IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v46y1999i3d10.1007_bf02459609.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The definition and calibration of biomedical subfields

Author

Listed:
  • G. Lewison

    (The Wellcome Trust)

Abstract

This paper first explains the need to define subfields of science by means of “filters” that selectively retrieve papers from a database, and then describes how such filters are constructed and calibrated. Good filters should have precision and recall of the order of 90% so as to be representative of a subfield; they are created by an interactive partnership between an expert in the subject and a bibliometrician. They are based primarily on the use of title keywords, often in combination rather than singly, and specialist journals. Their calibration depends on experts marking lists of papers extracted by the filter as relevant, don't know or not relevant. This allows the actual size of a subfield to be estimated and hence the relative importance accorded to it within a major field of science. It permits organisations and countries to see their contributions to individual scientific subfields in detail.

Suggested Citation

  • G. Lewison, 1999. "The definition and calibration of biomedical subfields," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 46(3), pages 529-537, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:46:y:1999:i:3:d:10.1007_bf02459609
    DOI: 10.1007/BF02459609
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/BF02459609
    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/BF02459609?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. Grant Lewison, 1996. "The definition of biomedical research subfields with title keywords and application to the analysis of research outputs," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 6(1), pages 25-36, April.
    2. Bourke, Paul & Butler, Linda, 1998. "Institutions and the map of science: matching university departments and fields of research," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 711-718, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Grant Lewison & Guillermo Paraje, 2004. "The classification of biomedical journals by research level," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 60(2), pages 145-157, June.
    2. Pedro Cosme Vieira & Aurora A. C. Teixeira, 2010. "Are finance, management, and marketing autonomous fields of scientific research? An analysis based on journal citations," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 85(3), pages 627-646, December.
    3. Ajay Aggarwal & Preeti Patel & Grant Lewison & Abdulkarim Ekzayez & Adam Coutts & Fouad M Fouad & Omar Shamieh & Rita Giacaman & Tezer Kutluk & Rima Abdul Khalek & Mark Lawler & Peter Boyle & Diana Sa, 2020. "The Profile of Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) research in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region: Analyzing the NCD burden, research outputs and international research collaboration," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(4), pages 1-19, April.
    4. Grit Laudel, 2003. "Studying the brain drain: Can bibliometric methods help?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 57(2), pages 215-237, June.
    5. Grant Lewison, 2002. "Researchers" and users" perceptions of the relative standing of biomedical papers in different journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 53(2), pages 229-240, February.
    6. Bryn Lander, 2013. "Sectoral collaboration in biomedical research and development," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 94(1), pages 343-357, January.
    7. Elena Pallari & Grant Lewison, 2022. "Cardiovascular and cancer risk factors analysis for 2001–2020 from the global research output and European newspapers," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(9), pages 5159-5174, September.
    8. Carmen López-Illescas & Ed C.M. Noyons & Martijn S. Visser & Félix De Moya-Anegón & Henk F. Moed, 2009. "Expansion of scientific journal categories using reference analysis: How can it be done and does it make a difference?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 79(3), pages 473-490, June.
    9. Jacqueline Leta & Grant Lewison, 2003. "The contribution of women in Brazilian science: A case study in astronomy, immunology and oceanography," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 57(3), pages 339-353, July.
    10. Rons, Nadine, 2018. "Bibliometric approximation of a scientific specialty by combining key sources, title words, authors and references," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 113-132.

    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. Ran Xu & Navid Ghaffarzadegan, 2018. "Neuroscience bridging scientific disciplines in health: Who builds the bridge, who pays for it?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 117(2), pages 1183-1204, November.
    2. Lundberg, Jonas, 2007. "Lifting the crown—citation z-score," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 1(2), pages 145-154.
    3. Mulyanto,, 2016. "Productivity of R&D institution: The case of Indonesia," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 78-91.
    4. Choong-Han Song, 2003. "Interdisciplinarity and knowledge inflow/outflow structure among science and engineering research in Korea," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 58(1), pages 129-141, September.
    5. Grant Lewison & Guillermo Paraje, 2004. "The classification of biomedical journals by research level," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 60(2), pages 145-157, June.
    6. Ismael Rafols & Martin Meyer, 2010. "Diversity and network coherence as indicators of interdisciplinarity: case studies in bionanoscience," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 82(2), pages 263-287, February.
    7. Ismael Rafols & Alan Porter & Loet Leydesdorff, 2009. "Overlay Maps of Science: a New Tool for Research Policy," SPRU Working Paper Series 179, SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School.
    8. Eric J. Iversen & Aris Kaloudis, "undated". "The changing role of patents and publishing in basic and applied modes of organised research," STEP Report series 199906, The STEP Group, Studies in technology, innovation and economic policy.
    9. E. Bassecoulard & M. Zitt, 1999. "Indicators in a research institute: A multi-level classification of scientific journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 44(3), pages 323-345, March.
    10. Francesco Giovanni Avallone & Alberto Quagli & Paola Ramassa, 2022. "Interdisciplinary research by accounting scholars: An exploratory study," FINANCIAL REPORTING, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2022(2), pages 5-34.
    11. Rons, Nadine, 2018. "Bibliometric approximation of a scientific specialty by combining key sources, title words, authors and references," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 113-132.
    12. Jacqueline Leta & Grant Lewison, 2003. "The contribution of women in Brazilian science: A case study in astronomy, immunology and oceanography," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 57(3), pages 339-353, July.
    13. Dag W. Aksnes & Terje Bruen Olsen & Per O. Seglen, 2000. "Validation of Bibliometric Indicators in the Field of Microbiology: A Norwegian Case Study," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 49(1), pages 7-22, August.
    14. Hamid Bouabid & Mohamed Dalimi & Zayer ElMajid, 2011. "Impact evaluation of the voluntary early retirement policy on research and technology outputs of the faculties of science in Morocco," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 86(1), pages 125-132, January.
    15. Ross Gore & Saikou Diallo & Jose Padilla, 2016. "Classifying modeling and simulation as a scientific discipline," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(2), pages 615-628, November.
    16. Sybille Hinze, 1999. "Collaboration and cross-disciplinarity in autoimmune diseases," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 46(3), pages 457-471, November.
    17. T. J. Phelan, 1999. "A compendium of issues for citation analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 45(1), pages 117-136, May.
    18. Carmen Galvez & Félix Moya-Anegón, 2007. "Standardizing formats of corporate source data," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 70(1), pages 3-26, January.
    19. Sjoerd Hardeman, 2013. "Organization level research in scientometrics: a plea for an explicit pragmatic approach," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 94(3), pages 1175-1194, March.
    20. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo & Flavia Costa, 2017. "Specialization versus diversification in research activities: the extent, intensity and relatedness of field diversification by individual scientists," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 112(3), pages 1403-1418, September.

    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:46:y:1999:i:3:d:10.1007_bf02459609. 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.