Contributing factors to long‐term citation count in marine and freshwater biology articles

Researchers have investigated factors thought to affect the total number of citations in various academic disciplines, and some general trends have emerged. However, there are still limited data for many fields, including aquatic sciences. Using papers published in 2003–2005 (n = 785), we investigated marine and freshwater biology articles to identify factors that may contribute to the probability of citation and for cumulative citation counts over 10 years. We found no relationships with probability of citation; however, we found evidence that for those that were cited at least once, cumulative citations were related to several factors. Articles cited by books received more citations than those never cited by books, which we hypothesized to be indicative of the impact an article may have in the field. We also found that articles first cited within 2 years of publication received more cumulative citations than those first cited after 2 years. We found no evidence that self‐citation (as the first citation) had a significant effect on total citations. Our findings were compared with previous studies in other disciplines, and it was found that aquatic science citation patterns are comparable to fields in science and technology but less so to humanities and social sciences.     

On the skewness of journal self‐citations and publisher self‐citations: Cues for discussion from a case study

This paper takes the cue from the case of a retracted paper, cited both by the retraction notice and by an article published later in the same journal. This led to analysis and discussion on the skewness of citations in the journal Sustainability and within Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI) journals, particularly investigating self‐citations at journal and publisher levels. I analysed articles published by Sustainability in 2015 and found that self‐citations are higher than expected under a uniform probability distribution. Self‐citations in this journal make a 36% difference to the journal's impact factor. This research raises the question of what citation patterns can be expected as normal, and where the boundary between normal and anomaly lies. I suggest the issue deserves further investigation because self‐citations have several implications, ranging from impact factors to visibility and influence of scientific journals.     

Infectious diseases citation patterns: mapping the literature 2008–2010

Objectives:

The research identified the publication types and ages most frequently cited in the infectious diseases literature and the most commonly cited journals.

Methods:

From 2008–2010, 5,056 articles in 5 infectious diseases journals cited 166,650 items. Two random samples were drawn: one (n = 1,060) from the total set of citations and one (n = 1,060) from the citations to journal articles. For each sample citation, publication type and date, age of cited item, and inclusion of uniform resource locator (URL) were collected. For each item in the cited journal articles sample, journal title, publication date, and age of the cited article were collected. Bradford zones were used for further analysis.

Results:

Journal articles (91%, n = 963) made up the bulk of cited items, followed by miscellaneous items (4.6%, n = 49). Dates of publication for cited items ranged from 1933–2010 (mean = 2001, mode = 2007). Over half (50.2%, n = 483) of cited journal articles were published within the previous 5 years. The journal article citations included 358 unique journal titles.

Discussion:

The citations to current and older publications in a range of disciplines, heavy citation of journals, and citation of miscellaneous and government documents revealed the depth and breadth of resources needed for the study of infectious diseases.

Highlights

• Literature on infectious diseases is multidisciplinary, encompassing medical specialties, public health, and the medical sciences.
• Infectious disease publications cite journal articles more than 90% of the time. Cited journal articles greatly range in age at citation: more than a quarter were over 10 years old.
• Infectious disease citation patterns resemble clinical medicine citation patterns more than public health citation patterns.

Implications

• Infectious disease professionals need access to general medicine titles as well as infectious disease, immunology, virology, microbiology, and public health literature.
• Librarians serving infectious disease researchers and practitioners should provide access to older materials, especially journal back files, to support the cyclical needs of their patrons.

     

How research data is cited in scholarly literature: A case study of HINTS

This study investigated how Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) data from the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) was cited in the scholarly literature. It addressed the following research questions: (1) What patterns of citations exist among authors of research articles using HINTS data? and (2) How is the citation format of HINTS data characterized? We collected scholarly articles that used HINTS data as primary or secondary data for analysis from Web of Science databases and HINTS publications on the NCI website. Among the resulting 250 articles, we identified citations to HINTS data themselves (data citations) and those to HINTS‐related documents (data‐related citations). Among the 250 articles, 156 articles (62.4%) cited HINTS data or HINTS‐related documents; only 29 articles (11.6%) cited HINTS data, while 127 (50.8%) cited HINTS‐related documents. Both data and data‐related citations increased over time. Data citation format varied, and 13 different compositions of citation elements were identified. Author, Title, and Location (URL) were common elements. The frequent use of URLs is undesirable due to URL instability. Furthermore, the data citations showed not only various compositions of citation elements but also ill‐defined element formats. Standardized citation formats are therefore needed.     

How accurate are cited references in Iranian peer‐reviewed journals?

The references cited in scientific articles are as important as any other part of the paper, because of their usefulness to the scientific community and to abstracting and indexing services and citation databases. I studied inaccuracies in references and in‐text citations in sample of 97 of the 519 peer‐reviewed journals accredited by the Iranian National Commission for Journal Accreditation Policy (Ministry of Research, Science and Technology). The target journals published 2,980 articles with 74,577 cited references and 108,151 in‐text citations. The results showed 36.6% as the average percentage error rate (range 5.6% to 61.3%). The mean number of errors in cited reference and in‐text citations was 2.7 per article, and the mean number of errors per journal was 690. For the entire sample of articles, 4,369 in‐text citations did not match any source in the list of references (4%), and 8,683 cited references did not match any in‐text citation (11.6%). The stakeholders in scholarly communication, especially authors, pay insufficient attention to the accuracy of bibliographic references. Peer‐reviewed journals should encourage the use of standardized journal policies and quality‐control measures regarding peer review, data quality and accuracy.     

我国图情领域期刊论文在线百科的利用特征探析

[目的/意义]在线百科主题覆盖面和用户范围非常广泛,不同的学科领域及不同类型的用户对应着不同的需求和利用模式,因此需要从研究人员对在线百科的引用特征和引用类型出发,深入分析在线百科的用户需求和利用特征。[方法/过程]以我国图书情报学领域（以下简称“图情领域”）期刊论文为研究对象,从引用在线百科资源的论文数量及引文数量、时间分布、主题分布、期刊分布、机构分布、作者分布、文献类型、引用类型等多个指标,探析图情领域期刊论文在线百科的利用特征与规律。[结果/结论]结果表明,在我国图情领域学术研究过程对在线百科资源具有较高的依赖性,引用在线百科的期刊论文研究主题集中在图书馆、当下流行的信息技术和概念等相关方面,以非实证性研究居多,引用频次较高的期刊和机构主要是排名靠前的核心期刊和高校,引用较多的作者群体多为女性作者和实践工作者,引用类型依次为对非图情专业术语的引用、图情专业术语的引用以及网站和词条本身的引用。最后从在线百科词条质量和信息聚合两个角度对这一现象和特征进行讨论。     

A citation analysis of the quantitative/qualitative methods debate's reflection in sociology research: Implications for library collection development

This study examines how the social sciences' debate between qualitative and quantitative methods is reflected in the citation patterns of sociology journal articles. Citation analysis revealed that quantitative articles were more likely to cite journal articles than monographs, while qualitative articles were more likely to cite monographs than journals. Quantitative articles cited other articles from their own quantitative-dominated journals but virtually excluded citations to articles from qualitative journals, while qualitative articles cited articles from the quantitative-dominated journals as well as their own qualitative-specialized journals. Discussion and conclusions include this study's implications for library collection development.     

Impacts of government website information on social sciences and humanities in China: A citation analysis

The purpose of this research is to investigate the current state and trend of government website information cited by social science and humanities (SS&H) journal articles in China. The Chinese Social Science Citation Index (CSSCI) was used as the benchmark and the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) journals as the reference samples. It analyzed 204,019 web citations (N = 5,063,237) found in 925,506 articles that were published in CSSCI journals during the 1998–2009 period. The findings unveil that web citations accounted for only 4.03% of the total number of citations (N = 5,063,237), and that citations of Chinese government websites constituted 6.6% of the total number of web citations (N = 204,019). The study disclosed detailed information regarding citations derived from ministries and commissions directly under the State Council websites (N = 69), government online media (N = 7), government website citation subjects (N = 21), and various types of government website information (N = 5). Although government website information has limited influence on SS&H, their impact is currently growing rapidly. In comparison with international research community, influence of government web information on Chinese social science is higher, while its influence on humanities is lower. Essentially, Chinese scholars put emphasis on citing information from authoritative central government websites or highly visible state-owned media information as supporting evidences in their articles. In general, the citation of information from Chinese government website tends to hot social issues of society. Finally, it is necessary to promote the visibility of local government websites, to develop policies and guidelines to encourage the disclosure and the diversity of data, so that there will be more citation balances between social and technological topics.     

Cover effects on citations uncovered: Evidence from Nature

We study the effects of an article featured on the cover of the journal Nature on citations to all articles published by its authors. Based on 30 years of bibliometric data, we find that cover articles are cited significantly more than non-cover articles, with this difference being long-lasting. However, when considering all articles (past and future) by Nature authors, we find that the publication of a cover article causes citations to previous articles by its authors to decline relative to citations to articles by non-cover authors.     

Growth and nature of international LIS research: An analysis of two journals

The study explores the publication trends of scholarly journal articles in two core Library and Information Science (LIS) journals indexed under ScienceDirect Database during the period for the period 2000–2010, and for the “Top 25 Hottest Papers” for 2006–2010. It examines and presents an analysis of 1000 research papers in the area of LIS published in two journals: The International Information & Library Review (IILR) and Library & Information Science Research (LISR). The study examines the content of the journals, including growth of the literature, authorship patterns, geographical distributions of authors, distribution of papers by journal, citation pattern, ranking pattern, length of articles, and most cited authors. Collaboration was calculated using Subramanyam's formula, and Lotka's law was used to identify authors' productivity. The results indicated that authors' distributions did not follow Lotka's law. The study identified the eight most productive authors with a high of 19 publications in this field. The findings indicate that these publications experienced rapid and exponential growth in literature production. The contributions by scientists from India are examined.     

The Web impact of open access social science research

For a long time, Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) journal citations have been widely used for research performance monitoring of the sciences. For the social sciences, however, the Social Sciences Citation Index® (SSCI®) can sometimes be insufficient. Broader types of publications (e.g., books and non-ISI journals) and informal scholarly indicators may also be needed. This article investigates whether the Web can help to fill this gap. The authors analyzed 1530 citations from Google™ to 492 research articles from 44 open access social science journals. The articles were published in 2001 in the fields of education, psychology, sociology, and economics. About 19% of the Web citations represented formal impact equivalent to journal citations, and 11% were more informal indicators of impact. The average was about 3 formal and 2 informal impact citations per article. Although the proportions of formal and informal online impact were similar in sociology, psychology, and education, economics showed six times more formal impact than informal impact. The results suggest that new types of citation information and informal scholarly indictors could be extracted from the Web for the social sciences. Since these form only a small proportion of the Web citations, however, Web citation counts should first be processed to remove irrelevant citations. This can be a time-consuming process unless automated.     

Citation Analysis to Assist Selection in Kinesiology

This article presents a citation analysis of articles published in 2011 from 11 kinesiology journals. The results of the citation analysis of 11 kinesiology journals are compared to a citation analysis of articles published in 2011 by faculty in the School of Kinesiology, University of Michigan. Comparing the four areas of kinesiology, Movement Science, Athletic Training, Sports Management, and Physical Education, the results show that articles published in Movement Science and Athletic Training cited a higher percentage of journal articles than articles published in Sports Management and Physical Education. While some of the materials cited went as far back as 1874, the mean age ranged from 1996 to 2004. Human Kinetics was the most cited publisher and the American Journal of Sports Medicine was the most cited journal. The University of Michigan Library owns 75% of the materials cited in the publications cited by School of Kinesiology faculty. Faculty in the School of Kinesiology cited many textbooks, a format not actively collected by the library before this analysis.     

Information sources in library and information science doctoral research

A citation analysis of 61 library science and information science dissertations revealed some interesting publication patterns. About 80% of the citations are to single authors, and as in analyses of periodical literature, males are cited more than females overall (about 61% to 39%). In dissertations related to school or public libraries, the male/female distribution is less disparate; for studies in academic or special libraries two thirds of the authors are male, and male authorship is 75% when only information science dissertations are analyzed. Journal articles are cited more than books, book chapters, proceedings, theses, and other formats with College & Research Libraries and Journal of the American Society for Information Science used most. Library and information science is impacted by several other disciplines, primarily education, computer science, health/medicine, psychology, communications, and business. Authors cited in dissertations represent a somewhat less parochial list in terms of citing U.S. publications than authors cited in studies analyzing journal citations; over half of all works cited were published within the last 10 years.     

The hyperlinking pattern of open-access journals in library and information science: A cited citing reference study

Using 17 open-access journals published without interruption between 2000 and 2004 in the field of library and information science, this study compares the pattern of cited/citing hyperlinked references of Web-based scholarly electronic articles under various citation ranges in terms of language, file format, source and top-level domain. While the patterns of cited references were manually examined by counting the live hyperlinked-cited references, the patterns of citing references were examined by using the cited by tag in Google Scholar. The analysis indicates that although language, top-level domain, and file format of citations did not differ significantly for articles under different citation ranges, sources of citation differed significantly for articles in different citation ranges. Articles with fewer citations mostly cite less-scholarly sources such as Web pages, whereas articles with a higher number of citations mostly cite scholarly sources such as journal articles, etc. The findings suggest that 8 out of 17 OA journals in LIS have significant research impact in the scholarly communication process.     

An evaluation of information behaviour studies through the Scholarly Capital Model

Influence and capital are two concepts used to evaluate scholarly outputs, and these can be measured using the Scholarly Capital Model as a modelling tool. The tool looks at the concepts of connectedness, venue representation, and ideational influence using centrality measures within a social network. This research used co‐authorships and h‐indices to investigate authors who have published papers in the field of information behaviour between 1980 and 2015 as extracted from Web of Science. The findings show a relationship between the authors’ connectedness and the venue (journal) representation. It could be seen that the venue (journal) influences the chance of citation, and equally, the prestige (centrality) of authors probably raises the citations of the journals. The research also shows a significant positive relationship between the venue representation and ideational influence. This means that a research work that is published in a highly cited journal will find more visibility and will receive more citations.     

国内物理学期刊arXiv自存档论文的引用优势研究——以Frontiers of Physics期刊为例

对2008-2011年发表于Frontiers of Physics期刊上的161篇论文进行数据分析,发现13.66%的论文进行了arXiv自存档,自存档论文被引用的比率是非自存档论文的2.24倍,篇均被引频次是非自存档论文的6.06倍,高被引优势为400%,在出版者网站上其篇均下载次数比非自存档论文高约11%。建议国内物理学期刊出版者加强网站建设,在获得作者授权情况下代替作者完成arXiv自存档以及利用arXiv辅助约稿,充分利用arXiv平台提升期刊引用水平。     

高校图书馆期刊文献保障实证研究——以武汉大学为例

在开放存取蓬勃发展和高校图书馆馆藏电子化的大趋势下,高校图书馆的文献保障工作如何适应新的趋势,需要深入研究。本文以武汉大学2013年被SCIE、SSCI和A&HCI所收录文章的期刊类参考文献为研究样本,采用一种针对期刊类参考文献的以年为单位的引文检查方法,匹配世界主要开放存取期刊目录以及武汉大学图书馆馆藏电子和印本期刊目录,研究当前这三类期刊对样本参考文献及来源期刊的收藏和缺藏情况。以此探讨三类期刊在高校图书馆文献资源保障中的特征与趋势,以及开放存取期刊对馆藏资源建设的影响,为高校图书馆进一步优化期刊馆藏体系和提高文献保障率提供科学依据。     

Effects of article retraction on citation and practice in medicine.

At times, there are reasons for authors to make a formal statement of retraction of work they publish in biomedical journals. This study examines 235 retracted articles and looks at the reasons for these retractions and citations to the articles subsequent to retraction. The primary reasons for retraction are error of various kinds (such as problems with method or sample, including contamination of samples) and misconduct. The 235 articles are cited a total of 2,034 times after retraction. This set of citations can be divided into two groups: citations that appear in journals included in the Abridged Index Medicus and those that appear in other journals included in MEDLINE. While most of the citations in these two groups of journals can be categorized as "implicitly positive," 275 make explicitly positive mention of retracted articles. The implications for continued citation for biomedical research and clinical practice are discussed.