The journal download immediacy index (DII): experiences using a Chinese full-text database

Relationships between the journal download immediacy index (DII) and some citation indicators are studied. The Chinese full-text database CNKI is used for data collection. Results suggest that the DII can be considered as an independent indicator, but that it also has predictive value for other indicators, such as a journal’s h-index. In case a journal cannot yet have an impact factor—because its citation history within the database is too short—the DII can be used for a preliminary evaluation. The article provides results related to the CNKI database as a whole and additionally, some detailed information about agricultural and forestry journals.     

The citation impacts and citation environments of Chinese journals in mathematics

Based on the citation data of journals covered by the China Scientific and Technical Papers and Citations Database (CSTPCD), we obtained aggregated journal-journal citation environments by applying routines developed specifically for this purpose. Local citation impact of journals is defined as the share of the total citations in a local citation environment, which is expressed as a ratio and can be visualized by the size of the nodes. The vertical size of the nodes varies proportionally to a journal’s total citation share, while the horizontal size of the nodes is used to provide citation information after correction for the within-journal (self-) citations. In the “citing” environment, the equivalent of the local citation performance can also be considered as a citation activity index. Using the “citing” patterns as variables one is able to map how the relevant journal environments are perceived by the collective of authors of a journal, while the “cited” environment reflects the impact of journals in a local environment. In this study, we analyze citation impacts of three Chinese journals in mathematics and compare local citation impacts with impact factors. Local citation impacts reflect a journal’s status and function better than (global) impact factors. We also found that authors in Chinese journals prefer international instead of domestic ones as sources for their citations.     

Journals of general &; internal medicine and surgery: An analysis and comparison of citation

Summary The purpose of this study is to analyze and compare journal citation data, from Journal Citation Reports on the Web 2000, of general and internal medicine and surgery. The source items and five kinds of citation data, i.e. citation counts, impact factor, immediacy index, citing half-life and cited half-life are examined and the correlation between each of the fifteen pairs of citation data is determined based on the Pearson correlation tests. The Fishers Z-transform was employed to test the significant difference between the Pearson correlation coefficient for each pair of citation data of these two subject areas. The following results of this work reveal: the frequently published journals are cited more frequently and also with high impact factor and immediacy index, in addition, they are usually accompanied with short citing half-life (i.e., usually cite current literature). The impact factor and immediacy index has significant correlation with citation counts. A significant correlation also exists between impact factor and immediacy index. However there is no correlation between cited half-life and other citation data, except citing half-life. For journals of general and internal medicine and surgical medicine, there are no significant difference of the Pearson correlation coefficient for the following pair of citation data: source items and citation counts, source items and impact factor, source items and citing half-life, citation counts and citing half-life, impact factor and citing half-life, immediacy index and citing half-life, and cited half-life and citing half-life.     

A bibliometric analysis and comparison on three information science journals: JASIST,IPM, JOD, 1998–2008

Employing a citation analysis, this study explored and compared the bibliometric characteristics and the subject relationship with other disciplines of and among the three leading information science journals, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (JASIST), Information Processing and Management and Journal of Documentation. The citation data were drawn from references of each article of the three journals during 1998 and 2008. The Ulrich’s Periodical Directory, Library of Congress Subject Heading, retrieved from the WorldCat, and LISA database were used to identify the main class, subclass and subject of cited journals and books. Quantitative results on the number of JASIST, IPM and JOD literature references, average number of references cited per paper, document type of cited literature and the journal self-citation rate are reported. Moreover, the highly cited journals and books, the main classes and subclasses of cited journals and books in papers of the three journals, the highly cited subjects in journals and books of library and information science were identified and analyzed. Comparison on the characteristics of cited journals and books confirmed that all the three journals under study are information science oriented, except JOD which is library science orientation. JASIST and IPM are very much in common and diffuse to other disciplines more deeply than JOD.     

Article-count impact factor of materials science journals in SCI database

This article proposed a new index, so-called “Article-Count Impact Factor” (ACIF) for evaluating journal quality in light of citation behaviour in comparison with the ISI journal impact factors. The ACIF index was the ratio of the number of articles that were cited in the current year to the source items published in that journal during the previous two years. In this work, we used 171 journal titles in materials categories published in the years of 2001–2004 in international journals indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI) database as data source. It was found that ACIF index could be used as an alternative tool in assessing the journal quality, particularly in the case where the assessed journals had the same (equal or similar) JIF values. The experimental results suggested that the higher the ACIF value, the more the number of articles being cited. The changes in ACIF values were more dependent on the JIF values rather than the total number of articles. Polymer Science had the greatest ACIF values, suggesting that the articles in Polymer Science had greater “citation per article” than those in Metallurgical Engineering and Ceramics. It was also suggested that in order to increase a JIF value of 1.000, Ceramics category required more articles to be cited as compared to Metallurgical Engineering and Polymer Science categories.     

Establishment of paper assessment system based on academic disciplinary benchmarks

An article assessment system based on both Tianjin University and nine key Chinese Universities’ academic disciplinary benchmarks was established to evaluate researcher’s published papers. With this scientific benchmarking system, the quality of a researcher’s papers could be easily located in a percentile scale in corresponding field within certain groups. Several factors, including total number of papers, order of authors, impact of journals, citation count, h-index, e-index, a-index, m-quotient, etc., were also utilized for both quantity and quality analysis. Furthermore, the novel proposed weighted citation analysis was introduced to judge a researcher’s contribution to his/her research outcomes. The convenient application and comprehensive evaluation property of this assessment system was thoroughly discussed via a given example.     

Citations among communication journals and other disciplines: a network analysis

This article describes the results of a network analysis based on the citation among Communication journals and those academic disciplines that are cited by those journals labeled as “Communication” by the Web of Science. The results indicate that the journals indexed solely as Communication rather than those also tagged as another social science are more central in the citation network. Further, a cluster analysis of the cited disciplines revealed three groupings, a micro psychological cluster, a macro socio-political group and a woman’s studies clique. A two-mode network analysis found that the most central Communication journals cited multiple clusters, while the peripheral journals cited only one, suggesting that the structure of influence on the field of Communication is more complex than suggested by Park and Leydesdorff (Scientometrics 81(1):157–175, 2009). Also, the results indicate that the macro cluster is about twice as influential as the micro cluster, rather than as Park and Leydesdorff suggest that Psychology is the discipline’s primary influence.     

Parameter identification of the observed citation distribution

Based on the transfer function model of the observed citation distribution and the expression of the cumulative citation probability distribution, parameters of 12 citation distributions are identified from statistical data of age distributions of references of 10 journals in JCR using the parameter optimization fitting method. At same time, based on the steady state solution of differential equations of the publication delay process and data of publication delays of 10 journals, the publication delay parameters of every journal are identified using the fitting method. Identified parameters of every journal citation distribution are compared with the journal’s publication delay parameters and some valuable conclusions are deduced.     

What makes a journal international? A case study using conservation biology journals

The qualitative label ‘international journal’ is used widely, including in national research quality assessments. We determined the practicability of analysing internationality quantitatively using 39 conservation biology journals, providing a single numeric index (IIJ) based on 10 variables covering the countries represented in the journals’ editorial boards, authors and authors citing the journals’ papers. A numerical taxonomic analysis refined the interpretation, revealing six categories of journals reflecting distinct international emphases not apparent from simple inspection of the IIJs alone. Categories correlated significantly with journals’ citation impact (measured by the Hirsch index), with their rankings under the Australian Commonwealth’s ‘Excellence in Research for Australia’ and with some countries of publication, but not with listing by ISI Web of Science. The assessments do not reflect on quality, but may aid editors planning distinctive journal profiles, or authors seeking appropriate outlets.     

Comparison of citation and usage indicators: the case of oncology journals

It is the objective of this article to examine in which aspects journal usage data differ from citation data. This comparison is conducted both at journal level and on a paper by paper basis. At journal level, we define a so-called usage impact factor and a usage half-life in analogy to the corresponding Thomson’s citation indicators. The usage data were provided from Science Direct, subject category “oncology”. Citation indicators were obtained from JCR, article citations were retrieved from SCI and Scopus. Our study shows that downloads and citations have different obsolescence patterns. While the average cited half-life was 5.6 years, we computed a mean usage half-life of 1.7 years for the year 2006. We identified a strong correlation between the citation frequencies and the number of downloads for our journal sample. The relationship was lower when performing the analysis on a paper by paper basis because of existing variances in the citation-download-ratio among articles. Also the correlation between the usage impact factor and Thomson’s journal impact factor was “only” moderate because of different obsolescence patterns between downloads and citations.     

What makes an article influential? Predicting impact in social and personality psychology

Factors contributing to citation impact in social-personality psychology were examined in a bibliometric study of articles published in the field’s three major journals. Impact was operationalized as citations accrued over 10 years by 308 articles published in 1996, and predictors were assessed using multiple databases and trained coders. Predictors included author characteristics (i.e., number, gender, nationality, eminence), institutional factors (i.e., university prestige, journal prestige, grant support), features of article organization (i.e., title characteristics, number of studies, figures and tables, number and recency of references), and research approach (i.e., topic area, methodology). Multivariate analyses demonstrated several strong predictors of impact, including first author eminence, having a more senior later author, journal prestige, article length, and number and recency of references. Many other variables — e.g., author gender and nationality, collaboration, university prestige, grant support, title catchiness, number of studies, experimental vs. correlational methodology, topic area — did not predict impact.     

Countries positioning in open access journals system: An investigation of citation distribution patterns

By their widespread availability and dissemination through open access media, scholarly outputs witness an improved visibility supposed to cause a better citation performance. However, due to the existence of the Matthew effect in science system, which affects users’ perceptions of quality, ultimate effects of the enhanced visibility on different entities are obscure. Moreover, different attitudes towards open access give rise to a more strong quality dynamics in the open access world. Aiming to explore the consequence of the interaction between visibility and quality dynamics, this study investigates countries positioning in open access journals. The results show that the world’s countries welcome open access pattern whether by submitting to or publishing open access journals. A large proportion of the enduring, prestigious open access journals are published by scientifically proficient and developing nations, emphasizing their successful commitment to maintain the undertaken role. The results of the citation analysis highlight national inequalities regarding citation distributions among countries contributing to the journals within the system and within individual disciplines in the system. Well-performing countries mainly consist of advanced ones; however, some lessdeveloped nations are found to perform well in the journal system.     

Ranking Taiwanese management journals: A case study

To improve the quality of journals in Taiwan, the National Science Council (NSC) of the Republic of China evaluates journals in the fields of humanities and social sciences periodically. This paper describes the evaluation of 46 management journals conducted by the authors, as authorized by the NSC. Both a subjective approach, with judgments solicited from 345 experts, and an objective approach, with data collected on four indicators: journal cross citation, dissertation citation, authors’ scholastic reputation, and author diversity, were used to make a comprehensive evaluation. Performance in the four indicators were aggregated using weights which were most favourable to all journals, in a compromise sense, to produce the composite indices. The subjective evaluation reflects the general image, or reputation, of journals while the objective evaluation discloses blind spots which have been overlooked by experts. The results show that using either approach alone would have produced results which are misleading, which suggests that both approaches should be used. All of the editors of the journals being evaluated agreed that the evaluation was appropriate and the results are reasonable.     

A geometric approach to the construction of scientific impact indices

Two broad classes of scientific impact indices are proposed and their properties - both theoretical and practical — are discussed. These new classes were obtained as a geometric generalization of the well-known tools applied in scientometric, like Hirsch’s h-index, Woeginger’s w-index and the Kosmulski’s Maxprod. It is shown how to apply the suggested indices for estimation of the shape of the citation function or the total number of citations of an individual. Additionally, a new efficient and simple O(log n) algorithm for computing the h-index is given.     

Citation pattern and lifespan: a comparison of discipline,institution, and individual

Citation frequency is often used in hiring and tenure decisions as an indicator of the quality of a researcher’s publications. In this paper, we examine the influence of discipline, institution, journal impact factor, length of article, number of authors, seniority of author, and gender on citation rate of top-cited papers for academic faculty in geography and forestry departments. Self-citation practices and patterns of citation frequency across post-publication lifespan were also examined. Citation rates of the most-highly cited paper for all tenured forestry (N = 122) and geography (N = 91) faculty at Auburn University, Michigan State University, Northern Arizona University, Oklahoma State University, Pennsylvania State University, Texas A&M University, University of Florida, University of Massachusetts, University of Washington, and Virginia Tech were compared. Foresters received significantly more citations than geographers (t = 2.46, P = 0.02) and more senior authors received more citations than junior researchers (r ² = 0.14, P = 0.03). Articles published in journals with higher impact factors also received more citations (r ² = 0.28, P = 0.00). The median self-citation rate was 10% and there was no temporal pattern to the frequency of citations received by an individual article (x ² = 176). Our results stress the importance of only comparing citation rates within a given discipline and confirm the importance of author-seniority and journal rankings as factors that influence citation rate of a given article.     

A ranking of universities should account for differences in their disciplinary specialization

A bibliometric analysis of the 50 most frequently publishing Spanish universities shows large differences in the publication activity and citation impact among research disciplines within an institution. Gini Index is a useful measure of an institution’s disciplinary specialization and can roughly categorize universities in terms of general versus specialized. A study of the Spanish academic system reveals that assessment of a university’s research performance must take into account the disciplinary breadth of its publication activity and citation impact. It proposes the use of graphs showing not only a university’s article production and citation impact, but also its disciplinary specialization. Such graphs constitute both a warning and a remedy against one-dimensional approaches to the assessment of institutional research performance.     

A study on power-law distribution of hostnames in the URL references

The power-law distribution and the Garfield’s Law of Concentration of journal citation have long been verified by empirical data. As a relatively new type of reference, the URL references are cited more and more frequently in the scientific papers and their distribution is proved to fit for the Garfield’s Law of Concentration too. In this article, we collect three URL references datasets extracted from papers written by researchers belonging to three big research groups : Chinese Academy of Sciences, Max Planck Institute, and the whole Chinese scientific researchers. Through the curve-fitting with SPSS and contrast the results with the judgment standard of power-law distribution, we verify that there also exists power-law distribution in the citation frequency of hostnames in these three URL references datasets. And our experimental results show that the range of power exponent in the journal references and the URL references are different. Started from the concrete empirical procedures and the final experimental results, we analyze four factors that may lead to this difference between journal references and URL references: the sample size, the sampling method, the concentration of citation and the type property of citation.