A scientometric analysis of the effectiveness of Taiwan’s educational research projects

The seeking of evidence for revealing the research performance of Education in Taiwan, in response to the stimulus by the national research projects, is presented and interpreted. More than 70,000 publication records over the years 1990–2011 from Web of Science were downloaded and analyzed. The overview analysis by data aggregation and country ranking shows that Taiwan has significantly improved its publication productivity and citation impact over the last decade. The drill-down analysis based on journal bibliographic coupling, information visualization, and diversity and trend indexes, reveals that e-Learning and Science Education are two fast growing subfields that attract global interests and that Taiwan is among the top-ranked countries in these two fields in terms of research productivity. Implications of the analysis are discussed with an emphasis on the subfield characteristics from which more insightful interpretations can be obtained, such as the regional or cultural characteristics that may affect the performance ranking.     

A scientometric analysis of social media research (2004–2011)

To better understand the rapidly growing social media research domain, this study presents the findings of a scientometric analysis of the corresponding literature. We conducted a research productivity analysis and citation analysis of individuals, institutions, and countries based on 610 peer-reviewed social media articles published in journals and conference proceedings between October 2004 and December 2011. Results indicate that research productivity is exploding and that several leading authors, institutions, countries, and a small set of foundational papers have emerged. Based on the results—indicating that the social media domain displays limited diversity and is still heavily influenced by practitioners—the paper raises two fundamental challenges facing the social media domain and its future advancement, namely the lack of academic maturity and the Matthew Effect.     

Sadhana – Academy Proceedings in Engineering Sciences: A scientometric analysis

This study presents a scientometric analysis of 253 articles published in Sadhana during the year 2005–2009. Five volumes of the journal are taken up to observe the distribution of contribution, authorship pattern, institution-wise distribution, geographical distribution of contribution, average length of paper, tables and illustrations used and citation pattern in each volume. Results indicate that highest number of papers have been written by two authors. The contributions received in this journal are more from India than from the other countries. Foreign documents show their more representation in references cited. Journals are referred more frequently than other documents.The average number of references per article is 23.72 and 200.602 per volume.     

What is the relationship between research funding and citation-based performance? A comparative analysis between critical disciplines

Scientometrics - The goal of the study here is to model and analyze the relation between research funding and citation-based performance in science to predict the diffusion of new scientific...     

Global research output on date palm (Pheonix dactylifera): a 12 years scientometric perspective

Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) is one of the commonly used polyphenolic rich fruits attributing also to various therapeutic effect in different diseases and disorders. We aimed to study and analyse the global research output related to date palm based on a fact of its large consumption and production in Middle East. We analysed 1,376 papers obtained from SCOPUS database for the period of 2000–11. The study examines major productive countries and their citation impact. We have also analysed inter-collaborative linkages, national priorities of date palm research, besides analysing the characteristics of its high productivity institutions, authors and journal.     

Mapping of nanoscience and nanotechnology research in India: a scientometric analysis, 1990–2009

This paper analyses the growth pattern of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology literature in India during 1990–2009 (20 years). The Scopus international multidisciplinary bibliographical database has been used to identify the Indian contributions on the field of nanoscience and nanotechnology. The study measures the performance based on several parameters, country annual growth rate, authorship pattern, collaborative index, collaborative coefficient, modified collaborative coefficient, subject profile, etc. Further the study examines national publication output and impact in terms of average citations per paper, international collaboration output and share, contribution and impact of Indian Institutions and impact of Indian journals.     

Are peer-review activities related to reviewer bibliometric performance? A scientometric analysis of Publons

This study attempts to analyse the relationship between the peer-review activity of scholars registered in Publons and their research performance as reflected in Google Scholar. Using a scientometric approach, this work explores correlations between peer-review measures and bibliometric indicators. In addition, decision trees are used to explore which researchers (according to discipline, academic status and gender) make most of the reviews and which of them accept most of the papers, assuming that these are reasonable proxies for reviewing quality. Results show that there is a weak correlation between bibliometric indicators and peer-review activity. The decision tree analysis suggests that established male academics made the most reviews, while young female scholars are the most demanding reviewers. These results could help editors to select good reviewers as well as opening a new source of data for scientometrics analyses.     

Mapping of dental science research in India: a scientometric analysis of India’s research output, 1999–2008

The study examines India’s performance based on its publication output in dental sciences during 1999–2008, based on several parameters, including the country annual average growth rate, global publication share & rank among 25 most productive countries of the world, national publication output and impact in terms of average citations per paper, international collaboration output and share and contribution of major collaborative partners, contribution and impact of select top 25 Indian institutions and select top 15 most productive authors, patterns of communication in national and international journals and characteristics of its 45 high cited papers. The study uses 10 years (1999–2008) publications data in dental sciences of India and other countries drawn from Scopus international multidisciplinary bibliographical database.     

Historical scientometrics? Mapping over 70 years of biological safety research with coword analysis

This paper relates the results of a co-word analysis of over 70 years of biological safety literature. The database used in this project is theSonger Safety Bibliography (SSB) which lists around 17 000 references. The results show biological safety to be a very fragmented field, characterized by the existence of several relatively independent foci of interest, none of which has been able to structure the field into a tight network. Early periods of activity were marked by the construction of the basic tools of biological safety practices. Those tools became a robust package which, in more recent periods, was used routinely. While the safety problems related to recombinant DNA research have received much attention in the general press, they do not seem to occupy a prominent place within the biological safety literature, at least the one compiled in SSB.     

Do types of collaboration change citation? A scientometric analysis of social science publications in South Africa

Scientometrics - Scientometric studies have, by and large, focused on the features of the hard sciences rather than the soft sciences. Prior research has been highly centered around natural science...     

Citation of retracted research: a case-controlled,ten-year follow-up scientometric analysis of Scott S. Reuben’s malpractice

Scientometrics - A major problem in scientific literature is the citation of retracted research. Until now, no long-term follow-up of the course of citations of such articles has been published. In...     

On the upside or flipside: Where is venture capital positioned in the era of digital disruptions?

Recent studies have found that disruptive technologies, such as FinTech, have the potential to overturn existing business models and overthrow incumbents. These studies have demonstrated that newly emerging digital platforms financing early-stage ventures threaten traditional venture capital (VC). We argue that, conversely, VC benefits from advances in information and communication technology (ICT), as ICT fosters entrepreneurship and mitigates agency issues in VC deals. This paper examines the impact of digitization on VC investments from 23 European countries spanning 2007–2019 using a dynamic panel two-step system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation technique. The results show that the factors “ICT penetration” (a general measure of societal internet and computer access and use) and “digital economy” (a measure of ICT-powered economic activity) exert significant and positive effects on early-stage, later-stage, and total VC investments. Moreover, availability of bank credit moderates the effect of digital economy on VC investment. Finally, this study reveals that it is digital entrepreneurship (as reflected in our “digital economy” measure), and not total entrepreneurial activity, that attracts VC investment. We conclude that the VC industry is aligned with rather than threatened by the newly emerging digital environment. The empirical results are robust to different control variables and data sources. This paper offers useful implications for policy and contributes to the literature on digital entrepreneurship and venture capital.     

An analysis of dimensionality using factor analysis (true-score theory) and Rasch measurement: what is the difference? Which method is better?

One often hears the question asked, "For questionnaire data measuring a variable, what difference does it make to use factor analysis/principal components analysis (true-score theory) or Rasch measurement in testing for dimensionality?" This paper reports both factor analysis and Rasch measurement analysis for two sets of data. One set of data measures social anxiety for primary school students (N=436, I=10) and the second measures attitude to mathematics for primary-aged students (N=774, I=10). For both sets of data, the factor analysis suggests that the scores are reliable, and that inferences can be made that are valid for measuring school anxiety and attitude to mathematics. For both sets of data analyzed with Rasch measurement techniques, the reliability of the measures, the dimensionality of the measures, and the initial conceptualisation of the items, are called into question. It suggests that one cannot make valid inferences from the measures that were initially set up for true-score theory. The Rasch analysis suggests that items intended to measure a variable should be initially developed on a conceptualized scale from easy to hard, and that students should answer the items from this perspective, so that the Rasch analysis of the data tests this conceptualisation, and a linear scale can be created based on a mathematical measurement model with consistent units (logits).     

Goiânia: 12 years after the 137Cs radiological accident

In 1987, in the city of Goiania, Brazil, occurred one of the worst radiological accidents ever reported. The remains of 137Cs contamination in a terrain where part of a radiotherapy unit had been manipulated in 1987 were measured in 1999-2000, and some of the results are presented here. Using the technique of gamma ray spectrometry in situ and in the laboratory, the ambient dose equivalent rate at 1 m above the ground and 137Cs concentration in soil were determined. Values higher than the ones established by the Brazilian National Nuclear Energy Commission (CNEN) as action levels in 1987, namely 0.8 microGy x h and 22.5 kBq x kg(-1), were obtained in that terrain. The 137Cs distribution profile in the soil shows high values of the specific activity in a layer located at a depth of 10-40 cm from the surface, where the soil is mixed with rubble, reaching values as high as 175 kBq x kg(-1).     

Publication patterns’ changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic: a longitudinal and short-term scientometric analysis

Scientometrics - In recent months the COVID-19 (also known as SARS-CoV-2 and Coronavirus) pandemic has spread throughout the world. In parallel, extensive scholarly research regarding various...     

Do traditional scientometric indicators predict social media activity on scientific knowledge? An analysis of the ecological literature

Traditional citation-based indicators and activities on Online Social Media Platforms (OnSMP; e.g. Twitter) have been used to assess the impact of scientific research. However, the association between traditional indicators (i.e., number of citations and journal impact factor) and the new OnSMP metrics still deserve further investigations. Here, we used multivariate models to evaluate the relative influence of collaboration, time since publication and traditional indicators on the interest of 2863 papers published in five ecological journals from 2013 to 2015 as given by nine OnSMP. We found that most activities were concentrated on Twitter and Mendeley and that activities in these two OnSMP are highly correlated. Our results indicate that traditional indicators explained most of the variation in OnSMP activity. Considering that OnSMP activities are high as soon as the articles are made available online, contrasting with the slow pace in which the citations are accumulated, our results support the use of activities on OnSMP as an early signal of research impact of ecological articles.     

What shapes the delay in the Nobel Prize discoveries? A research note

Scientometrics - The scope of this study is to shed light on the determinants of the time gap between the publication of a Nobel discovery and the bestowment of the prize across three science...     

A network analysis of interdisciplinary research relationships: the Korean government’s R&D grant program

This study examines network topologies of interdisciplinary research relationships in science and technology (S&T) and investigates the relational linkages between the interdisciplinary relations and the quality of research performance. A network analysis was performed to evaluate the General Research Grant (GRG) program, an interdisciplinary research funding program of the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation (KOSEF); the dataset covered the 2002–2004 period. The analytical results reveal the hidden network structure of interdisciplinary research relationships and demonstrate that the quality of research performance might be enhanced not only by interdependent pressures placed on various research fields but also by accumulated research capabilities that are relatively difficult to access and reproduce by other research fields.