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1 – 10 of 308The use of law reports as a source for data on citation patterns in the courts of law has been pioneered in the United States and to some extent in Canada. Very little work has…
Abstract
The use of law reports as a source for data on citation patterns in the courts of law has been pioneered in the United States and to some extent in Canada. Very little work has been undertaken within the English legal system until now. The difficulties faced are noted: the complexity of the court structures and the law reporting system, but above all the limitations of using law reports rather than the original case transcripts which are difficult to obtain. A citation file was built from the citations included in all the issues of fifty‐eight different law report titles issued during 1985. Since there is a degree of duplication in coverage of cases between the law report publications, 5,260 versions of 2,451 unique cases were discovered, yielding a file of 25,868 citations (excluding those to statutory materials). The file was reduced to 11,159 citations (excluding those to statutory materials) by selecting only the longest versions, according to the number of words, of each of the 2,451 cases. Analyses are presented on the general characteristics of the citation file (the proportion of citations to each of twenty‐four different material types), the frequency of citation to statutory materials, case law and other materials (each cross‐tabulated by citing court, subject matter of the citing case and, except for statutory materials, whether the citation occurred in argument by counsel only or in the judgement). For case law only further analyses were performed to identify the jurisdiction of cited cases, self citation practice by different courts, the ageing of authority, the law report titles from which cited cases were taken, the use of unreported cases, and the occurrence of cases without citations to earlier case law.
Symbols for concepts like ‘half life’, ‘impact factor’, ‘normalised impact factor’ and ‘immediacy index’ are proposed and formulas for the determination of their values are…
Abstract
Symbols for concepts like ‘half life’, ‘impact factor’, ‘normalised impact factor’ and ‘immediacy index’ are proposed and formulas for the determination of their values are provided. The features of the concepts are also highlighted.
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Yanhui Song, Xukang Shen and Junping Qiu
Aging research has traditionally been an important research topic in the field of Library and Information Science(LIS). The study of aging enables us to grasp the extent of…
Abstract
Purpose
Aging research has traditionally been an important research topic in the field of Library and Information Science(LIS). The study of aging enables us to grasp the extent of development and the status of aging in LIS. The purpose of this paper is to explore the current law of aging in LIS and to research the impact of interdisciplinary citations on the aging of the discipline.
Design/methodology/approach
By using citation analysis methods and fitting them using the Barnett aging model, the aging law of LIS is explored with the help of aging indicators such as citing half-life and Price Index. For interdisciplinary study, the authors explore the pattern of interdisciplinary citations distribution by distinguishing LIS and non-LIS citations by journal name.
Findings
The results show that LIS is currently aging slowly and has reached a relatively mature stage. It has a high reliance on archival literature. The interdisciplinary citations distribution is broadly consistent with the overall citation distribution, and interdisciplinary citations can increase the age of applicability of the literature.
Originality/value
Based on LIS journal citation data, the paper validates the rationality of Barnett model applied in the field of literature aging research using nonlinear regression analysis, which can effectively reflect the aging law of literature and enable scholars to predict its development trend more accurately. In addition, according to the current trend of interdisciplinary citation, this paper explores the impact of interdisciplinary citations on the aging of the literature and provides a new idea for future aging research.
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Ubaid Ullah Shah, Rabiya Mushtaq, Suhail Ahmad Bhat and Sumeer Gul
The purpose of the study is to evaluate the relationship of Journal Publication Timeline (submission to first decision and submission to final decision) with various Journal…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the study is to evaluate the relationship of Journal Publication Timeline (submission to first decision and submission to final decision) with various Journal Metrics (citing half-life, article influence score, the immediacy index, the acceptance rate, the impact factor (IF), five years IF, Eigenfactor and cited half-life) of top 600 journals retrieved from Journal Citation Report (JCR) 2020 under the tag, Elsevier Unified.
Design/methodology/approach
Top 600 journals in the decreasing order of the IFs under the tag, “Elsevier Unified” were retrieved from JCR 2020 of Clarivate Analytics. Information about “Journal Metrics” was ascertained using “Customized Service” of JCR, while information about the “Publication Timeline” of each journal was obtained using Elsevier's “Journal Insights Service.” It was found that only 177 journals provided the complete information regarding the “Publication Timeline” and hence considered for the study. Descriptive statistics and correlation analysis was conducted to test the different hypotheses.
Findings
It was found that submission to first decision has a significant relationship with the immediacy index, citing half-life and the acceptance rate. Submission to final decision has a significant relationship with Journal Impact Factor (JIF), the immediacy index, Eigenfactor, citing half-life and the acceptance rate.
Research limitations/implications
The study will provide the authors with sound and valuable information to support their selection of journals. Inferences in light of fluctuations in the scholarly communication process in terms of Publication Timelines and Journal Metrics can be deeply understood with the aid of the current study's findings. What considerations authors have to take before submitting their papers is the main implication of the study. Journal administrators can also benefit from the findings of the current study as it can help recruit and manage reviewers, which will ensure a successful publication timeline.
Originality/value
The study correlates Publication Timeline Indicators with Journal Metrics Indicators using secondary cross-sectional data. Though most previous studies only examine the relationship of the Publication Timeline with the Journal Impact Factor (JIF), there is very scarce literature that deciphers the influence of Publication Timeline indicators on different Journal Metrics indicators (including JIF).
Peer review
The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-02-2022-0108.
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The main purpose of this paper is to measure the status and quality of library and information science (LIS) open-access (OA) journals in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI).
Abstract
Purpose
The main purpose of this paper is to measure the status and quality of library and information science (LIS) open-access (OA) journals in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI).
Design/methodology/approach
The study selected 86 source journals of LIS in the SSCI as a sample and measured their status of open access. Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was used to analyze 36 OA journals of 86 source journals, especially their production capability, academic influence and network communication ability.
Findings
The results indicate that OA journals have become an increasingly important part of LIS journals. Production capability, academic influence and network communication ability are important factors affecting the quality of OA journals. These three evaluation indicators of LIS OA journals are high, but many still have room for improvement.
Research limitations/implications
As the paper is limited by collecting data, the indicators of OA journals’ quality are not all-around. So, they cannot reflect the quality of LIS OA journals. In the selection of the evaluation method, the evaluation results are limited because only one AHP method is used.
Practical implications
The research on evaluation of OA journals can help library and scientific research personnel use OA journals effectively. Identifying key factors on evaluation can help researchers to construct OA journals better.
Social implications
The research on OA journals’ quality can also promote the study on OA process in academic circles and promote the communication, development and utilization of academic information. Such research can also enrich the theory of OA, and provide some new perspectives for the study of journals’ evaluation.
Originality/value
This paper measures the quality of LIS OA journals by analyzing production capability, academic influence and network communication ability. Rather than the traditional research methods, the focus of this study is on the value of the Web as a source of impact indices. It contributes to the scholarly impact measurements of OA journals.
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Ian Rowlands and David Nicholas
The aim of this short communication is to contribute to a growing debate about how we can measure the “quality” of journals. More specifically, the paper argues the need for a new…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this short communication is to contribute to a growing debate about how we can measure the “quality” of journals. More specifically, the paper argues the need for a new range of standardized indicators based on reader (rather than author‐facing) metrics.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a thought experiment, outlining the kinds of usage indicators that could be developed alongside the traditional ISI measures of impact, immediacy and obsolescence.
Findings
The time is ripe to develop a set of standardised measures of journal usage that are as easy to understand, and as universally accepted, as ISI's current citation‐based indicators. By linking article publication year to full text downloads, this article argues that very considerable value could be extracted from what, in many cases, is almost uninterpretable data.
Practical implications
Indicators in the form proposed could find a wide variety of applications, from helping librarians to assess the potential value‐for‐money of bundled journal deals, to helping policy‐makers and scholarly communication researchers to better understand the dynamics of knowledge diffusion.
Originality/value
The development of standardized usage factors in the form suggested here would radically shift the centre of gravity in bibliometrics research from the author to the reader. This remains largely unexplored territory.
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Ali Sadat‐Moosavi, Alireza Isfandyari‐Moghaddam and Oranus Tajeddini
This research aims to study the state of online resources cited in scholarly library and information science (LIS) journals which are ranked in ISI and available in the Emerald…
Abstract
Purpose
This research aims to study the state of online resources cited in scholarly library and information science (LIS) journals which are ranked in ISI and available in the Emerald database in terms of accessibility and decay.
Design/methodology/approach
Four LIS journals published by Emerald were selected from Thomson Reuters' JCR. The journals' issues from 2005 to 2008 were downloaded directly from the publisher web site and checked in terms of decay and availability of individual cited URLs.
Findings
Original accessibility of studied online resources was 64 percent, which improved to 95 percent. The main adopted strategies that returned more results were using the Wayback Machine and Google, which revived online resources by 17 percent and 12 percent respectively.
Practical implications
To increase the rate of web citations accessibility, some recommendations, including avoiding long URLs, citing documents found in digital collections availability on the web, working through systematic checking of the web citations before publication, getting backup of cited information, using the more stable file formats and domains, and utilizing tools like WebCite®‐enhanced reference and a digital object identifier (DOI®) system are suggested.
Originality/value
A study which examines the accessibility and decay of web citations used by authors of articles published in ISI‐ranked LIS journals available in the Emerald database has not been already done. This paper can thus contribute to the knowledge of this field as well as quality of such literature for web content providers and publishers, authors and researchers.
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Linda Cox and David Ellis
This paper aims to look at two well-respected cardiothoracic journals and one general medical journal over the period of a decade to find out any major differences in content and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to look at two well-respected cardiothoracic journals and one general medical journal over the period of a decade to find out any major differences in content and referencing to warrant the fact that the general journal should be ranked far higher than the specialist journals.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper conducted citation analysis and comparison with impact factors (IFs) of two cardiothoracic journals, one American and one European, and one general medical journal over the period.
Findings
The study concludes that although there was a significant amount of self-referenced non-citable material in the general medical journal, this probably did not alone account for its higher ranking.
Research limitations/implications
The original articles were actually very highly cited, and perhaps, the visibility of the general medical journal could possibly be the main factor contributing to its high IF.
Practical implications
In terms of citation, all contribution in an issue of a journal is not equal, and therefore, to evaluate work by looking at the IF of the journal in which it is published is not reliable.
Originality/value
The study is based on an original citation and IF analysis, and the results should be of interest and value to all those concerned with the use of the IF to evaluate journals.
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This paper aims to conduct a comprehensive analysis to evaluate the current situation of journals, examine the factors that influence their development, and establish an…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to conduct a comprehensive analysis to evaluate the current situation of journals, examine the factors that influence their development, and establish an evaluation index system and model. The objective is to enhance the theory and methodologies used for journal evaluation and provide guidance for their positive development.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses empirical data from economics journals to analyse their evaluation dimensions, methods, index system and evaluation framework. This study then assigns weights to journal data using single and combined evaluations in three dimensions: influence, communication and novelty. It calculates several evaluation metrics, including the explanation rate, information entropy value, difference coefficient and novelty degree. Finally, this study applies the concept of fuzzy mathematics to measure the final results.
Findings
The use of affiliation degree and fuzzy Borda number can synthesize ranking and score differences among evaluation methods. It combines internal objective information and improves model accuracy. The novelty of journal topics positively correlates with both the journal impact factor and social media mentions. In addition, journal communication power indicators compensate for the shortcomings of traditional citation analysis. Finally, the three-dimensional representative evaluation index serves as a reminder to academic journals to avoid the vortex of the Matthew effect.
Originality/value
This paper proposes a journal evaluation model comprising academic influence, communication power and novelty dimensions. It uses fuzzy Borda evaluation to address issues related to the weighing of single evaluation methods. This study also analyses the relationship of the three dimensions and offers insights for journal development in the new media era.
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Hei‐Chia Wang, Ya‐lin Chou and Jiunn‐Liang Guo
The paper's aim is to propose a core journal decision method, called the local impact factor (LIF), which can evaluate the requirements of the local user community by combining…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper's aim is to propose a core journal decision method, called the local impact factor (LIF), which can evaluate the requirements of the local user community by combining both the access rate and the weighted impact factor, and by tracking citation information on the local users' articles.
Design/methodology/approach
Many institutions with a limited budget can subscribe only to the most valuable journals for their users. The importance of a journal to a local community can be calculated in many ways. This paper takes both global and local access frequency and journal citations into consideration. The method of weighted web page link analysis is adopted.
Findings
This paper finds that the weighted page rank may be used efficiently in the core journal decisions. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed LIF can effectively suggest journals to local users better than existing methods (i.e. impact factor or the local journal rank).
Research limitations/implications
This research requires the determination of the thesis scores, which needs authorisation from the authors. If the scores are not available, the scores may be subjectively assigned or retrieved from the other resources.
Practical implications
A case study in National Cheng Kung University was conducted to show that the LIF can be used to help library managers evaluate the real demands of local community users.
Originality/value
Rather than existing research, this paper focuses on the utilisation and requirements of local community users and also finds the contributions of citation information to be significant and critical.
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