Mean values of skewed distributions in the bibliometric assessment of research units

Schmoch, Ulrich

doi:10.1007/s11192-020-03476-8

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…The distribution of citations was highly skewed with accidents and road safety studies publications being highly cited (310) while GIS and Water Quality were the least (9) cited. This finding is consistent with findings by (Schmoch, 2020), that the distribution of the number of citations per research units are often skewed. Web presence was thus analysed by counting the number of webs mentions and co mentions as indicated by the number of hits made by an individual researcher (Chung & Park, 2012).…”

Section: Impact Assessment Of Csir-brri Scientists Using Citation Anasupporting

confidence: 92%

An Assessment of Scholarly Contributions and Web Visibility among Scientists of CSIR-Building and Road Research Institute, Ghana

Mingle

Achampong²,

Acheampong

2021

gjs

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The introduction of the internet has revolutionized the dissemination and assessment of research outputs with renewed emphasis on the impact of scholarly publications. The purpose of this study was to measure scholarly presence and citation impact of research scientists of the Building and Road Research Institute (CSIR-BRRI) on the internet. Bibliometrics was employed as a quantitative research method for this study using Google Scholar. The results showed that majority (77.5%) of scientists had at least one scholarly reference on the internet. It also found that, almost all (96.5%) scientists who had scholarly works online showed affiliation to the CSIR-BRRI. Again, it was observed that most mentions/hits were journal publications (59%) followed by thesis (35%). However, the study found that there was a weak positive relationship between number of journal articles and citations online, a clear indication that a web presence does not automatically reflect the usefulness of a scholarly output. It is recommended that scientists identify and research into globally relevant topics and also publish in reputable journals to enhance their visibility.

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Section: Impact Assessment Of Csir-brri Scientists Using Citation Anasupporting

confidence: 92%

An Assessment of Scholarly Contributions and Web Visibility among Scientists of CSIR-Building and Road Research Institute, Ghana

Mingle

Achampong²,

Acheampong

2021

gjs

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“…The mean number of publications is more than twice the median value in some disciplines (e.g., Figure 1C ). Schmoch ( 2020 ) proposed an adjusted mean value for ranking research units on journal article citations. Although Schmoch did not explicitly extend this citation-focused method to publication counts, Supplementary Table 2 demonstrates that mean publication counts are also influenced by prolific outliers.…”

Section: What Is a Reasonable Publishing Expectation In This Discipline?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Rhythms of Scholarly Publication: Suggestions to Enhance Bibliometric Comparisons Across Disciplines

Olejniczak¹,

Savage²,

Wheeler³

2022

Front. Res. Metr. Anal.

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“…Journal of Data and Information Science Lone Geniuses or One among Many? An Explorative Study of Contemporary Highly Cited Researchers http://www.jdis.org https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/jdis indicators (van Leeuwen et al, 2003), as well as for the statistical properties of citation indicators (Schmoch, 2020).…”

Section: Research Papermentioning

confidence: 99%

Lone Geniuses or One among Many? An Explorative Study of Contemporary Highly Cited Researchers

Aksnes

Aagaard²

2021

Journal of Data and Information Science

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PurposeThe ranking lists of highly cited researchers receive much public attention. In common interpretations, highly cited researchers are perceived to have made extraordinary contributions to science. Thus, the metrics of highly cited researchers are often linked to notions of breakthroughs, scientific excellence, and lone geniuses.Design/methodology/approachIn this study, we analyze a sample of individuals who appear on Clarivate Analytics’ Highly Cited Researchers list. The main purpose is to juxtapose the characteristics of their research performance against the claim that the list captures a small fraction of the researcher population that contributes disproportionately to extending the frontier and gaining—on behalf of society—knowledge and innovations that make the world healthier, richer, sustainable, and more secure.FindingsThe study reveals that the highly cited articles of the selected individuals generally have a very large number of authors. Thus, these papers seldom represent individual contributions but rather are the result of large collective research efforts conducted in research consortia. This challenges the common perception of highly cited researchers as individual geniuses who can be singled out for their extraordinary contributions. Moreover, the study indicates that a few of the individuals have not even contributed to highly cited original research but rather to reviews or clinical guidelines. Finally, the large number of authors of the papers implies that the ranking list is very sensitive to the specific method used for allocating papers and citations to individuals. In the “whole count” methodology applied by Clarivate Analytics, each author gets full credit of the papers regardless of the number of additional co-authors. The study shows that the ranking list would look very different using an alternative fractionalised methodology.Research limitationsThe study is based on a limited part of the total population of highly cited researchers.Practical implicationsIt is concluded that “excellence” understood as highly cited encompasses very different types of research and researchers of which many do not fit with dominant preconceptions.Originality/valueThe study develops further knowledge on highly cited researchers, addressing questions such as who becomes highly cited and the type of research that benefits by defining excellence in terms of citation scores and specific counting methods.

show abstract

Mean values of skewed distributions in the bibliometric assessment of research units

Cited by 5 publications

References 19 publications

An Assessment of Scholarly Contributions and Web Visibility among Scientists of CSIR-Building and Road Research Institute, Ghana

An Assessment of Scholarly Contributions and Web Visibility among Scientists of CSIR-Building and Road Research Institute, Ghana

The Rhythms of Scholarly Publication: Suggestions to Enhance Bibliometric Comparisons Across Disciplines

Lone Geniuses or One among Many? An Explorative Study of Contemporary Highly Cited Researchers

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