Relationship among research collaboration, number of documents and number of citations: a case study in Spanish computer science production in 2000–2009

This paper analyzes the relationship among research collaboration, number of documents and number of citations of computer science research activity. It analyzes the number of documents and citations and how they vary by number of authors. They are also analyzed (according to author set cardinality) under different circumstances, that is, when documents are written in different types of collaboration, when documents are published in different document types, when documents are published in different computer science subdisciplines, and, finally, when documents are published by journals with different impact factor quartiles. To investigate the above relationships, this paper analyzes the publications listed in the Web of Science and produced by active Spanish university professors between 2000 and 2009, working in the computer science field. Analyzing all documents, we show that the highest percentage of documents are published by three authors, whereas single-authored documents account for the lowest percentage. By number of citations, there is no positive association between the author cardinality and citation impact. Statistical tests show that documents written by two authors receive more citations per document and year than documents published by more authors. In contrast, results do not show statistically significant differences between documents published by two authors and one author. The research findings suggest that international collaboration results on average in publications with higher citation rates than national and institutional collaborations. We also find differences regarding citation rates between journals and conferences, across different computer science subdisciplines and journal quartiles as expected. Finally, our impression is that the collaborative level (number of authors per document) will increase in the coming years, and documents published by three or four authors will be the trend in computer science literature.     

Are American astrophysics papers accepted more quickly than others? Part II: correlations with citation rates, subdisciplines, and author numbers

We continue the investigation for more than 2,150 astrophysics papers published from July 2007 to June 2008 of various possible correlations among time from submission to acceptance; nationalities of lead authors; numbers of citations to the papers in three years after publication; subdisciplines; and numbers of authors. Paper I found that submissions from American authors were accepted faster than others but by only about 3.8 days out of a median of 105 days. Here we report the following additional relationships: (1) the correlation of citation rate with lag time is weak, the most cited papers having intermediate lag times, (2) citation rates are highest for papers with European and American authors and much smaller for papers from less-developed (etc.) countries, with other prosperous countries in between, (3) citation rates are much larger for currently hot topics (exoplanets, cosmology), than for less hot ones (binary stars, for instance), (4) papers with many authors (seven to more than 100) are more often cited than 1–2 author ones, but this is not linear, and author numbers are not much correlated with lag times, and (5) the lag time for hot topics is about the same as that for less hot topics, which surprised us. Of specific subfields, solar papers are, on average, accepted fastest, quite often within less than 2 months. We don’t know why.     

Identity-creators and image-makers: Using citation analysis and thick description to put authors in their place

We describe the steps involved in constructing authors" citation identities (whom they cite) and citation images (who cites them). Familiarity with the intellectual, social, and institutional connections of these authors over time helps inform the analysis and augment the specificity of citation counts. Our study shows that authors" writing and referencing styles constitute a form of watermark for their scholarly output.     

What makes a scientific article influential? The case of demographers

In this paper we examine, by means of a citation analysis, which factors influence the impactof articles published in demography journals between 1990 and 1992. Several quantifiablecharacteristics of the articles (characteristics with respect to authors, visibility, content andjournals) are strongly related to their subsequent impact in the social sciences. Articles are mostfrequently cited when they deal with empirical, ahistorical research focusing on populations in thedeveloped world, when they are prominently placed in a journal issue, when they are written inEnglish and when they appear in core demography journals. Furthermore, although eminentscholars are likely to be cited on the basis of their reputation, the effect of reputation appears to besmall in demography.     

The fruits of collaboration in a multidisciplinary field

Collaboration between researchers and between research organizations is generally considered a desirable course of action, in particular by some funding bodies. However, collaboration within a multidisciplinary community, such as the Computer–Human Interaction (CHI) community, can be challenging. We performed a bibliometric analysis of the CHI conference proceedings to determine if papers that have authors from different organization or countries receive more citations than papers that are authored by members of the same organization. There was no significant difference between these three groups, indicating that there is no advantage for collaboration in terms of citation frequency. Furthermore, we tested if papers written by authors from different organizations or countries receive more best paper awards or at least award nominations. Papers from only one organization received significantly fewer nominations than collaborative papers.     

Science from the periphery: Collaboration,networks and 'Periphery Effects' in the citation of New Zealand Crown Research Institutes articles, 1995-2000

While collaboration is associated with higher article citation rates, a body of research has suggested that this is, in part, related to the access to a larger social network and the increased visibility of research this entails, rather than simply a reflection of greater quality. We examine the role of networks in article citation rates by investigating article publication by the nine New Zealand Government-owned Crown Research Institutes (CRIs), drawing on the Science Citation Index. We analyse an aggregate data set of all CRI publications with duplicates removed, and, in addition, investigate each CRI. We find that a greater number of authors, countries and institutions involved in co-publication increases expected citation rates, although there are some differences between the CRIs. However, the type of co-publication affects the expected citation rates. We discover a 'periphery effect' where greater levels of co-publication with domestic institutions decreases expected citation rates. We conclude that scientists working on the periphery looking to increase the visibility of their research should strive to link their research to the international research community, particularly through co-publication with international authors. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

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.     

Citation regression analysis of computer science publications in different ranking categories and subfields

A number of bibliometric studies point out that the role of conference publications in computer science differs from that in other traditional fields. Thus, it is interesting to identify the relative status of journal and conference publications in different subfields of computer science based on the citation rates categorised by the China Computer Federation (CCF) classifications and venue types. In this research, we construct a dataset containing over 100,000 papers recommended by the CCF catalogue and their citation information. We also investigate some other factors that often influence a paper’s citation rate. An experimental study shows that the relative status of journals and conferences varies greatly in different subfields of computer science, and the impact of different publication levels varies according to the citation rate. We also verify that the classification of a publication, number of authors, maximum h-index of all authors of a paper, and average number of papers published by a publication have different effects on the citation rate, although the citation rate may have a different degree of correlation with these factors.     

Landmark papers written by the Nobelists in physics from 1901 to 2012: a bibliometric analysis of their citations and journals

We collected 382 landmark papers written by 193 Nobel Laureates in physics from 1901 to 2012 and used bibliometric methods, citation frequencies, impact factor (IF), and tendency of the landmark journals to analyze their contents. The results show: (1) Of landmark papers published during 1980–2009, 74.7 % were cited more than 500 times. Average citation frequencies and proportion of highly cited papers were higher for theoretic discoveries than for experimental methods. However, the proportion of highly cited papers in both domains was lower than for an invention. The average test period for the latter was markedly shorter too. (2) Landmark papers by Nobelists were mainly published in journals with IF from 5.0 to 10.0, but journals below IF 5.0 ranked first among all landmark journals. (3) As to countries where landmark papers were published, the Netherlands ranked at the top of the countries with the most landmark journals, besides the United States and England. In addition, the majority of landmark papers written by non-mainstream countries’ Nobelists were published in foreign journals with IF <7.0. These data indicate some regularity and tendency of landmark papers written by Nobelists in physics.     

Can scientific impact be judged prospectively? A bibliometric test of Simonton"s model of creative productivity

Simonton"s (1997) model of creative productivity, based on a blind variation-selection process, predicts scientific impact can only be evaluated retrospectively, after recognition has been achieved. We test this hypothesis using bibliometric data from the Human Factors journal, which gives an award for the best paper published each year. If Simonton"s model is correct, award winning papers would not be cited much more frequently than non-award winning papers, showing that scientific success cannot be judged prospectively. The results generally confirm Simonton"s model. Receipt of the award increases the citation rate of articles, but accounts for only 0.8% to 1.2% of the variance in the citation rate. Consistent with Simonton"s model, the influence of the award on citation rate may reflect a selection process of an elite group of reviewers who are representative of the larger peer group that eventually determines the citation rate of the article. Consistent with Simonton"s model, author productivity accounts for far more variance in the authors" total citation rate (58.9%) and in the citation rate of the authors" most cited article (12.6%) than does award receipt. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Reward,persuasion, and the Sokal Hoax: A study in citation identities

A citation identity is a list of an author's citees ranked by how frequently that author has cited them in publications covered by the Institute for Scientific Information. The same Dialog software that creates identities can simultaneously show the overall citation counts of citees, which indicate their reputations. Using identities for 28 authors in several disciplines of science and scholarship, I show that the reputational counts of their citees always have an approximately log-normal distribution: citations to very famous names are roughly balanced by citations to obscure ones, and most citations go to authors of middling reputation. These results undercut claims by constructivists that the main function of citation is to marshal “big-name” support for arguments at the expense of crediting lesser-known figures. The results are better explained by Robert K. Merton's norm of universalism, which holds that citers are rewarding use of relevant intellectual property, than by the constructivists' particularism, which holds that citers are trying to persuade through manipulative rhetoric. A universalistic citation pattern appears even in Alan Sokal's famous hoax article, where some of his citing was deliberately particularistic. In fact, Sokal's basic adherence to universalism probably helped his hoax succeed, which suggests the strength of the Mertonian norm. In specimen cases, the constructivists themselves are shown as conforming to it. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The most highly cited Library and Information Science articles: Interdisciplinarity,first authors and citation patterns

Highly cited articles are interesting because of the potential association between high citation counts and high quality research. This study investigates the 82 most highly cited Information Science and Library Science’ (IS&LS) articles (the top 0.1%) in the Web of Science from the perspectives of disciplinarity, annual citation patterns, and first author citation profiles. First, the relative frequency of these 82 articles was much lower for articles solely in IS&LS than for those in IS&LS and at least one other subject, suggesting that that the promotion of interdisciplinary research in IS&LS may be conducive to improving research quality. Second, two thirds of the first authors had an h-index in IS&LS of less than eight, show that much significant research is produced by researchers without a high overall IS&LS research productivity. Third, there is a moderate correlation (0.46) between citation ranking and the number of years between peak year and year of publication. This indicates that high quality ideas and methods in IS&LS often are deployed many years after being published.     

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.     

Geographical knowledge diffusion and spatial diversity citation rank

This paper proposes a citation rank based on spatial diversity (SDCR) in terms of cities and countries, focusing on the measurement of the “spatial” aspect in citation networks. Our main goal is to solve the citation bias caused by different geographical locations of citations. We empirically investigate spatial properties of citing distances, citation patterns and spatial diversity to understand geographical knowledge diffusion, based on the data from “Transportation Science and Technology” subject category in the Web of Science (1966–2009). We also compare the proposed ranking method with other bibliometric measures, and conduct a case study to figure out the recent ranks of the well-established authors in Transportation research. It is found that the SDCR of a focal author is highly correlated with the sum of spatial diversity weights (“strength”) of all his in-links, and it is better to set the damping factors smaller than 0.75 when ranking authors with various initial academic years by SDCR. The cases show that Hong Kong is becoming a cluster in Transportation research.     

Application of progressive nucleation mechanism for the citation behavior of individual papers of different authors

The basic concepts and equations of the progressive nucleation mechanism (PNM) are presented first for the growth and decay of items. The mechanism is then applied to describe the cumulative citations L and citations ΔL per year of the individual most-cited papers i of four selected Polish professors as a function of citation duration t. It was found that the PNM satisfactorily describes the time dependence of cumulative citations L of the papers published by different authors with sufficiently high citations ΔL, as represented by the highest yearly citations ΔL(max) during the entire citation period t (normal citation behavior). The citation period for these papers is less than 15?years and it is even 6-8?years in several cases. However, for papers with citation periods exceeding about 15?years, the growth behavior of citations does not follow the PNM in the entire citation period (anomalous citation behavior), and there are regions of citations in which the citation data may be described by the PNM. Normal and anomalous citation behaviors are attributed, respectively, to the occurrence and nonoccurrence of stationary nucleation of citations for the papers. The PNM also explains the growth and decay of citations ΔL per year of papers exhibiting normal citation behavior.     

Has Price's dream come true: Is scientometrics a hard science?

At the occasion of the completion of the 25th volume ofScientometrics, we present a combined bibliometric and social network analysis of this journal. In more than one respect,Scientometrics displays the characteristics of a social science journal. Its Price Index amounts to 43.0 percent, and is remarkably stable over time. The majority of the published items inScientometrics has been written by a single author. Moreover, the network of co-authorships is highly fragmented: most authors cooperate with no more than one or two colleagues. Both the citation networks of the authors and the network of title words indicate that the field is nonetheless highly cohesive. In this sense, a specific identity seems to have developed, indeed. Some indications concerning the character of this identity are discussed.     

Theories of citation?

Citations support the communication of specialist knowledge by allowing authors and readers to make specific selections in several contexts at the same time. In the interactions between the social network of (first-order) authors and the network of their reflexive (that is, second-order) communications, a sub-textual code of communication with a distributed character has emerged. The recursive operation of this dual-layered network induces the perception of a cognitive dimension in scientific communication.Citation analysis reflects on citation practices. Reference lists are aggregated in scientometric analysis using one (or sometimes two) of the available contexts to reduce the complexity: geometrical representations (‘mappings’) of dynamic operations are reflected in corresponding theories of citation. For example, a sociological interpretation of citations can be distinguished from an information-theoretical one. The specific contexts represented in the modern citation can be deconstructed from the perspective of the cultural evolution of scientific communication. ‘By now, it may seem redundant to say that a theory of citation is badly needed.’ Zuckerman (1987)⁹⁵     

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.     

Difficulties and challenges of Chinese scientific journals: Statistical analysis of Chinese literatures using Chinese Science Bulletin as example

Using statistical method, the author analyzed the citation rate of articles published in Chinese Science Bulletin (CSB) between 1995 and 1999 in Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) databases. Results indicated that: 1. Majority of authors who published in CSB were Chinese; 2. The articles were basically cited by the authors themselves in the first year after publication; 3. The peak of total citation rate appeared in the third year after publication and the peak of non-self-citation rate was further delayed. There are relatively high self-citation rates of articles from CSB and most of these citations are from Chinese scientific journals. This indicates that our citation environment is limited to a closed circle. The author, therefore, proposed a strategy for changing the current conditions of Chinese scientific journals to raise their influence. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.