Bibliometric glossary

Transcription

1 Bibliometric glossary

2 Bibliometric glossary Benchmarking The process of comparing an institution s, organization s or country s performance to best practices from others in its field, always taking into account the fitness for comparison. The overall goal is performance improvement. Bibliographic database a collection of bibliographic data or information organized for rapid search and retrieval Bibliography a systematic study, listing and description of information media (books, journal articles, etc.scientific information Bibliometrics the application of mathematical and statistical methods to books and other media of communication' (PRITCHARD, 1969). Both terms, bibliometrics and scientometrics, are practically used as synon ym s. Big science In contract contrast to little science, characterized by large budget, large staff, large equipment and intensive collaboration and growing interdisciplinarity. Big science emerged in the 1940s ( Manhattan Project ) and is typical of the second half of the 20th and the 21th century. The transition from little science to big science has been described by de Solla Price (1963). Citation database a bibliographic index including searchable references and therefore making the progress of research traceable in both time directions (citing and cited by) Co-activity refers to inventors who act as authors of scientific papers and vice versa their co-activity is manifested by simultaneous patenting and publication activity Collaboration or co-operation in research refers to joint research work within various frameworks such as joint projects, individual collaboration or international collaboration. different forms are distinguished, e.g., intramural collaboration (i.e., within the same department, institute), extramural domestic (i.e., between different institutes in the same country), international or multinational collaboration (with participation of more than two countries) 02 esss European Summer School for Scientometrics

3 measurement of scientific collaboration on the basis of published literature is difficult. at the level of extramural collaboration, bibliometric methods based on co-authorship analysis proved to be a good proxy. Data cleaning comprises all processes of preparing data for the use in a given context in bibliometrics this implies, among others, correction of misprints, correcting (systematic) errors, completing missing data (e.g. in addresses), processing homonyms and synonyms Data reduction in general means removing redundant information not necessary or not essential for the intended use in bibliometrics this results in optimal use of storing capacity data reduction speeds up data processing and facilitates portability Disambiguation is part of data cleaning and pre-processing of bibliographic data to be used in bibliometrics disambiguation means separating homonyms according to their meaning the opposite procedure is assigning all synonyms to one single term with the same meaning Document types refer to different types of papers published in a scientific journal. not all of the various document types (e.g., research article, letter to the editor, proceeding paper, editorial material, review, meeting abstract, book review, reprint, correction or errata) can be considered important conveyors of original scientific information less relevant or non-relevant document types are not taken into consideration in bibliometric studies unless those being the subject of specific analysis. Emergence the arising of novel and coherent structures, pattern and properties in a research field (within the context of Scientometrics) Excellence equivalent to highest quality or being top achieving and also maintaining excellence is becoming increasingly important for researchers and research managers, especially in research assessment and the allocation of funds Full-text database compilation of documents or other information in the form of a database in which the complete text of each referenced document is available for online viewing, printing, or downloading 03 esss European Summer School for Scientometrics

4 in addition to text documents, images are often included, such as graphs, maps, photos, and diagrams Funding formulas created and used as keys for the distribution of funding, mainly among universities and institutions in a country quantitative keys are also used for distribution of means within institutions. They are usually based on composite indexes comprising traditional output data (such as number of master and doctoral theses at universities) and increasingly bibliometric components (e.g., number of publications, citations, and derivative measures) Hot topics Topics based on hot papers, i.e. papers that receive citations rapidly post publication in comparison to other papers within the same field and age. These are currently drawing the attention of the research community. Homonyms Identical terms with different meanings. This might apply to (personal) names (e.g., Smith, J. covers numerous persons), acronyms (e.g., ISI historically stands for Institute for Scientific Information in Philadelphia, USA, Institute for Scientific Interchange in Turin, Italy, as Fraunhofer ISI for Fraunhofer Institut für System- und Innovationsforschung in Karlsruhe, Germany, etc.), (corporate) addresses (e.g., Free Univ Brussels, Limburg) and others. Impact impact in bibliometrics means the effect of research activities on the scientific community and the society impact is usually measured through the reception of these activities above all, citation impact plays an important part. Citation impact measures the reception of published research results through citations. Indicators in bibliometrics are statistics built, e.g. on author, publication and citation data most indicators are mean values, relative frequencies, percentiles and their derivatives indicators can be standardised and normalised to compensate various biases and to allow comparative analyses Little science the traditional science as known from the 19 th and early 20 th century it is characterized by research conducted by individual scientists working without assistance or with small teams in small labs with modest budget and partially using (own) private means 04 esss European Summer School for Scientometrics

5 this is contrasted by big science the transition from little science to big science has been described by DESOLLA PRICE (1963) Mapping of science an official term for scientometric cartography the aim of this cartography is plotting the structure of science by visualising the relationship among the actors and units in the scientific community prominent examples are the link networks of science disciplines on the basis of thematic similarity, country networks based on the strength of collaboration, or author networks according to the frequency of being jointly cited Peer review part of the process of subjecting a scientist s research results by experts. It covers, in particular, the (anonymous) scholarly review process for publication of the results. Proceedings paper work that was presented in whole or in part at a conference. It can be published in a journal (article or special supplement), a series or a book consistent indexing is a known issue in databases Publications collective term for different document types in Library and Information Science books are also called monographs to distinguish them from periodicals such as magazines, journals and newspapers books are uniquely identified by an ISBN, periodicals by an ISSN (different for print and electronic journal versions); some series are hybrid forms characterized by both identifiers Research profiles express how research activities of a unit are spread over disciplines, sectors, or of how co-operation is spread among partners, etc. Review article publication by one or more writers to summarize the current state of the relevant research on a particular topic Review articles include the main players in the field of interest, recent advances and hot topics, current debates as well as prospects Review articles are bibliographies written by experts and therefore invaluable for the retrieval of key articles providing a basic idea in a given field. That is why they are cited more often than regular articles, and potential bias should always be considered. Review articles are most commonly published in review journals. Subject-classification usually made on the basis of subject-headings provided by the bibliographic databases 05 esss European Summer School for Scientometrics

6 the creation of appropriate hierarchically structured classification schemes has become a specific task in bibliometric research contemporary subject classification is closely linked to advanced data-analytical methods such as used for mapping of science as well Synonyms different terms with the same meaning this might apply to (personal) names (e.g., Moed, H. and Moed, H.F. partially cover the same person), acronyms, (corporate) addresses (e.g., through translation), keywords (e.g. bibliometric and scientometric) and others Scientometrics the application of those quantitative methods which are dealing with the analysis of science viewed as an information process (NALIMOV & MULCHENKO, 1969). both terms, bibliometrics and scientometrics, are practically used as synonyms Scholarly communication that part of (documented) scientific information that refers to communication among researchers this traditionally comprises publications in scientific journals, conference proceedings, books and monographs text books for education, articles in newspapers, feuilletons, magazines for the broad public or popular scientific work are not covered by this term Scientific information Topics based on hot papers, i.e. papers that receive citations rapidly post publication in comparison to other papers within the same field and age. These are currently drawing the attention of the research community. Text mining covers text-analytical methods for obtaining relevant and high-quality information from a text body composed in natural language in bibliometrics, text-mining techniques are applied to scientific literature, ideally to full-text papers, but in practice mostly to titles and summaries of publications (or additionally to addresses and references and other fields) extracted from bibliographic databases Visibility means that published results are easily accessible through the commonly used channels of scholarly communication publication in prominent journals often ensures high visibility since these journals are read by most scientists dealing with the same or similar topics the web has somewhat inflated the notion of visibility since web visibility has considerably broadened visibility of scientists and their results 06 esss European Summer School for Scientometrics

7 the opposite of visibility is obscurity Visualization not necessarily related to mapping of science although most visualizations refer to the presentation of structural aspects of scientific research in general, visualization comprises any graphical representation of bibliometric results, for instance, in relational charts or using other graphical tools specifically developed for bibliometric use References НАЛИМОВ, В.В., МУЛЬЧЕНКО, З.М. (1969), Наукометрия, Изд. Наука, Москва. PRICE, D.D. (1963), Little Science, Big Science. Columbia Univ. Press, New York.. PRITCHARD, A. (1969), Statistical bibliography or bibliometrics? Journal of Documentation, 24, esss European Summer School for Scientometrics