{"id":199,"date":"2018-07-10T04:50:51","date_gmt":"2018-07-10T04:50:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/liscp10.epgpbooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/?post_type=chapter&p=199"},"modified":"2018-12-07T06:33:04","modified_gmt":"2018-12-07T06:33:04","slug":"challenges-of-bibliometric-and-scientometric-studies","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/liscp10\/chapter\/challenges-of-bibliometric-and-scientometric-studies\/","title":{"rendered":"Challenges of Bibliometric and Scientometric Studies"},"content":{"raw":"
\"epgp<\/a>\r\n<\/span><\/div>\r\n
\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nI.\u00a0 <\/strong>Objectives<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAfter going through this Unit you will be able to:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Understand the importance of bibliometric analysis\r\n\r\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Identify the various indicators used in bibliometric studies\r\n\r\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Classify the indicators according their purpose\r\n

\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Appreciate that a number of important qualifications (and limitations) must be borne in mind when assessing the validity of bibliometric analysis<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nII.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Module Structure<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n1.0 Introduction<\/a>\r\n\r\n2.0 Limitations of Bibliometric Analysis<\/a>\r\n\r\n3.0 Limitations of Citation Analysis<\/a>\r\n\r\n4.0 Characteristics and Limitations of Bibliometric Indicators<\/a>\r\n\r\n4.1 Publication Indicators<\/a>\r\n\r\n4.2 Citation Indicators<\/a>\r\n\r\n4.3 Journal Indicators<\/a>\r\n\r\n5.0 Conclusion<\/a>\r\n\r\n6.0 Summary<\/a>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n \r\n\r\n1.0 Introduction<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n

Bibliometrics, a term coined by Pritchard in 1969, is a measure used to understand the output and impact of scientific communication. Publications and Citations are the two important variables normally used in bibliometrics. Bibliometrics has arguably provided ways and means of benchmarking and evaluation of scholarly work. In recent years bibliometrics has been a growing field of interest in Library and Information Science, yielding to various resultant factors in rankings and decision making process in library management and information services to the users. For example the citation analysis is also used as one of the methods employed in user studies.<\/span><\/p>\r\n \r\n

Bibliometrics \u2013 as a method and as a discipline - has received a greater deal of significance since its\u00a0 germination or genesis.\u00a0 One of the important aspects of the increasing interest in bibliometrics, in the libraries as well as in academia in general is the increasing use\u00a0 of\u00a0 bibliometric\u00a0 indicators\u00a0 to\u00a0 evaluate\u00a0 research performance of faculty and researchers, \u201cespecially in the university\u00a0 and\u00a0 government\u00a0 laboratories,\u00a0 and\u00a0 also\u00a0 by policymakers,\u00a0 research\u00a0 directors\u00a0 and\u00a0 administrators, information specialists and librarians and researchers by themselves\u201d\u00a0 (Pendlebury,\u00a0 2009).The\u00a0 objectivity\u00a0 with which the assessments can be made and repeatability of the analyses are basic reasons for its popularity.\u00a0 Other <\/span>Source: European Physical Society,\u00a0 EDP\u00a0 <\/strong>reasons, for accepting bibliometrics as a measurement<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\n \r\n

Sciences, 2009<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

tool, is its being relatively inexpensive in terms of time, money and effort in its study, and provided a good data source is made available. Scalability is one of the main advantages of bibliometrics as a tool. In other words, it can be applied from a micro level, i.e., an individual researcher or an institute, to a macro level, i.e., country or global level. Ability for comparative analyses \u2013 temporal, geographic, linguistic, biographic, etc. \u2013 in bibliometrics has drawn the attention of many scholars. It has been universally accepted as an ideal method for assessing the research productivity.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

The use in library administration and management is one of the early applications of bibliometrics. Use of bibliometrics in collection development and management in libraries is a well known practice, not the least in relation to digital library management. As a student of Library and Information Science (LIS), you would be interested to know that bibliometrics is a well-established part of LIS research. There has been an increase in the number of research activities by the LIS profession in recent years (Naseer and Mahmood, 2009).<\/span><\/p>\r\n \r\n

Not everything is green for bibliometrics. It has received some criticisms as well. While bibliometric data bring useful information, the implementation often seems to arise from a loss of critical and rational mind and application. In this Unit an attempt is made to identify and to understand the limitations of bibliometrics studies.<\/span><\/p>\r\n \r\n

2.0 Limitations of Bibliometric Analysis<\/strong><\/p>\r\n \r\n

Bibliometrics undoubtedly has its distinct strengths. However, it is also subjected to several valid criticisms. Using bibliometrics to measure the quality in scholarly work has attracted attention of the critiques. As Lalo\u00eb and Mosser (2009) put it, the use of indices such as the H-index at the level of individuals is easy and therefore attractive, but mostly unscientific. Publication counts, one of the widely used indicators, is criticised for this measure of only the quantity and not the quality. Publication counts have also been subject to other criticisms, such as problems associated with gratuitous co-authoring of articles; different publication practices across fields; and difficulties of defining fields of research especially given strong trends towards collaborative research (Lundberg, 2006). These kinds of criticisms can be seen for other measures also.<\/span><\/p>\r\n \r\n

3.0 Limitations of Citation Analysis<\/strong><\/p>\r\n \r\n

Citation analysis, one of the most applied bibliometrics techniques, is also not far from receiving the criticisms. Let us try to understand the limitations of citation analysis in more detail in the subsequent section.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n

There exists a relationship between cited and citing documents; and a citation represents the relationship between them. This is the fundamental principle on which\u00a0citation analysis is based upon. The citation analysis is the area of bibliometrics which deals with the study of this relationship between cited and citing references. Undoubtedly, citation analysis is the most used and useful technique of all. As a concept, it has been responsible for the development of most of the citation databases such Thomson Reuters\u2019s Citation Index, Elsiever\u2019s Scopus, Google\u2019s Google Scholar and so on. Citation analysis is the basis for the development of \u2018Citation Indexing\u2019 by Eugene Garfield. Citation indexing is a kind of indexing in which the bibliographic references of documents are made searchable and refer to the documents being indexed. The cited references in a document are made to be a part of the subject access points available for information retrieval.<\/span><\/p>\r\n \r\n

Why do researchers cite? What is the citers\u2019 motivation for referencing earlier work? These questions have been comprehensively answered by Garfield (1979), the person who originated the citation analysis. He gives a list of 15 reasons for authors to cite earlier works. On examination of these reasons, one may find some of them really show the scholarly impact; and some of them indicate that they have less-than-noble intention behind them. It is the second category of reasons which attract the attention of the critics; and hampers the very purpose of citation analysis.<\/span><\/p>\r\n \r\n

Citation analysis is based on a few assumptions: 1) Citation of a document implies use of that document by the citing author; 2) Citation of document (author, journal, etc.) reflects the merit (quality, significance, impact) of that document (author, journal, etc.); 3) Citations are made to best possible works; 4) A cited document is semantically related in content to the citing document (if two documents are bibliographically coupled, they are related in content; and if two documents are co-cited, they are related in content); and 5) All citations are equal. All these assumptions have inherent flaws in them which are succinctly described below:<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n