IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v84y2010i2d10.1007_s11192-009-0118-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A cautionary bibliometric tale of two cities

Author

Listed:
  • G. E. Derrick

    (The University of Sydney)

  • H. Sturk

    (University of Queensland)

  • A. S. Haynes

    (The University of Sydney)

  • S. Chapman

    (The University of Sydney)

  • W. D. Hall

    (University of Queensland)

Abstract

Reliability of citation searches is a cornerstone of bibliometric research. The authors compare simultaneous search returns at two sites to demonstrate discrepancies that can occur as a result of differences in institutional subscriptions to the Web of Science and Web of Knowledge. Such discrepancies may have significant implications for the reliability of bibliometric research in general, but also for the calculation of individual and group indices used for promotion and funding decisions. The authors caution care when describing the methods used in bibliometric analysis and when evaluating researchers from different institutions. In both situations a description of the specific databases used would enable greater reliability.

Suggested Citation

  • G. E. Derrick & H. Sturk & A. S. Haynes & S. Chapman & W. D. Hall, 2010. "A cautionary bibliometric tale of two cities," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 84(2), pages 317-320, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:84:y:2010:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-009-0118-7
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-009-0118-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-009-0118-7
    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/s11192-009-0118-7?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. Chun-Ting Zhang, 2009. "The e-Index, Complementing the h-Index for Excess Citations," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 4(5), pages 1-4, May.
    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. Fedderke, J.W. & Goldschmidt, M., 2015. "Does massive funding support of researchers work?: Evaluating the impact of the South African research chair funding initiative," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 467-482.
    2. Petr Heneberg, 2013. "Lifting the fog of scientometric research artifacts: On the scientometric analysis of environmental tobacco smoke research," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 64(2), pages 334-344, February.
    3. J. W. Fedderke, 2013. "The objectivity of national research foundation peer review in South Africa assessed against bibliometric indexes," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 97(2), pages 177-206, November.
    4. Ricardo Cartes-Velásquez & Carlos Manterola Delgado, 2014. "Bibliometric analysis of articles published in ISI dental journals, 2007–2011," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(3), pages 2223-2233, March.
    5. Michael Gowanlock & Rich Gazan, 2013. "Assessing researcher interdisciplinarity: a case study of the University of Hawaii NASA Astrobiology Institute," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 94(1), pages 133-161, January.

    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. Vîiu, Gabriel-Alexandru, 2016. "A theoretical evaluation of Hirsch-type bibliometric indicators confronted with extreme self-citation," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 552-566.
    2. Aurelia Magdalena Pisoschi & Claudia Gabriela Pisoschi, 2016. "Is open access the solution to increase the impact of scientific journals?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(2), pages 1075-1095, November.
    3. Shuangqing Sheng & Wei Song & Hua Lian & Lei Ning, 2022. "Review of Urban Land Management Based on Bibliometrics," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-25, November.
    4. Bornmann, Lutz & Mutz, Rüdiger & Daniel, Hans-Dieter, 2010. "The h index research output measurement: Two approaches to enhance its accuracy," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 4(3), pages 407-414.
    5. Zhenbin Yan & Qiang Wu & Xingchen Li, 2016. "Do Hirsch-type indices behave the same in assessing single publications? An empirical study of 29 bibliometric indicators," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(3), pages 1815-1833, December.
    6. 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.
    7. M. Ryan Haley, 2016. "A ranking of journals for the aspiring health economist," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(18), pages 1710-1718, April.
    8. Zoltán Krajcsák, 2021. "Researcher Performance in Scopus Articles ( RPSA ) as a New Scientometric Model of Scientific Output: Tested in Business Area of V4 Countries," Publications, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-23, October.
    9. Lathabai, Hiran H., 2020. "ψ-index: A new overall productivity index for actors of science and technology," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(4).
    10. Shu-Chun Kuo & Yu-Tsen Yeh & Wei-Chih Kan & Tsair-Wei Chien, 2021. "The use of bootstrapping method to compare research achievements for ophthalmology authors in the US since 2010," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(1), pages 509-520, January.
    11. Corey J A Bradshaw & Justin M Chalker & Stefani A Crabtree & Bart A Eijkelkamp & John A Long & Justine R Smith & Kate Trinajstic & Vera Weisbecker, 2021. "A fairer way to compare researchers at any career stage and in any discipline using open-access citation data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(9), pages 1-15, September.
    12. Parul Khurana & Kiran Sharma, 2022. "Impact of h-index on author’s rankings: an improvement to the h-index for lower-ranked authors," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(8), pages 4483-4498, August.
    13. Wildgaard, Lorna, 2016. "A critical cluster analysis of 44 indicators of author-level performance," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 1055-1078.
    14. Stefano Vannucci, 2010. "Dominance dimension: a common parametric formulation for integer-valued scientific impact indices," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 84(1), pages 43-48, July.
    15. Yu Liu & Wei Zuo & Ying Gao & Yanhong Qiao, 2013. "Comprehensive geometrical interpretation of h-type indices," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 96(2), pages 605-615, August.
    16. Brady Lund, 2019. "Examination of correlates of H-index as a measure of research productivity for library and information science faculty in the United States and Canada," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(2), pages 897-915, August.
    17. Alberto Pepe & Michael J Kurtz, 2012. "A Measure of Total Research Impact Independent of Time and Discipline," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(11), pages 1-7, November.
    18. Roberto Todeschini, 2011. "The j-index: a new bibliometric index and multivariate comparisons between other common indices," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 87(3), pages 621-639, June.
    19. Kuan, Chung-Huei & Huang, Mu-Hsuan & Chen, Dar-Zen, 2011. "Ranking patent assignee performance by h-index and shape descriptors," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 303-312.
    20. Nader Ebrahim & Hadi Salehi & Mohamed Embi & Mahmoud Danaee & Marjan Mohammadjafari & Azam Zavvari & Masoud Shakiba & Masoomeh Shahbazi-Moghadam, 2014. "Equality of Google Scholar with Web of Science Citations: Case of Malaysian Engineering Highly Cited Papers," Modern Applied Science, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 8(5), pages 1-63, October.

    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:84:y:2010:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-009-0118-7. 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.