IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/infome/v5y2011i1p214-218.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Strange attractors in the Web of Science database

Author

Listed:
  • García-Pérez, Miguel A.

Abstract

Accurate computation of h indices or other indicators of research impact requires access to databases supplying complete and accurate citation information. The Web of Science (WoS) database is widely used for this purpose and it is generally deemed error-free. This note describes an inaccuracy that seems to affect differentially non-English sources and targets in WoS, namely, “phantom citations” (i.e., papers reported by WoS to cite some article when they actually did not) and their concentration around particular articles that are thus dubbed “strange attractors”. The analysis of references in (and citations to) papers in two English sources and two non-English sources reveals that phantom citations and other errors of indexing occur about twice as often with non-English items. These and other errors of commission affect about 1% of the cited references in the WoS database, and they may reveal large-scale problems in the reference matching algorithm in WoS.

Suggested Citation

  • García-Pérez, Miguel A., 2011. "Strange attractors in the Web of Science database," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 214-218.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:5:y:2011:i:1:p:214-218
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2010.07.006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751157710000702
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.joi.2010.07.006?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tove Faber Frandsen & Jeppe Nicolaisen, 2008. "Intradisciplinary differences in database coverage and the consequences for bibliometric research," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 59(10), pages 1570-1581, August.
    2. Lokman I. Meho & Yvonne Rogers, 2008. "Citation counting, citation ranking, and h‐index of human‐computer interaction researchers: A comparison of Scopus and Web of Science," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 59(11), pages 1711-1726, September.
    3. Norris, Michael & Oppenheim, Charles, 2007. "Comparing alternatives to the Web of Science for coverage of the social sciences’ literature," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 1(2), pages 161-169.
    4. Lokman I. Meho & Kiduk Yang, 2007. "Impact of data sources on citation counts and rankings of LIS faculty: Web of science versus scopus and google scholar," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 58(13), pages 2105-2125, November.
    5. Rousseau, Ronald, 2007. "The influence of missing publications on the Hirsch index," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 2-7.
    6. Judit Bar-Ilan, 2008. "Which h-index? — A comparison of WoS, Scopus and Google Scholar," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 74(2), pages 257-271, February.
    7. Liwen Vaughan & Debora Shaw, 2008. "A new look at evidence of scholarly citation in citation indexes and from web sources," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 74(2), pages 317-330, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. García-Pérez, Miguel A., 2012. "An extension of the h index that covers the tail and the top of the citation curve and allows ranking researchers with similar h," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 689-699.
    2. Massimo Franceschet, 2010. "A comparison of bibliometric indicators for computer science scholars and journals on Web of Science and Google Scholar," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 83(1), pages 243-258, April.
    3. Elizabeth S. Vieira & José A. N. F. Gomes, 2009. "A comparison of Scopus and Web of Science for a typical university," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 81(2), pages 587-600, November.
    4. Judit Bar-Ilan, 2010. "Citations to the “Introduction to informetrics” indexed by WOS, Scopus and Google Scholar," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 82(3), pages 495-506, March.
    5. Waltman, Ludo, 2016. "A review of the literature on citation impact indicators," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 365-391.
    6. Gaby Haddow & Paul Genoni, 2010. "Citation analysis and peer ranking of Australian social science journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 85(2), pages 471-487, November.
    7. Alonso, S. & Cabrerizo, F.J. & Herrera-Viedma, E. & Herrera, F., 2009. "h-Index: A review focused in its variants, computation and standardization for different scientific fields," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 273-289.
    8. Teja Koler-Povh & Primož Južnič & Goran Turk, 2014. "Impact of open access on citation of scholarly publications in the field of civil engineering," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(2), pages 1033-1045, February.
    9. Peder Olesen Larsen & Markus Ins, 2010. "The rate of growth in scientific publication and the decline in coverage provided by Science Citation Index," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 84(3), pages 575-603, September.
    10. Bornmann, Lutz & Marx, Werner & Schier, Hermann & Rahm, Erhard & Thor, Andreas & Daniel, Hans-Dieter, 2009. "Convergent validity of bibliometric Google Scholar data in the field of chemistry—Citation counts for papers that were accepted by Angewandte Chemie International Edition or rejected but published els," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 27-35.
    11. Christoph Bartneck, 2017. "Reviewers’ scores do not predict impact: bibliometric analysis of the proceedings of the human–robot interaction conference," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 110(1), pages 179-194, January.
    12. Halevi, Gali & Moed, Henk & Bar-Ilan, Judit, 2017. "Suitability of Google Scholar as a source of scientific information and as a source of data for scientific evaluation—Review of the Literature," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 823-834.
    13. Alberto Martín-Martín & Enrique Orduna-Malea & Emilio Delgado López-Cózar, 2018. "Coverage of highly-cited documents in Google Scholar, Web of Science, and Scopus: a multidisciplinary comparison," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(3), pages 2175-2188, September.
    14. Zhang, Lin & Thijs, Bart & Glänzel, Wolfgang, 2011. "The diffusion of H-related literature," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 5(4), pages 583-593.
    15. Kousha, Kayvan & Thelwall, Mike & Rezaie, Somayeh, 2010. "Using the Web for research evaluation: The Integrated Online Impact indicator," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 4(1), pages 124-135.
    16. Mad Ithnin Salleh & Nurul Fadly Habidin & Abdul Halim Masnan & Nordin Mamat, 2017. "Estimating Technical Efficiency and Bootstrapping Malmquist Indices: Analysis of Malaysian Preschool Sector," International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, vol. 7(3), pages 440-457, March.
    17. Li, Jiang & Sanderson, Mark & Willett, Peter & Norris, Michael & Oppenheim, Charles, 2010. "Ranking of library and information science researchers: Comparison of data sources for correlating citation data, and expert judgments," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 4(4), pages 554-563.
    18. Moussa, Salim & Touzani, Mourad, 2010. "Ranking marketing journals using the Google Scholar-based hg-index," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 4(1), pages 107-117.
    19. Anne-Wil Harzing, 2013. "A preliminary test of Google Scholar as a source for citation data: a longitudinal study of Nobel prize winners," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 94(3), pages 1057-1075, March.
    20. Takanori Ida & Naomi Fukuzawa, 2013. "Effects of large-scale research funding programs: a Japanese case study," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 94(3), pages 1253-1273, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Citation analysis; Scientometrics;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:5:y:2011:i:1:p:214-218. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/joi .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.