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How Can Journal Impact Factors Be Normalized Across Fields of Science? An Assessment in Terms of Percentile Ranks and Fractional Counts
"... effects of (a) fractional counting on the impact factor (IF) and (b) transformation of the skewed citation distribu-tions into a distribution of 100 percentiles and six per-centile rank classes (top-1%, top-5%, etc.). Do these approaches lead to field-normalized impact measures for journals? In addi ..."
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effects of (a) fractional counting on the impact factor (IF) and (b) transformation of the skewed citation distribu-tions into a distribution of 100 percentiles and six per-centile rank classes (top-1%, top-5%, etc.). Do these approaches lead to field-normalized impact measures for journals? In addition to the 2-year IF (IF2), we con-sider the 5-year IF (IF5), the respective numerators of these IFs, and the number of Total Cites, counted both as integers and fractionally. These various indicators are tested against the hypothesis that the classification of journals into 11 broad fields by PatentBoard/NSF (National Science Foundation) provides statistically sig-nificant between-field effects. Using fractional counting the between-field variance is reduced by 91.7 % in the case of IF5, and by 79.2 % in the case of IF2. However, the differences in citation counts are not significantly affected by fractional counting. These results accord with previous studies, but the longer citation window of a fractionally counted IF5 can lead to significant improvement in the normalization across fields.
Search strategies along the academic lifecycle. Scientometrics
, 2012
"... Abstract Understanding how individual scientists build a personal portfolio of research is key to understanding outcomes on the level of scientific fields, institutions, and systems. We lack the scientometric and statistical instruments to examine the development over time of the involvement of rese ..."
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Abstract Understanding how individual scientists build a personal portfolio of research is key to understanding outcomes on the level of scientific fields, institutions, and systems. We lack the scientometric and statistical instruments to examine the development over time of the involvement of researchers in different problem areas. In this paper we present a scientometric method to map, measure, and compare the entire corpus of individual scientists. We use this method to analyse the search strategies of 43 condensed matter physicists along their academic lifecycle. We formulate six propositions that summarise our theoretical expectations and are empirically testable: (1) a scientist’s work consists of multiple finite research trails; (2) a scientist will work in several parallel research trails; (3) a scientist’s role in research trail selection changes along the lifecycle; (4) a scientist’s portfolio will converge before it diverges; (5) the rise and fall of research trails is asso-ciated with career changes; and (6) the rise and fall of research trails is associated with the potential for reputational gain. Four propositions are confirmed, the fifth is rejected, and the sixth could not be confirmed or rejected. In combination, the results of the four confirmed propositions reveal specific search strategies along the academic lifecycle. In the PhD phase scientists work in one problem area that is often unconnected to the later portfolio. The postdoctoral phase is where scientists diversify their portfolio and their social network, entering various problem areas and abandoning low-yielding ones. A professor has a much more stable portfolio, leading the work of PhDs and postdoctoral researchers. We present an agenda for future research and discuss theoretical and policy implications.
The extraction of community structures from publication networks to support ethnographic observations of field differences in scientific communication
- The Author(s), DOI: 10.1177/0165551515577913 at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on September 16, 2016jis.sagepub.comDownloaded from
"... The scientific community of researchers in a research specialty is an important unit of analysis for understand-ing the field-specific shaping of scientific communica-tion practices. These scientific communities are, however, a challenging unit of analysis to capture and compare because they overlap ..."
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The scientific community of researchers in a research specialty is an important unit of analysis for understand-ing the field-specific shaping of scientific communica-tion practices. These scientific communities are, however, a challenging unit of analysis to capture and compare because they overlap, have fuzzy boundaries, and evolve over time. We describe a network analytic approach that reveals the complexities of these commu-nities through the examination of their publication net-works in combination with insights from ethnographic field studies. We suggest that the structures revealed indicate overlapping subcommunities within a research specialty, and we provide evidence that they differ in disciplinary orientation and research practices. By mapping the community structures of scientific fields we increase confidence about the domain of validity of ethnographic observations as well as of collaborative patterns extracted from publication networks thereby enabling the systematic study of field differences. The network analytic methods presented include methods to optimize the delineation of a bibliographic data set to adequately represent a research specialty and methods to extract community structures from this data. We dem-onstrate the application of these methods in a case study of two research specialties in the physical and chemical sciences.
How Do Emerging Technologies Conquer the World? An Exploration of Patterns of Diffusion and Network Formation
"... Grasping the fruits of “emerging technologies ” is an objective of many government priority programs in a knowledge-based and globalizing economy. We use the publication records (in the Science Citation Index) of two emerging technologies to study the mechanisms of diffusion in the case of two innov ..."
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Grasping the fruits of “emerging technologies ” is an objective of many government priority programs in a knowledge-based and globalizing economy. We use the publication records (in the Science Citation Index) of two emerging technologies to study the mechanisms of diffusion in the case of two innovation trajectories: small interference RNA (siRNA) and nano-crystalline solar cells (NCSC). Methods for analyzing and visualizing geographical and cognitive diffusion are specified as indicators of different dynamics. Geographical diffusion is illustrated with overlays to Google Maps; cognitive diffusion is mapped using an overlay to a map based on the ISI Subject Categories. The evolving geographical networks show both preferential attachment and small-world characteristics. The strength of preferential attachment decreases over time, while the network evolves into an oligopolistic control structure with small-world characteristics. The transferability of the research technology in cognitive terms—that is, the transition from “mode-1 ” to “mode-2 ” research—is suggested as the crucial difference in explaining the different rates of diffusion between siRNA and NCSC.
The Local Emergence and Global Diffusion of Research Technologies: An Exploration of Patterns of Network Formation Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (in press)
"... Grasping the fruits of “emerging technologies ” is an objective of many government priority programs in a knowledge-based and globalizing economy. We use the publication records (in the Science Citation Index) of two emerging technologies to study the mechanisms of diffusion in the case of two innov ..."
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Grasping the fruits of “emerging technologies ” is an objective of many government priority programs in a knowledge-based and globalizing economy. We use the publication records (in the Science Citation Index) of two emerging technologies to study the mechanisms of diffusion in the case of two innovation trajectories: small interference RNA (siRNA) and nano-crystalline solar cells (NCSC). Methods for analyzing and visualizing geographical and cognitive diffusion are specified as indicators of different dynamics. Geographical diffusion is illustrated with overlays to Google Maps; cognitive diffusion is mapped using an overlay to a map based on the ISI Subject Categories. The evolving geographical networks show both preferential attachment and small-world characteristics. The strength of preferential attachment decreases over time, while the network evolves into an oligopolistic control structure with small-world characteristics. The transition from disciplinary-oriented (“mode-1”) to transfer-oriented (“mode-2”) research is suggested as the crucial difference in explaining the different rates of diffusion between siRNA and NCSC.
Patent Overlay Mapping: Visualizing Technological Distance
- Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology
, 2014
"... Abstract This paper presents a new global patent map that represents all technological categories, and a method to locate patent data of individual organizations and technological fields on the global map. This overlay map technique can support competitive intelligence and policy decision-making. T ..."
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Abstract This paper presents a new global patent map that represents all technological categories, and a method to locate patent data of individual organizations and technological fields on the global map. This overlay map technique can support competitive intelligence and policy decision-making. The global patent map is based on similarities in citing-to-cited relationships between categories of the International Patent Classification (IPC) of European Patent Office (EPO) patents from 2000 to 2006. This patent dataset, extracted from the PatStat database, includes 760,000 patent records in more than 400 IPC categories. The paper overlays nanotechnology-related patenting activities of two companies and two different nanotechnology subfields on the global patent map. The exercise shows the potential of patent overlay maps to visualize technological areas and potentially support decision-making. Furthermore, this study shows that IPC categories that are similar to one another based on citing-to-cited patterns (and thus are close in the global patent map) are not necessarily in the same hierarchical IPC branch, thus revealing new relationships between technologies that are classified as pertaining to different (and sometimes distant) subject areas in the IPC scheme. 2
Visualizing nanotechnology research in Canada: Evidence from publication activities
- The Journal of Technology Transfer
, 2012
"... Abstract Over the last two decades the scientific community has witnessed unprece-dented growth of nanotechnology research in Canada. Although recent studies have shown that Canada consistently maintains a position in the first tier of productive countries in terms of its share of the world’s nano-p ..."
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Abstract Over the last two decades the scientific community has witnessed unprece-dented growth of nanotechnology research in Canada. Although recent studies have shown that Canada consistently maintains a position in the first tier of productive countries in terms of its share of the world’s nano-publications, a number of key questions remain unanswered. Using a unique nano-related publication dataset, this paper combines bib-liometric analysis and science overlay mapping to visualize the ‘invisible college ’ of Canadian nano research. The present analysis finds that the rapid growth of nanotech-nology research in Canada is, for the most part, externally driven. In recent years, research content has shifted toward nanobiotechnology fields. The geographical distribution of Canadian domestic nanotechnology research is characterized by regional imbalance: most research hubs are located near US–Canadian borders. Canadian nanotechnology scientists have collaborated with a variety of countries, but Chinese scholars in particular play a leading role in Canada’s research exchange across national borders.
An evaluation of impacts in ‘‘Nanoscience & nanotechnology’’: steps towards standards for citation analysis
, 2013
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Patterns of Connections and Movements in Dual-Map Overlays: A New Method of Publication Portfolio Analysis
"... Portfolio analysis of the publication profile of a unit of interest, ranging from individuals, organizations, to a scientific field or interdisciplinary programs, aims to inform analysts and decision makers about the position of the unit, where it has been, and where it may go in a complex adaptive ..."
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Portfolio analysis of the publication profile of a unit of interest, ranging from individuals, organizations, to a scientific field or interdisciplinary programs, aims to inform analysts and decision makers about the position of the unit, where it has been, and where it may go in a complex adaptive environment. A portfolio analysis may aim to identify the gap between the current position of an organization and a goal that it intends to achieve or identify competencies of multiple institutions. We introduce a new visual analytic method for analyzing, comparing, and contrasting characteristics of publication portfolios. The new method introduces a novel design of dual-map thematic overlays on global maps of science. Each publication portfolio can be added as one layer of dual-map overlays over two related but distinct global maps of science, one for citing journals and the other for cited journals. We demonstrate how the new design facilitates a portfolio analysis in terms of patterns emerging from the distributions of citation threads and the dynamics of trajectories as a function of space and time. We first demonstrate the analysis of portfolios defined on a single source article. Then we contrast publication portfolios of multiple comparable units of interest, namely, colleges in universities, corporate research organizations. We also include examples of overlays of scientific fields. We expect the new method will provide new insights to portfolio analysis.
