IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v74y2008i1d10.1007_s11192-008-0106-3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The declining scientific impact of theses: Implications for electronic thesis and dissertation repositories and graduate studies

Author

Listed:
  • Vincent Larivière

    (Université du Québec à Montréal
    McGill University)

  • Alesia Zuccala

    (Rathenau Instituut)

  • Éric Archambault

    (Université du Québec à Montréal
    Science-Metrix)

Abstract

Although the writing of a thesis is a very important step for scientists undertaking a career in research, little information exists on the impact of theses as a source of scientific information. Knowing the impact of theses is relevant not only for students undertaking graduate studies, but also for the building of repositories of electronic theses and dissertations (ETD) and the substantial investment this involves. This paper shows that the impact of theses as information sources has been generally declining over the last century, apart from during the period of the ‘golden years’ of research, 1945 to 1975. There is no evidence of ETDs having a positive impact; on the contrary, since their introduction the impact of theses has actually declined more rapidly. This raises questions about the justification for ETDs and the appropriateness of writing monograph style theses as opposed to publication of a series of peer-reviewed papers as the requirement for fulfilment of graduate studies.

Suggested Citation

  • Vincent Larivière & Alesia Zuccala & Éric Archambault, 2008. "The declining scientific impact of theses: Implications for electronic thesis and dissertation repositories and graduate studies," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 74(1), pages 109-121, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:74:y:2008:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-008-0106-3
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-008-0106-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-008-0106-3
    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/s11192-008-0106-3?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. Vincent Larivière & Éric Archambault & Yves Gingras & Étienne Vignola‐Gagné, 2006. "The place of serials in referencing practices: Comparing natural sciences and engineering with social sciences and humanities," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 57(8), pages 997-1004, June.
    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. Lav R. Varshney, 2012. "The Google effect in doctoral theses," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 92(3), pages 785-793, September.
    2. Antonio Fernández-Cano & Manuel Torralbo & Mónica Vallejo, 2012. "Time series of scientific growth in Spanish doctoral theses (1848–2009)," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 91(1), pages 15-36, April.
    3. Nils T. Hagen, 2010. "Deconstructing doctoral dissertations: how many papers does it take to make a PhD?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 85(2), pages 567-579, November.
    4. Hamid Bouabid, 2014. "Science and technology metrics for research policy evaluation: some insights from a Moroccan experience," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(1), pages 899-915, October.
    5. Siviwe Bangani, 2018. "The impact of electronic theses and dissertations: a study of the institutional repository of a university in South Africa," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(1), pages 131-151, April.
    6. Paul Donner, 2021. "Citation analysis of Ph.D. theses with data from Scopus and Google Books," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(12), pages 9431-9456, December.

    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. Müller, Harry & Dilger, Alexander, 2011. "Ein Ranking von Hochschulen und (Bundes-)Ländern am Beispiel der Betriebswirtschaftslehre," Discussion Papers of the Institute for Organisational Economics 8/2011, University of Münster, Institute for Organisational Economics.
    2. Sándor Soós & Zsófia Vida & András Schubert, 2018. "Long-term trends in the multidisciplinarity of some typical natural and social sciences, and its implications on the SSH versus STM distinction," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(3), pages 795-822, March.
    3. Adèle Paul-Hus & Rébecca L. Bouvier & Chaoqun Ni & Cassidy R. Sugimoto & Vladimir Pislyakov & Vincent Larivière, 2015. "Forty years of gender disparities in Russian science: a historical bibliometric analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 102(2), pages 1541-1553, February.
    4. Fatima M Felisberti & Rebecca Sear, 2014. "Postdoctoral Researchers in the UK: A Snapshot at Factors Affecting Their Research Output," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(4), pages 1-7, April.
    5. Andrea Mervar & Maja Jokić, 2022. "Core-periphery nexus in the EU social sciences: bibliometric perspective," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(10), pages 5793-5817, October.
    6. Mingers, John & Yang, Liying, 2017. "Evaluating journal quality: A review of journal citation indicators and ranking in business and management," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 257(1), pages 323-337.
    7. Siluo Yang & Xin Xing & Fan Qi & Maria Cláudia Cabrini Grácio, 2021. "Comparison of academic book impact from a disciplinary perspective: an analysis of citations and altmetric indicators," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(2), pages 1101-1123, February.
    8. Milojević, Staša & Sugimoto, Cassidy R. & Larivière, Vincent & Thelwall, Mike & Ding, Ying, 2014. "The role of handbooks in knowledge creation and diffusion: A case of science and technology studies," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 693-709.
    9. Abramo, Giovanni & Aksnes, Dag W. & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea, 2021. "Gender differences in research performance within and between countries: Italy vs Norway," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2).
    10. Beril T. Arik & Engin Arik, 2017. "“Second Language Writing” Publications in Web of Science: A Bibliometric Analysis," Publications, MDPI, vol. 5(1), pages 1-12, March.
    11. Ekaterina L. Dyachenko, 2014. "Internationalization of academic journals: Is there still a gap between social and natural sciences?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(1), pages 241-255, October.
    12. Lyu, Haihua & Bu, Yi & Zhao, Zhenyue & Zhang, Jiarong & Li, Jiang, 2022. "Citation bias in measuring knowledge flow: Evidence from the web of science at the discipline level," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(4).
    13. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo & Myroslava Hladchenko, 2023. "Assessing the effects of publication requirements for professorship on research performance and publishing behaviour of Ukrainian academics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(8), pages 4589-4609, August.
    14. Jappelli, Tullio & Nappi, Carmela Anna & Torrini, Roberto, 2017. "Gender effects in research evaluation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(5), pages 911-924.
    15. Allison L. Hopkins & James W. Jawitz & Christopher McCarty & Alex Goldman & Nandita B. Basu, 2013. "Disparities in publication patterns by gender, race and ethnicity based on a survey of a random sample of authors," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 96(2), pages 515-534, August.
    16. Ole Ellegaard, 2018. "The application of bibliometric analysis: disciplinary and user aspects," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(1), pages 181-202, July.
    17. Mingers, John & Leydesdorff, Loet, 2015. "A review of theory and practice in scientometrics," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 246(1), pages 1-19.
    18. Robert H. Stupnisky & Vincent Larivière & Nathan C. Hall & Oluwamakinde Omojiba, 2023. "Predicting Research Productivity in STEM Faculty: The Role of Self-determined Motivation," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 64(4), pages 598-621, June.
    19. Beaudry, Catherine & Larivière, Vincent, 2016. "Which gender gap? Factors affecting researchers’ scientific impact in science and medicine," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(9), pages 1790-1817.
    20. Mahdi Khelfaoui & Julien Larrègue & Vincent Larivière & Yves Gingras, 2020. "Measuring national self-referencing patterns of major science producers," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(2), pages 979-996, May.

    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:74:y:2008:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-008-0106-3. 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.