Recent strategies for adding value to scientific journals in Latin America

A recent initiative in some Latin American countries, to define thebasic core of credited titles of domestic scientific journals in the different knowledge fields, is reviewed. The policy aim is to strengthen the best journals and to minimize the noise produced by the great number of journals that do a disservice to the authors who publish in them either because of their low quality or because even if they are reasonably good, have a very low impact. It is argued that if the exercise were carried out in a rigorous and systematic way in the countries of the region that publish scientific journals, one might eventually obtain a depurated list of Latin American periodical publications. Such list might be useful as a supplement to the catalogues of mainstream journals registered by ISI and other international databases, and could provide valid alternatives of publication of results for Latin American researchers and for authors of other regions active in subjects in which the countries of the region have significant scientific contributions. It might also help to provide a better indication of the total publishing activity of Latin American countries.     

Competition in science and the Matthew core journals

Competition is one of the most essential features of science. A new journal indicator - the"number of Matthew citations in a journal" was found that reflects certain aspects of thiscompetition. The indicator mirrors the competition of countries in scientific journals forrecognition in terms of seemingly "redistributed" citations.The indicator shows, as do other journal indicators, an extreme skewed distribution over anensemble of 2712 SCI journals. Half of all Matthew citations are contained in 144 so-calledMatthew core journals.In this paper, a new typology of scientific journals, including the Matthew core journals, isintroduced. For a few selected journals, graphs are presented showing national impact factors aswell as the absolute number of Matthew citations gained or lost by the countries publishing in thejournal.Scientific competition among countries for recognition is strongest in the Matthew corejournals, they are the most competitive markets for scientific publications. Conclusions are drawnfor national science policy, for the journal acquisition policy of national libraries, and for thepublication behaviour of individual scientists.     

Use of publication lists to study scientific production and strategies of scientists in developing countries

A bibliometric study using the lists of publications and work of 207 scientists working in Asia, Latin America and Africa was conducted. Number of authored and co-authored articles published in scientific journals and bulletins, conference papers, books, chapters of books, reports were taken into consideration to measure the total scientific output. Local vs. international production was also determined by scientific fields, geographic areas, sexe and language of publication. Co-authorship studies were also used to particularly measure the degree of collaboration and dependance of Developing Countries' (DC) scientists on foreign co-authors. An analysis of the references used (age, origins) was also made. Conclusions drawn concern the comparatively specific nature of science produces by DC's researcher. Partly given the importance of the scientific production published in local journals, the inadequacy of international databases to study Dc science is confirmed. Most of the DC scientists published in both national and international journals. They often cite their colleagues from the developed countries but their own work being less visible is seldom cited.Paper presented at the International Conference on Science Indicators for Developing Countries, Paris, 15–19 October, 1990     

Central international visibility of Brazilian psychiatric publications from 1981 to 1995

In this study, we examine the scientific output of Brazilian psychiatry, based on the databaseof the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), publications in the 10 most important psychiatricjournals, and publications in major Brazilian journals. The number of Brazilian publications (i.e.,those carrying at least one Brazilian address) in psychiatry in the ISI database increased by 168%during the 15-year period under study (1981-1995) . Despite this growth, the relative contributionof publications in psychiatry to the country's publications in medical sciences did not change overthe 15-year period. This fraction, around 2%, remained at less than one-third of the averagecontribution of psychiatry journals to publications in medicine worldwide. The impact inferredfrom number of citations (1981-1992) shows that Brazilian articles in psychiatry were cited lessthan the world average in this field. In the 10 psychiatry journals with the highest impact,Brazilian authors published only 48 articles in the 1981-1995 period, representing only 0.2% ofthe articles in those journals. Like their American and British counterparts, Brazilian psychiatristsalso published primarily in domestic journals: 87.1% of the publications by Brazilians appeared inthe two major Brazilian psychiatric journals, compared with only 12.9% in foreign journals.Among publications in psychiatry in the ISI database, the number of articles co-authored byBrazilians with scientists from other countries increased 12.3 fold from 1981-1985 to 1991-1995,representing at the end 50% of all publications by Brazilian psychiatrists in international journals.Despite all cuts in funding for Brazilian science during the last decades, all of the articles in oursample originated in public universities, and only 10 universities were responsible for 70% of thepublications by Brazilian psychiatrists in our survey period. We conclude that Brazilianpsychiatric research is a subject worthy of particular concern, especially if we take into accountthe country's modest scientific performance and the socio-economic consequences of mentaldisorders in the Brazilian population.     

Editorial gatekeeping patterns in international science journals. A new science indicator

Significant correlations were found between the number of science journal editors from different countries, on the one hand, and the number of scientists, the number of science journals and the number of science papers produced by these countries on the other. We argue for using the extent of participation in the editorial board of international science journals as a new science indicator. The deviations from the regression lines between the new indicator and other publication indicators allow one to assess the open or closed character of the scientific life of a given country.     

Computer science research: more production,less productivity

It is commonly accepted that scientific research or, more precisely, the number of scientific publications, in computer science has greatly increased over the last few years. The reason would appear to be the pressure to publish, coined by the expression ”Publish or perish”, which is, among other things, necessary for promotions and applications for grants or projects. In this paper we have conducted a study that covers computer science publications from 1936 to 2010 in order to quantify this increase in publications regarding computing research. We have considered the computing conferences and journals available in the DBLP computer science bibliography (DBLP 2013) database, including more than 1.5 million papers, and more than 4 million authors (more than 900,000 different people), corresponding to about 1,000 different journals and 3,000 different conferences and workshops. Our study confirms and quantifies these increases with regard to the number of papers, number of authors, number of papers per author, etc. However, it also reaches a surprising conclusion: the real productivity of researchers has decreased throughout history. The reason for this decrease is the average number of authors per paper, which has grown significantly and is currently three.     

Evolution in the number of authors of computer science publications

This article analyses the evolution in the number of authors of scientific publications in computer science (CS). This analysis is based on a framework that structures CS into 17 constituent areas, proposed by Wainer et al. (Commun ACM 56(8):67–63, 2013), so that indicators can be calculated for each one in order to make comparisons. We collected and mined over 200,000 article references from 81 conferences and journals in the considered CS areas, spanning a 60-year period (1954–2014). The main insights of this article are that all CS areas witness an increase in the average number of authors, in every decade, with just one slight exception. We ordered the article references by number of authors, in ascending chronological order and grouped them into decades. For each CS area, we provide a perspective of how many groups (1-author papers, 2-author papers and so on) must be considered to reach certain proportions of the total for that CS area, e.g., the 90th and 95th percentiles. Different CS areas require different number of groups to reach those percentiles. For all 17 CS areas, an analysis of the point in time in which publications with n + 1 authors overtake the publications with n authors is presented. Finally, we analyse the average number of authors and their rate of increase.     

Stocktaking scientific publication on bi-regional collaboration between Europe 28 and Latin America and the Caribbean

Mapping bi-regional scientific collaboration demands multiple approaches to obtain a picture as complete as possible. Usually, the first approach is the measuring of the number and typology of scientific co-publications in the most visible indexes of journals and publications covered by databases like Web of Science or Scopus, among others. This paper analyzes scientific publications listed by Web of Science (WoS), which comprises authors from the 28 EU countries and Latin American and Caribbean countries (EULAC) between 2005 and 2016. The following questions have been addressed: How are bi-regional scientific relations between EULAC countries reflected by international collaboration? What effects does this scientific collaboration have in smaller or emerging countries? Which area of knowledge has more international collaborations? The study highlights the existence of a growing global network of researchers from several countries that collaborate on their research. EULAC scientific collaboration cannot be understood in isolation from this global network.

     

Characteristics of the publishing infrastructure of peripheral countries: A comparison of periodical publications from Latin America with periodicals from the US and the UK

Bibliometric research can provide science policy makers with indicators of the capacity of a country's national scientific system to produce printed information. The capacity of the local publishing industry to produce scientific and technical periodical publications reflects the availability of outlets for the dissemination of scientific findings. The present research attempts to evaluate the role of the publishing industry in the level of bibliographic control, and the level of peer review of periodical publications from Latin America. A random search was performed on the 1990 Cd-Rom version ofThe Serials Directory, a commercially produced international reference source on periodical publications. A sample of 311 periodicals from Latin America was downloaded to a local database. A similar search was performed on publications from the United States and the United Kingdom for comparison purposes. A random search of 235 publications was downloaded into a local database. Publishers were classified for both samples according to three types: academic, governmental, and commercial. Publications were sorted thematically and indicators of bibliographic control, and of peer review were recorded for both samples. Publications from Latin America showed a very low level of bibliographic control, particularly in the case of the assignment of ISSN numbers, where 58% of the sample studied was published without this element of bibliographic control. This contrasted sharply with the periodicals from the US and UK, where 83% (195) journals had an ISSN number assigned. The involvement of editorial boards in the academic quality of Latin American publications amounted only to 21% of the sample studied. Periodicals from the US and UK reported an editor as responsible for the journal in 40% (93) of the cases. This amount constitutes about double the number of editors reported by Latin American publications. Latin American academic publishers are the most numerous publishers in the sample studied accounting for 37% (114) of the journals studied however, 68% (77) of those editors printed periodicals without a named editor. Governmental publishers are the second largest publisher type. They produced 29% (89) of the journals in the sample. Commercial publishers are responsible for 26% (82) of the journals studied. Publications from the US and UK show a clear predominance of commercial publishers, accounting for 47% (111) of the journals. Academic publishers only produced 29% (68) of the 235 journals in the sample. This clear dominance of the commercial publisher sector shows that publishing in at least the two countries studied is clearly practised as a business enterprise. This is in sharp comparison to the publishing patterns exhibited in Latin America where the academic sector is the most prominent one.     

Scientific production in Computer Science: A comparative study of Brazil and other countries

In this paper we present a study about scientific production in Computer Science in Brazil and several other countries, as measured by the number of articles in journals and conference proceedings indexed by ISI and by Scopus. We compare the Brazilian production from 2001 to 2005 with some Latin American, Latin European, BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China), and other relevant countries (South Korea, Australia and USA). We also classify and compare these countries according to the ratio of publications in journals and conferences (the ones indexed by the two services). The results show that Brazil has by far the largest production among Latin American countries, has a production about one third of Spain’s, one fourth of Italy’s, and about the same as India and Russia. The growth in Brazilian publications during the period places the country in the mid-range group and the distribution of Brazilian production according to impact factor is similar to most countries.     

Scientific Production in Puerto Rico in Science and Technology during the Period 1990 to 1998

This paper analyses the research activity conducted by Puerto Rican scientists in science and technology in the period 1990 to 1998. The Science Citation Index (SCI) database was used to analyse scientific production by geographic area, type of insittution, document typology, language coverage, visibility of publications, subjects addressed and collaboration between local and international authors and institutions. Scientific production was observed to nearly double over the period studied and found to be concentrated in the academic sector, primarily in the city of San Juan, specifically in the University of Puerto Rico's Rio Piedras, Medical Sciences and Mayagüez campuses. Puerto Rican scientific production in the period studied was greater than in any other Caribbean country and the sixth largest in all of Latin America. Papers are mainly published in highly visible journals and scientific articles are the vehicle most commonly used to reach the scientific community. Co-operation indices between authors and institutions are high and the principal areas in which research is published are Medicine, Chemistry, Life Sciences and Physics.     

A Comparison of Iranian Scientific Publications in the Science Citation Index: 1985–1989 and 1990–1994

Iranian scientific publications in the Science Citation Index for two five-year periods, 1985–1989 and 1990–1994, were compared. Distributions of various attributes of the publication output for the two periods were obtained primarily through the Rank command of the Dialog Online System. Results include: productivity by publication year and by ranked order of the most productive Iranian authors; influence or impact of the most productive Iranian authors by ranking them as cited authors; collaboration of Iranian scientists with scientists from other countries; and the journals Iranian scientists published in and the journals they cite in their papers. The subject areas of Iran's scientific publications were examined vis-à-vis the world's publication output and that of the Third World Countries (TWC).     

Are citation-based quantitative techniques adequate for measuring science on the periphery?

The inadequacies of citation analysis-based quatitative techniques in the context of developing countries owe their origins to the rather small size of most peripheral country scientific enterprises, the poor coverage of Third World journals in bibliographic databases, (and in particularSCI), the cognitive limitations of citation analysis pointed out by microsociologists, and the non-normative nature of the scientific enterprise in these countries. Much of peripheral science is derivative and imitative of science done in the centre, rather than original or path-breaking, and there is hardly any indigenous scientific community. And yet, citation analysis-based quantitative measures can be applied to characterise different aspects of peripheral science. These techniques assume great importance, especially in view of the massive inadequacies of the peer review process prevailing in these countries. The application of such citation-based quantification to units of different levels of aggregation such as a journal, an institution and a country as a whole has been demonstrated taking India as the example. Our results show that levels of funding have no correlation with the quality or international citation impact of the literature output resulting from a project. Almost all Indian journals have a very low impact on world literature, and the relatively better performance ofJournal of Astrophysics and Astronomy (and Indian astronomical research in general) owes it to favourable factors, both social and cognitive.     

Scientific collaboration of Cuban researchers working in Europe: understanding relations between origin and destination countries

The global network of scientific collaboration created by researchers opens new opportunities for developing countries to engage in the process of knowledge creation historically lead by institutions in the developed world. The results discussed here explore how Cubans working in European science and technology might contribute to extending the scientific collaboration of the country through their ties with Cuban institutions mainly in the academic sector. A bibliometric method was used to explore the pattern of collaboration of Cuban researchers in Europe using the institutional affiliation of authors and collaborators. The records of scientific publications of the defined sample were obtained from Scopus database for the period between 1995 and 2014. The network of collaboration was generated using the affiliations of Cuban authors in Europe and co-authors with worldwide affiliations shown in the records of publications of each Cuban researcher of the study. The analysis of aggregate values of the output of Cuban researchers in Europe (1995–2014) reveals that their collaboration with Cuba correlates moderately with their performance in Europe. However, when taking into account their time publishing in Europe, the collaboration with Cuba decreases the longer they remain away from home. The network of collaborating Cuban researchers in Europe comprises 991 different affiliations from 58 countries: 698 from Europe, 118 from North America, 96 from Latin America and 79 from the rest of the world. K-core analysis of centrality shows two Cuban universities sharing the central position with another 24 institutions worldwide of which 18 belong to higher education.     

Scientometrics of Prolific and Non-Prolific Authors in Laser Science and Technology

An analysis of 766 publications by prolific authors in scientific journals indicate that prolific authors produce about 25% of the total scientific output in periodical literature in laser science and technology. The average productivity per author is about 2. Prolific authors from most of the countries belonged either to academic or research institutions except in USA and Japan. Prolific authors on average made more impact than non-prolific authors. However the situation varied from country to country.     

The state of science and technology in Africa (2000–2004): A scientometric assessment

This article reports for first time the state of science and technology in the African Continent on the basis of two scientometric indicators — number of research publications and number of patents awarded. Our analysis shows that Africa produced 68,945 publications over the 2000–2004 period or 1.8% of the World’s publications. In comparison India produced 2.4% and Latin America 3.5% of the World’s research. More detailed analysis reveals that research in Africa is concentrated in just two countries — South Africa and Egypt. These two counties produce just above 50% of the Continent’s publications and the top eight countries produce above 80% of the Continent’s research. Disciplinary analysis reveals that few African countries have the minimum number of scientists required for the functioning of a scientific discipline. Examination of the Continent’s inventive profile, as manifested in patents, indicates that Africa produces less than one thousand of the world’s inventions. Furthermore 88% of the Continent’s inventive activity is concentrated in South Africa. The article recommends that the African Governments should pay particular attention in developing their national research systems.     

Developing technology in the vicinity of science: An examination of the relationship between science intensity (of patents) and technological productivity within the field of biotechnology

In this paper we investigate — at a country level — the relationship between the science intensity of patents and technological productivity, taking into account differences in terms of scientific productivity. The number of non patent references in patents is considered as an approximation of the science intensity of technology whereas a country’s technological and scientific performance is measured in terms of productivity (i.e., number of patents and publications per capita). We use USPTO patent-data pertaining to biotechnology for 20 countries covering the time period 1992–1999. Our findings reveal mutual positive relationships between scientific and technological productivity for the respective countries involved. At the same time technological productivity is associated positively with the science intensity of patients. These results are confirmed when introducing time effects. These observations corroborate the construct validity of science intensity as a distinctive indicator and suggest its usefulness for assessing science and technology dynamics.     

The citing practices of the authors to the national journals in mathematics,physics, and chemistry

In this essentially empirical study a comparative analysis of the age of references in scientific papers in three subject fields is performed. Comparisons are made: 1. among national and leading journals in the same scientific field, 2. for a number of high quality journals in physics and chemistry, and 3. between several groups of authors (according to the countries of origin), contributing to the same journals in chemistry. Variations found in the journals citing half-life values suggest that, if properly interpreted, the citing half-life might reflect the journal's quality and might serve as a certain indicator for the citing practices of specific groups of authors.     

Lost in citation: Vanishing visibility of senior authors

The senior author is usually last on the byline of scientific publications, yet generally has made the second most important contribution. The explosion in author number per scientific paper, has necessitated limits on the number of authors allowed in cited references, frequently resulting in senior author truncation. Would potential visibility gained from citations in top-tier journals be offset by senior author omission? We found evidence for this in a sample of 208 journals, showing significant associations between author limits in cited references and various measures of journal quality. These associations, however, differed among biological science, physical science, and interdisciplinary journals.     

An index to measure the international collaboration of developing countries based on the participation of national institutions: The case of Latin America

International collaboration is an important ingredient of present-day scientific research. Latin America, for instance, is increasing its production of internationally coauthored publications and, the number of national institutions involved in this activity. An index developed to measure international collaboration by taking into account individual institutional participation resulted in a positive average increase in the production of developing countries (DCs) research. Nonetheless, the degree of institutional participation varies between field and with respect to the country in question. Giving weight to individual institutional participation, could motivate DCs scientists to enhance their role in the international science of the region. Likewise, this index could be developed as quality indicator of national institutional performance.