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INFORMATION SOLUTIONS

Bibliometrics

Mary L. Van AllenThomson Scientific Research Services GroupJanuary 2006

Copyright 2006Thomson2


Metrics – how many ways can we count?

• Cybermetrics

• Scientometrics

• Informetrics

• Webometrics

Bibliometrics: the statistical analysis of bibliographic data, mainly in scientific and technical literatures. It measures the amount of scientific activity in a subject category, journal, country, topic or other area of interest. (Henry Small)

“…Bibliometrics is the application of mathematics and statistical methods to analyze the course of the written communication and the course of a discipline.” (Ernesto Spinak)

It displays a landscape of scientific communication and productivity by examining the elements of bibliographic records (citations) and the relationships between citations.



Approaches to Evaluation using Bibliometric Methods

• Theory of citation: – Citations are a form of peer recognition

• Basic measures: – Papers, citations, citations per paper (impact)

• Relative measures: – impact relative to baselines; – expected citation rates for articles; – percentiles

• Units of analysis: – papers, authors, institutions, countries, journals

• Measures of interaction: – research fronts, interdisciplinarity, collaboration



Basic and Relative Measures• Citations : count of incoming citations to a paper or a group of papers, or a citations per paper measure

(citation impact)

– Look at trends over time.

– Refinement sometimes applied for subtraction of self-citations. Influenced by the field.

• Expected citation rates: A measure of how often a specific item can be expected to be cited over time based on:

• the year the item was published,

• the journal it was published in and

• the type of item it was (note, letter, review, regular article, etc.).

– create a ratio of the sum of actual citations received divided by the sum of expected citation rates, to obtain a ratio of actual to expected citations.

• Field Baselines: an average citation rate for a group of items, e.g, all regular articles, notes and reviews in all journals assigned to a specific field or discipline.

– Baselines are computed for specific time periods that define both the citing and cited window used for counting.

– Example: a baseline for the category of physics can be computed for cited items in all physics journals published 1991 to 1995 and cited by items, 1993 to 2005. The citation average for a selected group of papers in physics covering the same time period can then be compared with this baseline, and a relative measure created by dividing the group’s average by the baseline.



Who uses and benefits from Bibliometrics?

• Policymakers, Research Directors and administrators in Universities and Goverment:

– Is our funding or focus in specific areas resulting in good research? – How is my nation or institution faring against other comparable nations and

institutes?– Where is our research being used?

• Researchers: – Distill the most relevant papers from a group of search results. – Identify most influential researchers in a field: Who are the thought leaders?

• Information specialists: – these are the information brokers - the liaison between the producers of

knowledge and the consumers of knowledge. It is important that they be aware of all the tools and data available for their patrons.



Chilean Publication output

Up 100% Up 16%

Overall output Relative to world growth

67% increase, 1981-2004

Avg inc @ 6% per period

Chilean growth: 45% World growth: 40%

Source: National Science Indicators, 1981-2004 – standard version



Chile: Citation impact

Up 60%

Up 35%

Overall impactImpact relative to the world

average

World baseline impact, 1981: 2.86

World baseline Impact, 2004: 4.42

Up 50%

Chile impact in 1981: 1.81

Chile impact in 2004: 3.62

In 1981, there was a 37% difference between Chilean and world impact levels.By 2004, the difference had declined to 18%. Chile is raising the bar.



South America Ranking by Output and Impact (2000-2004)

By using cites/paper (impact), we consider the size of the country. Impact normalizes by size of country.

For example, Switzerland is one of the most highly cited nations in the world though it is also one of the smallest.

But Chile ranks the first relative to the other South American countries in cites/paper.


In the most recent 5 years, Chile is third in publication output.



Growth of output in South American countries




Growth in impact of South American countries




Chile: Field specialization

Relative Specialization:

Chile contributes 0.3% of all world papers

Space Science: 2.7

Ecology 0.6

Mathematics 0.5

Plant & Animal Science 0.5

Agricultural Science 0.4

Percent papers in country:

What fields produce the most papers?

Clinical Medicine 17.6%

Chemistry 14.7%

Space Science 12.2%

Plant & Animal 10.2%

Physics 7.9%




Chile: Relative impact

Field Impact World Avg Relative for field impact

• Space Science 8.8 7.1 1.25

• Mathematics 1.3 1.25 1.04

• Physics 3.4 3.6 0.94

• Geosciences 3.1 3.4 0.91

• Agricultural Sciences 2.0 2.4 0.85

Chile is above the world average in 2 of 24 fields, i.e. Space Science and Mathematics and is closing in on 3 others




Most-cited paper in Biochemistry/Biophysics

Source: National Citation Report: 1981-2004 source, citing and cited papers

Authors

Organizations

Reprint Author

Citation information

Citation Metrics



A most-cited paper in Aquatic Sciences




Collaborating countries

Country Papers

Chile 43,237

USA 6,227

Spain 1,986

France 1,942

Germany 1,776

England 1,249

Brazil 1,106

Argentina 986

Italy 839

Canada 790

Mexico 518

This shows the countries that Chile collaborated with 1981-2004 and illustrates the global expression of research.




Most-cited Chilean-authored papers, 2000-2004



Most prolific author: Bernabe Luis Rivas Universidad de Concepción

228 papers overall, 1981-2004.

97 papers, 2000-2005

Example from the 2000-2005 group



Most cited author outside of Space Science:Ramon Latorre, Universidad de Chile – Biology Department

Prof. Latorre’s most cited article, 1981-2004.

He has 3574 citations to 159 papers



Most prolific institutions

Cites Institution Papers Impact

98,013 Universidad de Chile 16,272 6.0

63,887 Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile 8,821 7.2

17,156 Universidad de Concepción 4,195 4.1

10,719 Universidad Austral de Chile 2,622 4.1

11,780 Universidad de Santiago de Chile 1,952 6.0

33,356 EUROPEAN SO OBSERV 1,498 22.3

4,088 Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaiso 1,074 3.8

4,418 Universidad Técnica Federico Santa Maria 773 5.7

2,432 Universidad de La Frontera 702 3.5

1,943 Universidad Católica del Norte 567 3.4

17,551 Cerro Tololo Inter Amer Observ 557 31.5

1,525 Universidad de Antofagasta 405 3.8

1,284 Universidad de Valparaiso 382 3.4

1,066 Universidad de Talca 314 3.4

8,067 Natl Opt Astron Observ 301 26.8




Most cited papers from top Chilean Universities

Universidad de Chile




Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile





Universidad de Concepción





Universidad Austral de Chile





Measures of interaction: Citing Institutions# Chile cited papers Institution

8020 Universidad de Chile

4491 Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

2666 University of Texas

2620 California Institute of Technology

2281 Universidad de Concepción

2179 European Southern Observatory

1899 University of Arizona

1889 University of California at Berkeley

1874 Harvard University

1857 University of Cambridge

1777 Harvard Smithsonian Ctr Astrophysics

1771 Johns Hopkins Univ

1768 Space Telescope Sci Inst

1757 CSIC

1754 NASA

1549 University of Washington

1453 University of Tokyo

1432 Universidad de Sao Paulo

1422 University of Maryland

1395 University of California at Los Angles (UCLA)

These are the top 20 institutions citing Chilean papers. It shows the reach of Chilean research work.

Top universities in the United States and UK as well as the universities in Tokyo and Sao Paulo are citing Chile’s research efforts.



Fields of specialization in institutions

4824 GENERAL & INTERNAL MEDICINE

2,537 1.9

1959 EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY

1860 1.05

7869 BIOCHEMISTRY & BIOPHYSICS

785 10.02

4028 MEDICAL RESEARCH, ORGANS & SYSTEMS

731 5.51

9362 SPACE SCIENCE 494 18.95

Universidad de Chile

Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile


413 0.47

656 CHEMISTRY 314 2.09

911 ENVIRONMENT/ ECOLOGY

240 3.8

1484 ORGANIC CHEMISTRY/ POLYMER SCIENCE

228 6.51

1145 AQUATIC SCIENCES 217 5.28

Universidad de Concepción

Universidad de Santiago


365 1.04

432 VETERINARY MEDICINE/ANIMAL HEALTH

346 1.25

1379 AQUATIC SCIENCES 250 5.52

3 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS

186 0.02


167 1.25

Universidad Austral de Chile


2,537 1.9


1860 1.05


785 10.02

4028 MEDICAL RESEARCH, ORGANS & SYSTEMS

731 5.51

9362 SPACE SCIENCE 494 18.95

577 CHEMISTRY 216 2.67

1575 PHYSICS 213 7.39

1818 PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY/CHEMICAL PHYSICS

210 8.66


136 8.84

689 ORGANIC CHEMISTRY/ POLYMER SCIENCE

104 6.63




Journal rankings by papers

Journal Name Papers

REVISTA MEDICA DE CHILE 5,532

ARCHIVOS DE BIOLOGIA Y MEDICINA EXPERIMENTALES 3,313

ASTRONONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS 1,182

ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL 823

BOLETIN DE LA SOCIEDAD CHILENA DE QUIMICA 732

REVISTA CHILENA DE HISTORIA NATURAL 625

ASTRONOMY JOURNAL 599

ARCHIVOS DE MEDICINA VETERINARIA 477

JOURNAL OF DENTAL RESEARCH 420

ESTUDIOS FILOLOGICOS 290

REVISTA CHILENA DE LITERATURA 274




Essential Science Indicators, 1995-2005- Provides Top 1% of institutions by one or more of 22 fields

Source: Essential Science Indicators, 1995-2005

Plant and Animal Science • Universidad de Chile #443 out of 702• Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile #601 out of 702• Universidad Austral de Chile #673 out of 702

Environmental • Universidad de Chile #302 out of 400• Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile #350 out of 400

Engineering • Universidad de Chile #675 out of 926

Clinical Medicine• Universidad de Chile #711 out of 2538• Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile #1071 out of 2538

Chemistry• Universidad de Chile #588 out of 768



Hot Paper in Mathematics: Universidad Católica del Norte




Papers citing Mathematics hot paper




Conclusions • Bibliometric view of Chilean papers for the period 1981-2004 showed:

– Chile’s research output has grown 67% over the period, with an average growth of 6%.

– The impact or cites/paper has grown 50% and Chile is making strides towards the world baselines. While Chile is 3rd in the region in output, it is 1st in impact.

– Clinical Medicine, Chemistry and Space Science are the top 3 fields of research output in Chile with the contributions in 4 fields exceeding the country’s overall world contribution

– Institutional achievements and specializations at various universities

– 7 of the 11 Spanish-language journals in this group were Chilean

– Chilean contributions in the top 1% of fields from Plant and Animal Science through Chemistry

– Overall conclusion: the literature indicates an active and growing research community with a global reach and growing impact



www.in-cites.com

Editorial content related to Essential Science Indicators:

• Papers• Journals• Scientists• Journals• Institutions• Countries



www.sciencewatch.com



www.esi-topics.com



Mary Van [email protected]

Gracias!

information solutions bibliometrics mary l. van allen thomson scientific research services group...

Documents

relative measures citations

sum of actual citations

citation average

count of incoming citations

subtraction of selfcitations

sum of expected citation

information solutions

group of items