Zero impact: a large-scale study of uncitedness

Nicolaisen, Jeppe; Frandsen, Tove Faber

doi:10.1007/s11192-019-03064-5

Cited by 30 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Because it is very difficult to see how papers that were never cited can contribute to the growth of scientific knowledge (cf. Nicolaisen & Frandsen, 2019), it may be used as an additional indicator of quality. Although, even if a paper remains uncited for a long period, this is not necessarily a sign of its poor quality (Garfield, 1991).…”

Section: Can the Hqsi Be Improved?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Factors Predicting the Scientific Wealth of Nations

Allïk

Lauk

Realo

2020

Cross-Cultural Research

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It has been repeatedly demonstrated that economic affluence is one of the main predictors of the scientific wealth of nations. Yet, the link is not as straightforward as is often presented. First, only a limited set of relatively affluent countries is usually studied. Second, there are differences between equally rich countries in their scientific success. The main aim of the present study is to find out which factors can enhance or suppress the effect of the economic wealth of countries on their scientific success, as measured by the High Quality Science Index ( HQSI). The HQSI is a composite indicator of scientific wealth, which in equal parts considers the mean citation rate per paper and the percentage of papers that have reached the top 1% of citations in the Essential Science Indicators ( ESI; Clarivate Analytics) database during the 11-year period from 2008 to 2018. Our results show that a high position in the ranking of countries on the HQSI can be achieved not only by increasing the number of high-quality papers but also by reducing the number of papers that are able to pass ESI thresholds but are of lower quality. The HQSI was positively and significantly correlated with the countries’ economic indicators (as measured by gross national income and Research and Development expenditure as a percentage from GDP), but these correlations became insignificant when other societal factors were controlled for. Overall, our findings indicate that it is small and well-governed countries with a long-standing democratic past that seem to be more efficient in translating economic wealth into high-quality science.

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Section: Can the Hqsi Be Improved?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Factors Predicting the Scientific Wealth of Nations

Allïk

Lauk

Realo

2020

Cross-Cultural Research

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“…However, each of these building blocks of science can be assessed differently in practice. Think of the excessive number of publications that are not cited and hardly read as a reflection of the competition for attention (Laband and Tollison 2003;Nicolaisen and Frandsen 2019;Van Dalen and Henkens 2004). And the lack of attention becomes different when your promotion or grant application depends on it, and it may change the choice of topics or a tendency to neglect national issues for scholars working in non-English countries (Van Dalen and Henkens (2012a), or more directly because it is not seen or 'counted' by university management as a scientific activity.…”

Section: = 330mentioning

confidence: 99%

How the publish-or-perish principle divides a science: the case of economists

Dalen

2020

Scientometrics

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The publish-or-perish principle has become a fact of academic life in gaining a position or being promoted. Evidence is mounting that benefits of this pressure is being countered by the downsides, like forms of goal displacement by scientists or unethical practices. In this paper we evaluate whether perceived work pressure (publishing, acquisition funds, teaching, administration) is associated with different attitudes towards science and the workplace among economists working at Dutch universities. Publication pressure is high and is related to faculty position and university ranking position. Based on a latent class analysis we can detect a clear divide among economists. Around two third of the economists perceives that this pressure has upsides as well as serious downsides and one third only perceives upsides and no downsides. Full professors see more than other faculty members the positive sides of the publish-or-perish principle and virtually no downsides. These different perceptions are also reflected in their appreciation of the academic work environment.

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“…Consequently, if the citation period is extended, the number of uncited publications should decrease, causing the variance in the citations obtained for each publication to increase. Nicolaisen and Frandsen (2019) discovered that the ratio of non-citation frequency of publications reacts sensitively to the length of the citation period. Hu and Wu (2014) found that for a citation period of 12 years or longer, the percentage of papers never cited is stable and the probability of being cited in the future is very low for these publications.…”

Section: Literature Overview and Detailed Research Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does the citation period have any effect on the informative value of selected citation indicators in research evaluations?

2020

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To date, there has not been any definitive statement for bibliometric analyses from the scientific community as to how long to make the period for analysis in order to guarantee the maximum possible validity of citation analyses. Up to now, it has been particularly unclear as to whether different disciplines and citation indicators have any effect on what period for analysis to select. This is why this study aims to provide answers to these issues. Therefore, publications in the fields of business studies, biology, and medicine from 2007 to 2009 are surveyed. The citations from ten separate consecutive citation periods from 2009 up to 2018 are generated for these publications from Web of Science and selected citation indicators are calculated for them. The results show that the fundamental validity of citation indicators increases with time. However, if the goal of the analyses is to establish a ranking order, then even short citation periods are informative. Our results are stable in terms of the disciplines, although differences do occur in the citation indicators under consideration.

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Zero impact: a large-scale study of uncitedness

Cited by 30 publications

References 40 publications

Factors Predicting the Scientific Wealth of Nations

Factors Predicting the Scientific Wealth of Nations

How the publish-or-perish principle divides a science: the case of economists

Does the citation period have any effect on the informative value of selected citation indicators in research evaluations?

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