242 ANN. LIB. INF. STU., DECEMBER 2009 Annals of Library and Information Studies Vol. 56, December 2009, pp. 242-248 Indian Journal of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (1996-2006) a bibliometric analysis A. P. Kulkarni 1, Balaji Poshett 2 and G. R. Narwade 2 1 Head, Quality Assurance Department, Y. B. Chavan College of Pharmacy, Roza Bagh, Aurangabad-01, Email: alpakul2005@yahoo.com 2 Assistant Librarian, Nanded Pharmacy College, Shyamnagar, Nanded - 431605 Bibliometric analysis of the journal Indian Journal of Pharmaceutical Education and Research reveals that journals are the predominant citation source followed by books. Analysis shows that majority of the scientists preferred to publish research papers in multiple authorship and there is considerable time lag in publication of articles from the date of receipt of the papers. Introduction Initially, bibliometric study was a simple statistical method of counting to evaluate and quantify the growth of a subject 1. Bibliometric techniques are now being used for a variety of purposes like determination of various scientific indicators, evaluation of scientific output, selection of journals for the libraries, forecasting the research potential of a particular field 2 and so on. Bibliometric studies can be applied to any discipline to find out trends and growth of the literature. The selection of source for collection of the data is very important in such studies. Since journal articles include current research, usually journals are considered as a source for testing 3. Bibliometric studies of many journals have been carried out in the past 4-9. Indian Journal of Pharmaceutical Education and Research, the source journal of the present bibliometric study is published by the Association of Pharmaceutical Teachers of India (APTI). It is a quarterly journal that publishes the original research work of the authors, review articles, short communications. It also publishes notes, book reviews, reports of seminars and conferences, synopsis of doctoral thesis, interviews with eminent personalities, continuing pharmaceutical education, invited editorial, institutional news, APTI news etc. The study pertains to data collected from the journal for the period 1996-2006. Objective of the study To study the year-wise distribution, authorship pattern, number and types of citations for individual articles, number of pages per articles, time lag in publishing the article, geographical distribution of articles, and subject trend of articles. Methodology The study covers eleven volumes (volume 30-40) containing 42 issues of IJPER during the years 1996-2006 (4 th issue of volume 32 was dedicated to constitution and development of APTI; 4 th issue of volume 35 was published in the memory of Hon. M. L. Shroff). The data collected was recorded on to sheets with predesigned columns. All the required data like (a) title of article, (b) subject, (c) number of authors, (d) number of pages, (e) date of receipt, date of acceptance and date of publication of the articles, (f) number of references and their forms, (h) the institute s address were tabulated. The data was subjected to the analysis as per the objective of the study. Analysis of the studies Year-wise distribution of publications Table 1 gives the year-wise distribution of articles in the journal. The number varies from year to year and the number of articles have increased during 1996-2006. The years 2005 and 2006 have the highest number of 43
KULKARNI & NARWADE : INDIAN JOURNAL OF PHARMACEUTICAL EDUCATION AND RESEARCH 243 Table 1 Year-wise distribution of publications Year No of articles % of articles No of articles per issue 1996 20 6.46 5 1997 17 5.50 4.3 1998 20 6.47 5 1999 34 11.0 8.5 2000 25 8.09 6.3 2001 22 7.12 7.33 2002 27 8.74 6.8 2003 29 9.39 7.3 2004 29 9.39 7.3 2005 43 13.92 10.8 2006 43 13.92 10.8 Total 309 100 7.36 Table 2 Citation pattern Year No of articles No of Average citations Average citation citations per article s per journal issue 1996 20 101 5.05 25.25 1997 17 136 8.00 34.0 1998 20 172 8.60 57.33 1999 34 146 4.29 36.5 2000 25 148 5.92 37.0 2001 22 269 12.23 89.67 2002 27 498 18.44 124.5 2003 29 553 19.06 138.25 2004 29 688 23.72 172.0 2005 43 871 20.26 217.75 2006 43 868 20.19 217.0 Total 309 4450 106.19 publications (13.92%). The year 1997 has the minimum number of 17 articles which is 5.5%. Maximum number of articles published per issue is 10.8 in the year 2005 and 2006 each. Minimum number of articles published per issue was in 1997 when only 17 articles were published during that year. Citation pattern Table 2 shows the number of citations, total number of citations, and average number of citations per article as well as per issue. A Total of 4450 citations are distributed amongst 42 journal issues having 309 articles. It is
244 ANN. LIB. INF. STU., DECEMBER 2009 Table 3 Bibliographical distribution of citations Year Journals Books Proceedings Reports Theses Patents Electronic Others* Total 1996 71 21 3 4 - - - 2 101 1997 61 35 16 2 - - - 22 136 1998 115 23 7 4 - - - 23 172 1999 52 34 12 6 - - - 42 146 2000 74 53 4-2 - 1 14 148 2001 197 28 18 - - - 18 8 269 2002 373 70 11 3-2 26 13 498 2003 370 111 20 5 5 7 14 21 553 2004 521 81 11 5 16-40 14 688 2005 632 133 12 2 16 3 34 39 871 2006 670 72 16 10 10 6 51 33 868 Total 3136 661 130 41 49 18 84 231 4450 *Other sources include ISO guidelines, WHO guidelines, pharmacist s oath, hand book of laws, gazettes, abstracts, newspapers, pharmacopoeias, workshop manuals, bulletins of pharmaceutical industries and hospitals, software, syllabi. Table 4 Authorship pattern Year Single author Joint authors Three authors More than three Total authors 1996 13 6 1-20 1997 12 3 1 1 17 1998 10 6 3 1 20 1999 19 6 5 4 34 2000 13 5 5 2 25 2001 10 6 1 5 22 2002 5 13 5 4 27 2003 4 8 6 11 29 2004 5 8 7 9 29 2005 1 14 8 20 43 2006 7 5 12 19 43 Total 99 80 54 76 observed that the number of citations per year varies from year to year. The year 2004 has the highest number of citations per article. Bibliographical distribution of citations The bibliographical forms of citations are divided into broad categories that include journals, books, proceedings, reports, theses, patents, electronic media and others. Table 3 represents the year-wise distribution of citations. From the Table it can be observed that journals are cited predominantly in all the years followed by books. Both the types constitute 85.32% of total citations. Other sources constitute 5.19% of total citations and they include ISO guidelines, WHO guidelines, pharmacist s oath, hand book of laws, gazettes, abstracts, newspapers, pharmacopoeias, workshop manuals, bulletins of
KULKARNI & NARWADE : INDIAN JOURNAL OF PHARMACEUTICAL EDUCATION AND RESEARCH 245 Table 5 Average length of articles Year No. of articles No. of pages Cumulative no. of pages Average no. of pages per article 1996 20 77 77 3.85 1997 17 73 150 4.29 1998 20 66 216 3.3 1999 34 121 337 3.56 2000 25 72 409 2.88 2001 22 84 493 3.82 2002 27 142 635 5.26 2003 29 167 802 5.76 2004 29 144 946 4.97 2005 43 300 1246 6.98 2006 43 218 1446 5.07 pharmaceutical industries and hospitals, softwares, syllabi, etc. Authorship pattern The authorship pattern determines the type of research. It is found from Table 4 that out of 309 articles, the number of single authored articles is the highest and it accounts for 32.0%. The two authored articles are 25.89% followed by multiple authored articles. Length of articles The average length of articles and the total number pages of articles are shown in Table 5. The table shows that the average length of articles is 4.74 pages. It is also observed that the average length of articles varied from a minimum of 2.88 pages to a maximum of 6.98 pages. Time lag The time lag is the time taken between the date of receipt of a paper (for publication) and the date of actual publication of the same. The information regarding the date of receipt and date of acceptance of articles is not available for 4 issues of volumes 30-34 (years 1996-2000) and for first two issues of volume 35 (2001). The tables 6(a), 6(b) and 6(c) represent the average time taken between the dates of receipt of articles to the acceptance of articles, time elapsed between the dates of acceptance of articles to the publication of articles, and time elapsed from receipt to publication of articles respectively. The tables indicate that the average time taken between the dates of receipt of articles to the acceptance of articles is 156.80 days. The average time for acceptance to publication is 123.86 days. The average time for receipt to publication is 279.80 days. Minimum time required from receipt to acceptance is 2 days. Maximum time required for the same is 580 days. Minimum time required from acceptance to publication is 1 day. Maximum time required for the same is 389 days. Minimum time required from receipt to publication is 12 days, whereas maximum time required for the same is 742 days. Geographical distribution of contributors The distribution of publications with the rank is given in Table 7. During analysis it is observed that most of the articles are contributed by Indian authors. The number of Indian contributors is 272 and the percentage is 93.15, while foreign contributors are 6.47%. As maximum contributors are from India, the geographical spread of contributors from India was studied. From Table 7 it is found that Karnataka contributed highest number of articles (75, 24.27%) followed by Maharashtra (72, 23.3%). Tamil Nadu contributed 36 articles with 11.65% and occupied third position. Chandigarh contributed 21 articles with 6.8% and occupied fourth position. Other states have contributed 88 articles with 33.08%. Subject areas of the articles All the articles in the journal was studied and classified under various areas. It was found that papers on pharmaceutical education constituted the highest number of articles during the period 1996-2006 (87, 28.16%) (Table 8). The subjects pharmaceutics and pharma-
246 ANN. LIB. INF. STU., DECEMBER 2009 Table 6(a) Time lag between receipt to acceptance of paper Year Average time taken Minimum time taken Maximum time taken from receiving to the publication (in days) (in days) of article (in days) 1996-2000 Data not available Data not available Data not available 2001 81.5 9 204 2002 74.19 2 212 2003 139.75 20 550 2004 212.71 2 580 2005 210.21 2 495 2006 222.43 39 438 Table 6(b) Time lag between acceptance to publication of paper Year Average time taken Minimum time taken Maximum time taken from receiving to the publication (in days) (in days) of article (in days) 1996-2000 Data not available Data not available Data not available 2001 97.7 51 218 2002 110.26 27 303 2003 184.36 10 389 2004 62.36 1 220 2005 86.41 7 217 2006 202.07 65 315 Table 6(c) Time lag between receipt to publication of paper Year Average time taken Minimum time taken Maximum time taken from receiving to the publication (in days) (in days) of article (in days) 1996-2000 Data not available Data not available Data not available 2001 186 67 401 2002 188.19 59 352 2003 333.82 126 742 2004 257.07 12 581 2005 292.07 15 606 2006 422.24 195 661 ceutical chemistry constituted equal number of articles (53, 17.15%) followed by pharmacology having 38 number of articles (12.29). Other headings constituted 77 articles. Conclusion The increasing number of contributions in the journal shows that the journal is a respected primary publication for all those who are serious about pharmaceutical
KULKARNI & NARWADE : INDIAN JOURNAL OF PHARMACEUTICAL EDUCATION AND RESEARCH 247 Table 7 Geographical distribution of contributors Sl. No. State No. of articles Cumulative no of % contribution Cumulative % articles contribution 1 Karnataka 75 75 24.27 24.27 2 Maharashtra 72 147 23.30 47.57 3 Tamil Nadu 36 183 11.65 59.22 4 Chandigarh 21 204 6.79 66.01 5 Delhi 15 219 4.85 70.86 6 Gujarat 14 233 4.53 75.39 7 Andhra Pradesh 11 244 3.56 78.95 8 Madhya Pradesh 8 252 2.59 81.54 9 Rajasthan 6 258 1.94 83.48 10 West Bengal 6 264 1.94 85.42 11 Uttar Pradesh 3 267 0.97 86.39 12 Bihar 2 269 0.65 87.04 13 Kerala 2 271 0.65 87.69 14 Foreign 20 291 6.47 94.16 15 Others* 18 309 5.84 100.00 309 100.00 *Others include articles where the place of contributor is not mentioned Table 8 Subject-wise distribution of articles Sl. No. Subject No. of articles % of articles 1 Pharmaceutical Education 87 28.16 2 Pharmaceutical and Analytical Chemistry 54 17.48 3 Pharmaceutics 53 17.15 4 Pharmacology 38 12.29 5 Pharmacy Practice and Community Pharmacy 36 11.65 6 Pharmacognosy and Phytochemistry 22 7.12 7 Pharmaceutical Management and Biotechnology 12 3.88 8 Forensic pharmacy 7 2.27 309 100.00
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