Journal publication and bibliometrics

Window on Research, 10 June 2010Jenny Delasalle

We will cover…• THEME: Bibliometrics – what they are and

how they are used• Journal impact factors: how they are

calculated and how they can be used?• What is happening with the REF?!• What is the H-index, and how can I find an

author’s score?• Open access and copyright: implications.

What are bibliometrics?• Metrics relating to publications… including:

– Paper counts– journal impact factors – the H-index – citation scores at article level – visitor numbers (or other info) for online articles – and many others…. eg blog entries, tags, etc

• Web of Science (Thomson Reuters), Scopus (Elsevier) and Google Scholar are sources.

How are bibliometrics used? • One of many possible measures of research…

others include:– Peer review involvement– Journal editorships – Research grant applications – Research Income– Prestigious awards– PhD supervision load

• Different metrics are used in different ways.

Who is interested in citations?• University management:

– indication of staff performance– Targeting of support– Demonstrate capabilities/accomplishments

• HEFCE, through REF - for science disciplines.• Authors themselves: to identify journals for

own articles and to know who is working in the same field… – lead to collaborations– demonstrate others’ collaborations.

http://thomsonreuters.com/products_services/science/free/essays/impact_factor/• Calculation of Journal Impact Factors:

– A= total cites in 1992 – B= 1992 cites to articles published in 1990-91 (this is a

subset of A)– C= number of articles published in 1990-91– D= B/C = 1992 impact factor

• 5 year impact factor:– A= citations in 1992 to articles published in 1987-91– B= articles published in 1987-91 – C= A/B = five-year impact factor

Some motivations for citations

• Paying homage to experts• Giving credit to peers• Criticising/correcting previous work (own or

others)• Sign-posting under-noticed work• Provide background reading• Lend weight to own claims• Self citations!

Citation patterns

• Most publications have little or no citations.• Variety across the disciplines.• Therefore comparisons within a discipline are

most useful.• Percentages against a world average within

each discipline are more useful than basic numbers.

About the H-index• Invented by Jorge E. Hirsch, a physicist, in 2005

• Algorithm to calculate quality and sustainability of research output

• Calculated using number of publications and number of citations per output

• A researcher with an index of h has published h papers each of which has been cited by others at least h times

• E.g. a H-index of 20 means there are 20 published papers each with at least 20 citations

Example H-indexE.g. Professor X has a total of 10 publications

Publication 1 20 citesPublication 2 18 citesPublication 3 11 citesPublication 4 7 cites----------------------------------------------------------- H-index: 4Publication 5 4 citesPublication 6 3 citesPublications 7,8,9,10 0 cites

H-Index, is it useful?• Conceived for physicists to rank researchers within the

field and give an approximation of level of attainment:E.g. H-index 10-12: useful guide for tenure

H-index 20: full professorship• Suffers from similar limitations to other citation count

methodologies: Doesn’t account for co-authorship

Doesn’t consider average citation counts in the field, which can differ greatlyUses total number of publications, a problem for early career researchersDoesn’t account for singular successful publications

Looking up your H-index

• Creating a set of articles which are all yours, and which is complete.

Telling a good story…• List of your articles and number of times each

has been cited. • Journal Expected citation rate? Average for

the journal your article appears in, for the year of publication.

• Is it high or low for your discipline, generally?• Add context by looking at who has cited your

work. Anyone particularly impressive?!• Second generation counts…

Who has cited my article?

Other metrics providers

• SCOPUS data is being used by the Australian equivalent of the RAE/REF.

• Google Scholar also provides citation information which is presented in Google search results… but not as reports or with value added.

• GScholar picks up on citations from anywhere on the web, not only citations in scholarly publications…

• GScholar is useful for monographs and journals not indexed by WoS or Scopus.

The author’s perspective• A record of what you have published will be useful for:

– your CV.– providing information to University data gathering exercises

(Department level or REF).– web pages that raise your profile (including WRAP, although

you need full text files too).• Keeping an eye on who is citing your work helps you to:

– identify future potential collaborators.– maintain awareness of other research in your field and

interpretations of your work.– Become aware of which articles are influencing your research

profile the most.

The REF

• “Led by expert review, informed by metrics.”• Adapting to disciplinary differences. • They are going to be looking for “Impact”.• Having a record of who has published what

(with full metadata records!) will be an advantage to the University when preparing any kind of REF return.

Raising citations• Tips and tactics

– High impact journals– Self citations count!– Letters can be cited too, and TR counts such citations.– Review articles attract more citations.– Focus marketing activity on most recent papers.– Use key phrases in all your work

• A (very) long term game– First step is increasing readership.– Open Access, WRAP and Google juice!

Open Access journals• Some are also high impact.• Research Funder Mandates: SherpaJuliet -

http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/juliet/ • 5 ways to meet them:

1. Open Access journal in which there is no fee to publish.2. Open Access journal in which the author must pay a fee.3. Hybrid journal4. A traditional, subscription-based journal, with early version in an OA

repository5. A traditional, subscription-based journal with whom you negotiate

in order to allow a repository deposit.• Find an OA title: DOAJ - http://www.doaj.org/• Check a journal’s OA policy: SherpaRomeo -

http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/

Evidence of raised profiles and citation impact• Greater visibility and accessibility.• Open access publishing has been demonstrated to

raise citations.• Google juice for one paper on the

wrap.warwick.ac.uk domain adds to the juice of all papers there.

• Google Scholar picks up on citations of WRAP content.

• WRAP visitor numbers can be demonstrated.

Gaining visitors in WRAP

• Boost your Google juice!– Put a link to the WRAP record for your paper

anywhere: especially wikipedia! – Get your papers into WRAP as quickly as possible:

even when there is an embargo period.– Get someone else to cite your paper, even in a

draft paper online, even if they don’t mention WRAP in any way: Google Scholar makes connections based on such citations.

Any Questions?