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Do we need a book citation index for research evaluation?

Author

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  • Yves Gingras
  • Mahdi Khelfaoui

Abstract

Given the importance of books and book chapters as vehicles of knowledge in social sciences and humanities (SSH) disciplines, it has previously been thought that the application of citation metrics to the evaluation of these disciplines should also include, in addition to journal articles, citations from books and book chapters. The main argument supporting this claim is the belief that top cited authors in journal articles and in monographs form two distinct populations. In this article, we compare the rankings of the most cited authors in three SSH disciplines (sociology, philosophy, and history), obtained by counting citations in the journal articles covered in the Web of Science, and a large sample of books and book chapters covered in the book citation index. Contrary to what is often suggested, we show that adding book and book chapter citations to journal citations does not produce significantly different rankings than those obtained solely on the basis of citations in journal articles.

Suggested Citation

  • Yves Gingras & Mahdi Khelfaoui, 2019. "Do we need a book citation index for research evaluation?," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 28(4), pages 383-393.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:rseval:v:28:y:2019:i:4:p:383-393.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/reseval/rvz024
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    Cited by:

    1. Arlette Jappe, 2020. "Professional standards in bibliometric research evaluation? A meta-evaluation of European assessment practice 2005–2019," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(4), pages 1-23, April.

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