IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v128y2023i2d10.1007_s11192-022-04599-w.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Self-citation behavior within the health allied professions’ scientific sector in Italy: a bibliometric analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Stefano Vercelli

    (Institute of Veruno, IRCCS)

  • Leonardo Pellicciari

    (IRCCS Fondazione Don Carlo Gnocchi)

  • Andrea Croci

    (Private Practice)

  • Cesare Maria Cornaggia

    (University of Milano Bicocca)

  • Francesca Cecchi

    (IRCCS Fondazione Don Carlo Gnocchi
    University of Florence)

  • Daniele Piscitelli

    (University of Milano Bicocca
    McGill University
    University of Connecticut)

Abstract

National scientific qualification (NSQ) is a procedure to regulate access to Italian academic positions. An increased use of self-citations could favor the achievement of the minimum bibliometric requirements. The aim of this study was to retrospectively analyze the self-citing behavior of successful candidates who applied for the NSQ in the Allied Health Professions (AHP) scientific field. Bibliometric indexes of all candidates qualified in the three first sessions (2012, 2013, and 2016) were retrieved from the Scopus database. We developed a new index (ΔSCR) to detect changes in the candidate's habits based on the difference between the Self Citation Rate (SCR) in the year preceding NSQ and that of the previous 10 years. The Kruskal–Wallis test was used to analyze the ΔSCR between sessions. Multivariate regressions were run to investigate the relationship between ΔSCR and six independent factors. Differences in ΔSCR were found between 2012 and 2013 (p = 0.008), between 2013 and 2016 (p

Suggested Citation

  • Stefano Vercelli & Leonardo Pellicciari & Andrea Croci & Cesare Maria Cornaggia & Francesca Cecchi & Daniele Piscitelli, 2023. "Self-citation behavior within the health allied professions’ scientific sector in Italy: a bibliometric analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(2), pages 1205-1217, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:128:y:2023:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-022-04599-w
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-022-04599-w
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-022-04599-w
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11192-022-04599-w?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. Erin Peebles & Marissa Scandlyn & Blair R Hesp, 2020. "A retrospective study investigating requests for self-citation during open peer review in a general medicine journal," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(8), pages 1-9, August.
    2. Seeber, Marco & Cattaneo, Mattia & Meoli, Michele & Malighetti, Paolo, 2019. "Self-citations as strategic response to the use of metrics for career decisions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 478-491.
    3. Richard Van Noorden & Dalmeet Singh Chawla, 2019. "Hundreds of extreme self-citing scientists revealed in new database," Nature, Nature, vol. 572(7771), pages 578-579, August.
    4. James H. Fowler & Dag W. Aksnes, 2007. "Does self-citation pay?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 72(3), pages 427-437, September.
    5. Federico Scarpa & Vincenzo Bianco & Luca A. Tagliafico, 2018. "The impact of the national assessment exercises on self-citation rate and publication venue: an empirical investigation on the engineering academic sector in Italy," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 117(2), pages 997-1022, November.
    6. Martin Szomszor & David A. Pendlebury & Jonathan Adams, 2020. "How much is too much? The difference between research influence and self-citation excess," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(2), pages 1119-1147, May.
    7. Justin W. Flatt & Alessandro Blasimme & Effy Vayena, 2017. "Improving the Measurement of Scientific Success by Reporting a Self-Citation Index," Publications, MDPI, vol. 5(3), pages 1-6, August.
    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. Abramo, Giovanni & D'Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea & Grilli, Leonardo, 2021. "The effects of citation-based research evaluation schemes on self-citation behavior," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(4).
    2. Hui Li & Weishu Liu, 2020. "Same same but different: self-citations identified through Scopus and Web of Science Core Collection," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(3), pages 2723-2732, September.
    3. Yangping Zhou, 2021. "Self-citation and citation of top journal publishers and their interpretation in the journal-discipline context," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(7), pages 6013-6040, July.
    4. Ameni Kacem & Justin W. Flatt & Philipp Mayr, 2020. "Tracking self-citations in academic publishing," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(2), pages 1157-1165, May.
    5. Mansour Haghighat & Javad Hayatdavoudi, 2021. "How hot are hot papers? The issue of prolificacy and self-citation stacking," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(1), pages 565-578, January.
    6. Martin Szomszor & David A. Pendlebury & Jonathan Adams, 2020. "How much is too much? The difference between research influence and self-citation excess," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(2), pages 1119-1147, May.
    7. Jonathan D. Wren & Constantin Georgescu, 2022. "Detecting anomalous referencing patterns in PubMed papers suggestive of author-centric reference list manipulation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(10), pages 5753-5771, October.
    8. Taşkın, Zehra & Doğan, Güleda & Kulczycki, Emanuel & Zuccala, Alesia Ann, 2021. "Self-Citation Patterns of Journals Indexed in the Journal Citation Reports," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(4).
    9. Chen, Kun & Ren, Xian-tong & Yang, Guo-liang, 2021. "A novel approach for assessing academic journals: Application of integer DEA model for management science and operations research field," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(3).
    10. Petersen, Alexander M. & Pan, Raj K. & Pammolli, Fabio & Fortunato, Santo, 2019. "Methods to account for citation inflation in research evaluation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(7), pages 1855-1865.
    11. Siler, Kyle & Larivière, Vincent, 2022. "Who games metrics and rankings? Institutional niches and journal impact factor inflation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(10).
    12. Petersen, Alexander M., 2019. "Megajournal mismanagement: Manuscript decision bias and anomalous editor activity at PLOS ONE," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(4).
    13. Lauranne Chaignon & Domingo Docampo & Daniel Egret, 2023. "In search of a scientific elite: highly cited researchers (HCR) in France," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(10), pages 5801-5827, October.
    14. Fry, Caroline V. & Lynham, John & Tran, Shannon, 2023. "Ranking researchers: Evidence from Indonesia," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(5).
    15. Rabishankar Giri & Sabuj Kumar Chaudhuri, 2021. "Ranking journals through the lens of active visibility," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(3), pages 2189-2208, March.
    16. Dong-Hui Yang & Xin Li & Xiaoxia Sun & Jie Wan, 2016. "Detecting impact factor manipulation with data mining techniques," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(3), pages 1989-2005, December.
    17. Perc, Matjaž, 2010. "Zipf’s law and log-normal distributions in measures of scientific output across fields and institutions: 40 years of Slovenia’s research as an example," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 4(3), pages 358-364.
    18. Waleed M. Sweileh & Sa’ed H. Zyoud & Suleiman Al-Khalil & Samah W. Al-Jabi & Ansam F. Sawalha, 2014. "Assessing the Scientific Research Productivity of the Palestinian Higher Education Institutions," SAGE Open, , vol. 4(3), pages 21582440145, July.
    19. Wang, Jiang-Pan & Guo, Qiang & Zhou, Lei & Liu, Jian-Guo, 2019. "Dynamic credit allocation for researchers," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 520(C), pages 208-216.
    20. Antonin Mac'e, 2017. "The Limits of Citation Counts," Papers 1711.02695, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2023.

    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:spr:scient:v:128:y:2023:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-022-04599-w. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.