WISER: Bibliometrics II The Black Art of Citation Rankings

1. WISER: Bibliometrics IIThe Black Art of Citation Rankings Angela Carritt Juliet Ralph March 2011 These slides are available onhttp://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/services/training/wiser/presentations

2. Overview of Session What are bibliometrics? Why bother? Problems Calculating impact factors using Web of Science …for an article …for a researcher …for a department / institution Calculating impact factors using Scopus Calculating journal impact factors using the Journal Citation Reports

3. What are bibliometrics? • …the statistical analysis of books, articles, or other publications. Oxford English Dictionary • …”ways of measuring patterns of authorship, publication and the use of literature” HEFCE, Bibliometrics and the Research Excellence Framework (REF) • Use of citation information to measure the impact of research

4. Citations to an individual paper 2010 2010 2010 2008 2009 2008

5. Citations to a researcher

6. Citations to a research group/department

7. Citations to a journal

8. Continued…. Wide range of formulae developed which aim to use citation information to assess research impact accurately Some of the things that are sometimes considered… Number of articles published Number of self citations Type of article Period over which articles were published Prestige of citing journal Subject/discipline…

9. The power behind

11. Why bother?... REF “The pilot exercise showed that citation information is not sufficiently robust to be used formulaically or as a primary indicator of quality; but there is considerable scope for it to inform and enhance the process of expert review” HEFCE www.hefce.ac.uk/research/ref/Biblio/ Research Excellence Framework 2014 quality of research outputs (65% weighting 2014) wider impact of research – (20% weighting in 2014) - measured by case studies vitality of the research environment 15% weighting in 2014) Expert panels decide whether or not to use citation information under the “quality of research outputs” heading Panels to annouce their “criteria statements” in late 2011 - watch this space

12. HEFCE, REF and citation information • Central guidance to ensure that departments are not disadvantaged by missing data • Information will be standardized, simplified…and made available to universities for a small fee • HEFCE will assess the (financial) cost of using citation information • More @ http://www.hefce.ac.uk/research/ref/Biblio/

13. Why bother • Benchmarking of departments and research groups • Grant applications • Recruitment of individuals

14. Lots of problems... Self-citations Negative citations Insignificant citations Multiple authors/research groups Incomplete citation lists - does not include citations in books... or other publications not indexed by Web of Science/Scopus…poor coverage of conferences Not comparable across disciplines – may disadvantage researchers in interdisciplinary fields Review articles are more highly cited than original research More...

15. http://www.slideshare.net/guest633b30/bibliometrics-and-scientometrics-1065282http://www.slideshare.net/guest633b30/bibliometrics-and-scientometrics-1065282

16. © http://ceochef.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/pinch-of-salt.jpg

17. Individual articles • On Web of Science - use Cited Reference Search • Better than General Search at retrieving Variants (incorrect citations). • Example: • Effectiveness of PowerPoint presentations in lectures. Author(s):Bartsch RA, Cobern KM • Source: COMPUTERS & EDUCATION     • Volume: 41    Issue: 1    Pages: 77-86     • Published: AUG 2003.

19. Cited reference variant

20. Analyzing a highly cited article

21. Analyzing the Citing articles

22. …by highest citing Authors

23. …by highest citing Journals

24. or create a Citation Map

25. Citation map

26. Impact factors for a researcher

28. Citation report for an author

29. h-index=75

30. 75 articles cited 75 times or more

31. Citation tracking & analysis in SCOPUS • Scopus covers 18,000 journals in Science, Mecicine, Social Sciences & Humanities • Results include journal articles & conference proceedings • Each record for a paper shows the number of times it has been cited in Scopus since 1996 • Similar analytical tools to Web of Science • www.scopus.com

32. Citation analysis in Scopus

33. h-index = 73 based on citations in Scopus post-1996 to 537 papers

34. h-index = 63 if exclude self-citations

35. …for a department or institution • Not always easy! • Web of Science - Search the Address field • Must use standard abbreviations, e.g: • oxford univ • But word order makes a difference! • univ oxford retrieves thousands more results • more researchers use University of Oxford - not Oxford University - in their address • Can also search by postcode, e.g. • OX1 2JD (Wellington Square)

36. Searching by Address

37. Check the abbreviations lists

38. Searching by department or college • Postcode or name • Tip: include univ oxford same or oxford same in search string to weed out other institutions, e.g. • univ oxford same pathol • oxford same trinity • oxford same Ludwig Inst Canc Res

40. Scopus has Affiliation Search • Search by institution name not postcode • university of oxford retrieves same results as oxford university

41. Scopus Affiliation Search

43. Scopus Affiliation ID

46. Symplectic Elements

47. Symplectic Elements • record keeping tool for research outputs • automatic searching of databases such as Web of Science & Scopus • Facility to run reports for a department • For more information go to • www.admin.ox.ac.uk/pras/research/symplectic/ • The solution for your department? • Contact symplectic@admin.ox.ac.uk

48. Impact Factors - Journal Citation Reports (JCR) Compare relative importance of journals using citation information Based on citation data from Web of Science Covers > 5,900 journals in science and technology > 1,700 journals in the social sciences

49. Uses & Abuses • Uses • Help you to decide where to publish • Help librarians to make decisions about journal purchase etc • Abuses • Have been used to measure research impact of individual and research groups