientific field, it is also a highly contested area in terms of scientific legitimacy. The aim of this article is to analyze the reception of ICM research in scientific journals. Is this kind of research acknowledged outside the ICM context, for example, in general or specialized medicine? What is the impact of ICM research? and Is it possible to identify any shift in content, from the original ICM research to the documents where it is acknowledged? The material consisted of two sets: documents published in 12 ICM journals in 2007; and all documents citing these documents during the years 2007–2012. These sets were analyzed with help from citation and co-word analysis. When analyzing the citation pattern, it was clear that a majority of the cited documents were acknowledged in journals and documents that could be related to research areas outside the ICM context, such as pharmacology & pharmacy and plant science—even if the most frequent singular journals and subject categories were connected to ICM. However, after analyzing the content of cited and citing documents, it was striking how similar the content was. It was also evident that much of this research was related to basic preclinical research, in fields such as cell biology, plant pharmacology, and animal experiments.     

Brazilian scientific production in science education

In the present study we analyzed the Brazilian scientific production in the area of science education. The study was structured on: data by research groups registered in Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico; analysis of the post-graduate strictu sensu programs; analysis of theses and dissertations linked to post-graduate programs; and papers in international databases. Our research was conducted strictly via world wide web, from December 2009 to September 2010. It was found that both number of research groups, researchers, post-graduate programs, thesis, dissertations and papers presented a marked increase, especially in the last decade (from 2000 onwards). The major research centers were found to be located in public universities from Brazilian southeast and south regions. However, it was observed a tendency of decentralization, due to a recent investment in new public universities in the other Brazilian regions. So, this study sought to present an overview of the scientific production about science education and we expect that this information can help to expand the vision about the development of this research area in Brazil.     

A comparison of two bibliometric methods for mapping of the research front

Summary This paper builds on previous research concerned with the classification and specialty mapping of research fields. Two methods are put to test in order to decide if significant differences as to mapping results of the research front of a science field occur when compared. The first method was based on document co-citation analysis where papers citing co-citation clusters were assumed to reflect the research front. The second method was bibliographic coupling where likewise citing papers were assumed to reflect the research front. The application of these methods resulted in two different types of aggregations of papers: (1) groups of papers citing clusters of co-cited works and (2) clusters of bibliographically coupled papers. The comparision of the two methods as to mapping results was pursued by matching word profiles of groups of papers citing a particular co-citation cluster with word profiles of clusters of bibliographically coupled papers. Findings suggested that the research front was portrayed in two considerably different ways by the methods applied. It was concluded that the results in this study would support a further comparative study of these methods on a more detailed and qualitative ground. The original data set encompassed 73,379 articles from the fifty most cited environmental science journals listed in Journal Citation Report, science edition downloaded from the Science Citation Index on CD-ROM.     

Development of a Classification System for Engineering Student Characteristics Affecting College Enrollment and Retention

Background In engineering education, a considerable amount of research effort has been dedicated to study the impacts of student characteristics on their college enrollment, major selection, and college retention. However, there is no standardized categorical classification system of engineering student characteristics in the current literature. Different researchers tend to focus on specific characteristics within the scope of their research interests. This study provides a comprehensive review and analysis of the existing research on the measurement of the characteristics of engineering students. Purpose The study addressed the three questions: (1) what engineering student characteristics have been measured; (2) how do engineering student characteristics impact their educational outcomes; and (3) what measurement and analysis methods have been applied in current studies? A standardized classification system for engineering student characteristics involving external, cognitive, affective, and demographic categories is also proposed. Scope /Method The study focused on engineering education. Representative research regarding common characteristics of students from majors of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics were also included. The review covers major academic journals, research books, conference proceedings, and government reports in the areas of science and engineering education for the past two decades. Conclusions The review analysis indicated that students with certain characteristics are more likely to choose engineering as a profession and that those characteristics are either correlated or causally related with one another. However, many research conclusions based on basic statistical analyses fail to model the interaction effects. More advanced measurement techniques are needed that can model the characteristics interactively and concurrently in a complete framework.     

A Systems Model of Innovation Processes in University STEM Education

Drawing upon understanding of innovation processes in other domains, we construct a model of the innovation system for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. The model suggests that higher educational innovation in research universities is severely disadvantaged in many regards. Paramount is the lack of a “natural” innovator who, analogous to the engineer in an industrial research and development lab, has professional training and incentives to perform a significant professional role—teaching. The model suggests a number of organizational and structural factors that must be addressed, systemically, to bolster prospects of educational improvement at research universities. Changing single factors, without attention to the interactive systems nature of STEM educational processes, is unlikely to prove effective in improving undergraduate education.     

The effects of gender,age and academic rank on research diversification

In this work we analyze the combined effects of gender, age and academic rank on the propensity of individual scholars to diversify their scientific activity. The aspect of research diversification is measured along three main dimensions, namely its extent and intensity and the cognitive relatedness of the fields of diversification. We apply two regression models to the dataset of scientific output of all Italian professors in the sciences over the period 2004–2008. The aim is to understand how personal and organizational traits can influence individual behaviors in terms of research diversification. Among other considerations, our findings urge caution in identifying research diversification as a co-determinant of the gender productivity gap between males and females.