Tag: RESEARCH EVALUATION

Cockerill M. 2006. Identifying the most important research – Is there more to life than Impact Factor? The Write Stuff 15 (3):82-84

Impact factor has become one of the most debated themes on research evaluation. In this article published in the official journal of the European Medical Writers Association (www.emwa.org), Cockerill exoplores the developments in citation tracking services since the pioneering work of Eugene Garfield who created what is now a de facto standard (impact factor). Among them: Google scholar, Scopus, CrossRef, CiteSeer and CiteBAse. Alternatives to IF (article-level citation information, downloads, etc.) are pointed out and critivally discussed.

Mermin ND. 2005. Proper citation of the Matthew effect Physics Today 58(4):17, 87

It points out that the suggested earlier attribution (ibid 58(1):15-16) of the origin of this term (for the tendency to give credit for a scientific advance to the most distinguished of several possible candidates) to Louis & Mary Fieser is incorrect – they used the same Matthew quotation but for a different phenomenon. The original attribution by the author (ibid 57(5):10-11 2004) to Robert Merton (Science 159: 56, 1968) is correct.

Posted for John Glen

Buela-Casal, Gualberto; Perakakis, Pandelis; Taylor, Michael; Checa, Purificacion. 2006. Measuring internationality: Reflections and perspectives on academic journals. Scientometrics. 67(1):45-65

Internationality as a concept is being applied ambiguously, particularly in the world of academic journal publication. Although different criteria are used by scientometrists in order to measure internationality and to supplement its minimal literal meaning, the present study suggests that no single criterion alone is sufficient. Internationality Index, constructed from a combination of suitably weighted criteria, is the only way to unambiguously quantify the degree of internationality.