IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v44y1999i2d10.1007_bf02457380.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The difficulty of achieving full coverage of international social science literature and the bibliometric consequences

Author

Listed:
  • Diana Hicks

    (CHI Research, Inc.)

Abstract

This review of social science bibliometric literature seeks to establish characteristics of the social science literature and to understand their consequences for the coverage of literature databases and for interpretation of bibliometric social science indicators based on such databases. The paper reviews what we know about social science publishing and database coverage of it. It examines the main reasons why social science bibliometrics are problematic, namely: the centrality of books in social science literature and their high citation rate; and the national orientation of social science literatures. The paper then looks at reasons why social science bibliometrics holds increasing promise, namely: increasing internationalization; and good coverage of scholarly journals.

Suggested Citation

  • Diana Hicks, 1999. "The difficulty of achieving full coverage of international social science literature and the bibliometric consequences," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 44(2), pages 193-215, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:44:y:1999:i:2:d:10.1007_bf02457380
    DOI: 10.1007/BF02457380
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/BF02457380
    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/BF02457380?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. Anthony F J van Raan, 1998. "Assessment of social sciences: The use of advanced bibliometric methods as a necessary complement of peer review," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(1), pages 2-6, April.
    2. Nederhof, A. J. & van Raan, A. F. J., 1993. "A bibliometric analysis of six economics research groups: A comparison with peer review," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 353-368, August.
    3. A. J. Nederhof & R. A. Zwaan, 1991. "Quality judgments of journals as indicators of research performance in the humanities and the social and behavioral sciences," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 42(5), pages 332-340, June.
    4. Peter M Burnhill & Margarete E Tubby-Hille, 1994. "On measuring the relation between social science research activity and research publication," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 4(3), pages 130-152, December.
    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. Goodall, Amanda H., 2009. "Highly cited leaders and the performance of research universities," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(7), pages 1079-1092, September.
    2. Diana Hicks, 2005. "The Four Literatures Of Social Sciences," IBT Journal of Business Studies (JBS), Ilma University, Faculty of Management Science, vol. 1(1), pages 1-20.
    3. Diana Hicks, 2005. "The Four Literatures Of Social Sciences," IBT Journal of Business Studies (JBS), Ilma University, Faculty of Management Science, vol. 1(1), pages 1-1.
    4. Pei-Shan Chi, 2014. "Which role do non-source items play in the social sciences? A case study in political science in Germany," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(2), pages 1195-1213, November.
    5. Vučković Dijana & Pekovic Sanja & Popović Stevo & Janinovic Jovana, 2023. "Assessing the Appraisal of Research Quality in Social Sciences and Humanities: A Case Study of the University of Montenegro," Business Systems Research, Sciendo, vol. 14(1), pages 131-152, September.
    6. Zheng Yan & Wenqian Robertson & Yaosheng Lou & Tom W. Robertson & Sung Yong Park, 2021. "Finding leading scholars in mobile phone behavior: a mixed-method analysis of an emerging interdisciplinary field," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(12), pages 9499-9517, December.
    7. Diana Tal & Avishag Gordon, 2017. "Publication attributes of leadership: what do they mean?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 112(3), pages 1391-1402, September.
    8. Geert Campenhout & Tom Caneghem & Steve Uytbergen, 2008. "A comparison of overall and sub-area journal influence: The case of the accounting literature," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 77(1), pages 61-90, October.
    9. Anthony J. Nederhof & Marc Luwel & Henk F. Moed, 2001. "Assessing the quality of scholarly journals in Linguistics:An alternative to citation-based journal impact factors," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 51(1), pages 241-265, April.
    10. Andrew J. Oswald, 2007. "An Examination of the Reliability of Prestigious Scholarly Journals: Evidence and Implications for Decision‐Makers," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 74(293), pages 21-31, February.
    11. Eduardo A. Haddad & Jesus P. Mena-Chalco, Otávio J.G. Sidone, 2016. "Produção Científica e Redes de Colaboração dos Docentes Vinculados aos Programas de Pós-graduação em Economia no Brasil," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2016_10, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).
    12. Ülle Must, 2012. "Alone or together: examples from history research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 91(2), pages 527-537, May.
    13. Geert Van Campenhout & Tom Van Caneghem, 2010. "Article Contribution and Subsequent Citation Rates: Evidence from European Accounting Review," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(4), pages 837-855.
    14. Groot, Tom & Garcia-Valderrama, Teresa, 2006. "Research quality and efficiency: An analysis of assessments and management issues in Dutch economics and business research programs," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(9), pages 1362-1376, November.
    15. Thelwall, Mike & Fairclough, Ruth, 2015. "The influence of time and discipline on the magnitude of correlations between citation counts and quality scores," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 529-541.
    16. 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.
    17. Bruno S. Frey & Katja Rost, 2010. "Do rankings reflect research quality?," Journal of Applied Economics, Universidad del CEMA, vol. 13, pages 1-38, May.
    18. David L. Anderson & John Tressler, 2016. "Citation-Capture Rates for Economics Journals: Do they Differ from Other Disciplines and Does it Matter?," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 35(1), pages 73-85, March.
    19. Lorna Wildgaard & Jesper W. Schneider & Birger Larsen, 2014. "A review of the characteristics of 108 author-level bibliometric indicators," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(1), pages 125-158, October.
    20. Geisler, E., 1995. "An integrated cost-performance model of research and development evaluation," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 281-294, June.

    More about this item

    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:spr:scient:v:44:y:1999:i:2:d:10.1007_bf02457380. 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.