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Article
Publication date: 25 November 2019

Thomas Krueger and Jack Shorter

Pay, tenure and promotion decisions are frequently based upon inferences regarding the value of faculty research. Meanwhile, departmental, college and university reputations are…

Abstract

Purpose

Pay, tenure and promotion decisions are frequently based upon inferences regarding the value of faculty research. Meanwhile, departmental, college and university reputations are frequently based on perceptions regarding the quality of research being produced by its faculty. Making correct inferences requires accurate measurement of research quality, which is often based upon the journal through which results are shared. This research expands upon the research found elsewhere through its detailed investigation of leading journals in two business disciplines, including examination of four different citation-based measures and four journal characteristics which are exogenous to the quality of any individual piece of research. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Design/methodology/approach

This study assists in the development of an accurate perspective regarding research quality, by studying the popular Journal Citation Reports (JCR) impact factor. A further expansion on the past literature is consideration of three newer journal quality metrics: SCImago Journal Rank (SJR), Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) and percentage of articles cited. Top-tier journals in finance and information systems are compared to evaluate the consistency of these measures across disciplines. Differences in journal characteristics and their impact on citation-rate based measures of quality are also examined. The potential impact of discipline-based variation in acceptance rate, issue frequency, the time since journal inception and total reviewers are put forth as additional potential exogenous factors that may impact the perception of journal quality. t-Tests are employed for discipline comparisons, while correlation and multiple regression are used for journal characteristic analysis.

Findings

There is a significant difference in the JCR impact measures of high-quality finance journals vs high-quality information systems journals, which are correlated with a variety of journal-specific factors including the journal’s acceptance rate and frequency of issue. Information systems journals domination of finance journals persists whether one considers mean, median, minimum or maximum impact factors. SJR measures for finance journals are consistently higher than information systems journals, though the SJR value of any individual journal can be quite volatile. By comparison, the SNIP metric rates premier information systems journals higher. Over 12 percent more of the articles in leading information systems journals are cited during the initial three years.

Research limitations/implications

Logical extensions of this research include examining journals in other business disciplines. One could also evaluate quality measures reaction to variation in journal characteristics (i.e. changes in acceptance rates). Furthermore, one could include other measures of journal quality, including the recently released CiteScore metric. Such research will build on the present research and improve the accuracy of research quality assessment.

Practical implications

To the extent that citation-based research measures and journal-specific factors vary across disciplines as demonstrated by our investigation, discipline-specific traits should be considered adjusted for, when making inferences about the long-term value of recently published research. For instance, finance faculty publishing in journals with JCR readings of 2.0 are in journals that are 53 percent above the discipline’s average, while information systems faculty publishing in journals with JCR readings of 2.0 are in journals that are 18 percent below the discipline’s average. Furthermore, discipline-specific differences in journal characteristics, leading to differences in citation-based quality measures, should be considered when making inferences about the long-term value of recently published research in the process of making recommendations regarding salary adjustments, retention and promotion.

Social implications

Quantity and quality of research are two hallmarks of leading research institutions. Assessing research quality is very problematic because its definition has changed from being based on review process (i.e. blind refereed), to acceptance rates, to impact factors. Furthermore, the impact factor construct has been a lightning rod of controversy as researchers, administrators and journals themselves argue over which metric to employ. This research is attempting to assess how impact factors and journal characteristics may influence the impact factors, and how these interactions vary business discipline. The research is especially important and relevant to the authors which separately chair departments including finance and information systems faculty, and therefore are in roles requiring assessment of faculty research productivity including quality.

Originality/value

This study is a detailed analysis of bibliographic aspects of the top-tier journals in two quantitative business areas. In addition to the popular JCR, SJR and SNIP measures of performance, the analysis studies the seldom-examined percentage of the article cited metric. A deeper understanding of citation-based measures is obtained though the evaluation of changes in how journals have been rated on these metrics over time. The research shows that there are discipline-related systematic differences in both citation-based research measures and journal-specific factors and that these discipline-specific traits should be considered when making inferences about the long-term value of recently published research. Furthermore, discipline-specific difference in journal characteristics, leading to differences in citation-based quality measures, should be considered when making personnel and remuneration decisions.

Details

Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, vol. 12 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2050-7003

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 15 July 2014

Stefanie Haustein and Vincent Larivière

The purpose of this paper is to show that the journal impact factor (IF) is not able to reflect the full impact of scholarly journals and provides an overview of alternative and…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to show that the journal impact factor (IF) is not able to reflect the full impact of scholarly journals and provides an overview of alternative and complementary methods in journal evaluation.

Design/methodology/approach

Aslib Proceedings (AP) is exemplarily analyzed with a set of indicators from five dimensions of journal evaluation, i.e. journal output, content, perception and usage, citations and management to accurately reflect its various strengths and weaknesses beyond the IF.

Findings

AP has become more international in terms of authors and more diverse regarding its topics. Citation impact is generally low and, with the exception of a special issue on blogs, remains world average. However, an evaluation of downloads and Mendeley readers reveals that the journal is an important source of information for professionals and students and certain topics are frequently read but not cited.

Research limitations/implications

The study is limited to one journal.

Practical implications

An overview of various indicators and methods is provided that can be applied in the quantitative evaluation of scholarly journals (and also to articles, authors and institutions).

Originality/value

After a publication history of more than 60 years, this analysis takes stock of AP, highlighting strengths and weaknesses and developments over time. The case study provides an example and overview of the possibilities of multidimensional journal evaluation.

Details

Aslib Journal of Information Management, vol. 66 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2050-3806

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 January 2016

Mohammad reza Ghane and Mohammad Reza Niazmand

The study aims to monitor the status of open access (OA) journals published in Developing 8 (D-8) countries, i.e. Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan…

Abstract

Purpose

The study aims to monitor the status of open access (OA) journals published in Developing 8 (D-8) countries, i.e. Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors' web-based data sources for journal-based metrics were the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Thomson Reuters (Journal Citation Reports [JCR], which provided journal impact factors [JIF]) and Scopus (source normalized impact per paper [SNIP] and SCImago journal rank [SJR]). The authors obtained information about journals published before 2000 to 2014. From the JCR, JIF, Rank in Category, Total Journals in Category, Journal Rank in Category, and Quartile in Category were used.

Findings

The authors' identified 1,407 OAJ published in D-8 countries. Egypt published the most journals (490) and Bangladesh the fewest (29). Egypt, Iran and Turkey accounted for approximately 73.5 per cent of all journals. At the time of study, 10,162 journals were registered in DOAJ, and 13.8 per cent of them were published in D-8 countries. The mean JIF for all journals from individual countries was highest for Pakistan (0.84), followed by Iran (0.74) and Turkey (0.57). The mean SNIP for all journals from each country was highest for Nigeria (0.57), followed by Egypt (0.57) and Pakistan (0.51).

Practical implications

The widespread use of OA publishing models in D-8 countries will boost accessibility of their journals’ content and ultimately impact research in D-8 states.

Originality/value

Journals published in Egypt, Iran and Turkey account for approximately three-fourths of all OA journals published in D-8 countries. More than one-third (38 per cent) of the journals the authors studied used a Creative Commons (CC) BY license, a hallmark of OA research findings. Most of the journals with a JIF were in the JCR Medical Sciences category (60 per cent). As the number of journals in D-8 countries increases, publishers should attempt to make their journals eligible for indexing in-citation databases. The authors recommend efforts to improve the quality of journals in other subject categories, so that as many as possible become eligible for indexing in JCR.

Details

The Electronic Library, vol. 34 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0264-0473

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 9 January 2017

Raj Kumar Bhardwaj

This paper aims to map information literacy literature in social sciences and humanities published during the period of 2001-2012.

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to map information literacy literature in social sciences and humanities published during the period of 2001-2012.

Design/methodology/approach

The data for the study are obtained from Scopus, accessible at www.scopus.com. Study used the Transformative Activity Index (TAI) and relative citation impact (RCI) to know the impact of most productive countries and prolific institutions. The SCImago Journal and Country Rank accessible at www.scimagojr.com/ was used to determine the SCImago Journal Rank and source normalized impact per paper.

Findings

The study found that 1990 documents originating from 79 countries were published in this study area. These papers are published in 160 journals with an average ∼12.51 papers per journal. These papers have been cited 10,025 times with ∼5.0. average citations per publication. Study also found that information literacy literature is published in 16 languages and the majority of the papers are in English, 1,879 (94.4 per cent). The highest growth of publications (106.7 per cent) was found in 2005. The USA contributed the highest number, 1,035 (52 per cent) papers. Moreover, of the 15 most productive countries, three recorded TAIs >100, and 12 countries recorded TAIs <100. In all, 160 institutions worldwide have contributed in information literacy research. Study also found that maximum literature published on the subject by a single author is 828 (41.6 per cent). Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain has produced the highest number of papers (24, or 1.2 per cent) and received 61 (0.6 per cent) citations, while University of Strathclyde has the highest RCI (∼2.7) for its publications. Pintos, María from Universidad de Granada has published the maximum number of papers (18) that have been cited 78 times.

Social implications

The study endeavors to showcase information literacy research outcomes in social sciences and humanities. It involves quantitative analysis of the literature in this domain using bibliographic elements such as keywords, authors, affiliation, publication and citations.

Originality/value

No study has been conducted so far to map the information literacy literature in social sciences and humanities. Study will be useful in understanding the progress on information literacy in the area of social sciences and humanities. The study is significant for social scientists to foster further research in this emerging area.

Article
Publication date: 1 September 2021

Syed Awais Ahmad Tipu and James Christopher Ryan

This study aims to explore the degree to which the editorial policies of business and management journals explicitly or implicitly discourage replication studies.

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to explore the degree to which the editorial policies of business and management journals explicitly or implicitly discourage replication studies.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper examines differences in editorial policy toward replication studies relative to journal quality, age and sub-discipline area. A total of 600 journals (listed as Q1 and Q2 in Scopus) were selected for the current study.

Findings

The results reveal that out of 600 selected journals, only 28 (4.7%) were explicitly open to considering replication studies, while 331 (55.2%) were neutral, being neither explicitly nor implicitly dismissive of replication studies. A further 238 (39.7%) were implicitly dismissive of replication studies, and the remaining 3 (0.5%) journals were explicitly disinterested in considering replication studies for publication. CiteScore and Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) of neutral journals were significantly lower than those of journals, which were implicitly discouraging replication research. With regard to the journals implicitly discouraging replications (238), journals in the subcategory of business and international management (51) had the highest percentage (21.4%) followed by strategy and management 30 (12.6%) and Organizational Behavior (OB) and Human Resource (HR) 25 (10.5%).

Originality/value

The available literature does not explore the degree to which the editorial policies of business and management journals explicitly or implicitly discourage replication studies. The current study attempts to address this gap in the literature. Given the lack of support for replications among business and management journals, the current paper sets forth the suggested steps which are deemed crucial for moving beyond the replication crisis in the business and management field.

Details

Management Research Review, vol. 45 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-8269

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 October 2017

Mohammadamin Erfanmanesh

This study aims to provide an extensive overview of OA journals’ status and quality in 27 research areas based on all Scopus-indexed journals. It shows the volume of OA journals…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to provide an extensive overview of OA journals’ status and quality in 27 research areas based on all Scopus-indexed journals. It shows the volume of OA journals, proportion of publications in OA journals and the quality of these journals in comparison with subscription-based counterparts.

Design/methodology/approach

This research investigated 22,256 active peer-reviewed journals indexed by Scopus in 2015. Data were gathered using the Journal Metrics website. The current research adopted four indicators to compare the quality of OA and non-OA journals indexed in Scopus under each subject area, namely citedness rate, CiteScore, SNIP and SJR.

Findings

OA journals comprised approximately 17 per cent out of the total journals indexed by Scopus in 2015. The results revealed an uneven spread of OA journals across disciplines, ranged from 5.5 to 28.7 per cent. Studying the quality of journals as measured by CiteScore, SJR SNIP leads us to the finding that, in all research areas, except for health profession and nursing, non-OA journals attain statistically significant higher average quality than do OA journals.

Originality/value

Although OA publishing improves the visibility of scholarly journals, this increase is not always coupled with increase in journals’ impact and quality.

Details

Collection Building, vol. 36 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0160-4953

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 October 2018

Mohammadamin Erfanmanesh and A. Abrizah

The Internet of Things (IoT) has attracted wide attention from researchers to address the potential of this technology in various industries recently. This study aims to…

864

Abstract

Purpose

The Internet of Things (IoT) has attracted wide attention from researchers to address the potential of this technology in various industries recently. This study aims to investigate different characteristics of worldwide research on the IoT using bibliometrics, network analysis and altmetrics. Growth of the literature, publication types, languages, publication countries and research subjects are addressed. The scientific and social impact of the journal articles has also been examined using citation and altmetrics scores.

Design/methodology/approach

The Scopus database was searched for articles indexed under the terms “Internet of Thing*” or “IoT” or “Internet of Everything*” or “Web of Thing*”, and a total of 13,725 articles from 2011 to 2016 were retrieved and analysed.

Findings

There was a continuous increase in the number of publications per year over the period, with a 6.7-fold rise in the number of publications, with the highest share of research output (4,989) published in 2016. Contribution of authors at the micro, meso and macro levels was analysed. About 89 per cent of total publications were the result of collaborative efforts, and Asia-Pacific was responsible for almost 53 per cent of world scientific production of IoT literature. Generally, the IoT research are found in publications concentrating on computer networks and communications, electrical and electronic engineering and computer science applications. The results also showed that the presence of IoT research on the social web is still low, with 6.8 per cent of total publications presenting some altmetric activity.

Research limitations/implications

The work reported is limited to only Scopus-indexed publications. While the search methodology aimed to be as inclusive as possible, it may not have captured all scholarly research output in the IoT world.

Practical implications

The findings of this study may help researchers understand the performance of IoT research from across the world and suggest directions for further research.

Originality/value

This paper reviews the literature of the IoT in past five years using rigorous bibliometric, altmetric and network analysis tools.

Details

The Electronic Library, vol. 36 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0264-0473

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 23 May 2022

Nedra Ibrahim, Anja Habacha Chaibi and Henda Ben Ghézala

Given the magnitude of the literature, a researcher must be selective of research papers and publications in general. In other words, only papers that meet strict standards of…

Abstract

Purpose

Given the magnitude of the literature, a researcher must be selective of research papers and publications in general. In other words, only papers that meet strict standards of academic integrity and adhere to reliable and credible sources should be referenced. The purpose of this paper is to approach this issue from the prism of scientometrics according to the following research questions: Is it necessary to judge the quality of scientific production? How do we evaluate scientific production? What are the tools to be used in evaluation?

Design/methodology/approach

This paper presents a comparative study of scientometric evaluation practices and tools. A systematic literature review is conducted based on articles published in the field of scientometrics between 1951 and 2022. To analyze data, the authors performed three different aspects of analysis: usage analysis based on classification and comparison between the different scientific evaluation practices, type and level analysis based on classifying different scientometric indicators according to their types and application levels and similarity analysis based on studying the correlation between different quantitative metrics to identify similarity between them.

Findings

This comparative study leads to classify different scientific evaluation practices into externalist and internalist approaches. The authors categorized the different quantitative metrics according to their types (impact, production and composite indicators), their levels of application (micro, meso and macro) and their use (internalist and externalist). Moreover, the similarity analysis has revealed a high correlation between several scientometric indicators such as author h-index, author publications, citations and journal citations.

Originality/value

The interest in this study lies deeply in identifying the strengths and weaknesses of research groups and guides their actions. This evaluation contributes to the advancement of scientific research and to the motivation of researchers. Moreover, this paper can be applied as a complete in-depth guide to help new researchers select appropriate measurements to evaluate scientific production. The selection of evaluation measures is made according to their types, usage and levels of application. Furthermore, our analysis shows the similarity between the different indicators which can limit the overuse of similar measures.

Details

VINE Journal of Information and Knowledge Management Systems, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2059-5891

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 May 2013

Alex Stewart and John Cotton

Dozens of peer‐reviewed, English language journals are currently published in our field. How ought we to evaluate them? This paper seeks to answer this question.

1662

Abstract

Purpose

Dozens of peer‐reviewed, English language journals are currently published in our field. How ought we to evaluate them? This paper seeks to answer this question.

Design/methodology approach

The paper utilizes both relevant literature and data on entrepreneurship journals. The literature derives from both information science and other research areas that reflect on their journals. The data derives from six citation measures from Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science.

Findings

The paper finds that there are 59 currently published English language, peer reviewed journals in entrepreneurship. Contestable judgments based on their impact measures suggest that one of these 59 could be considered as “A+”, four as “A”, five as “AB”, eight as “B”, four as “BC”, 23 as “C”, thirteen as “barely detectable”, and one as “insufficient data but promising”.

Research limitations/implications

Journal rankings affect the resources and prestige accorded to business schools, disciplines and subdisciplines, and individual scholars. However, the need to fit evaluations to school strategy implies that no rating system, ours included, is definitive. Multiple measures are needed, letter grades are misleading, and journal rankings should match the institution's strategy and priorities in stakeholder service. A wider purpose of this study is to alert readers to the range of current methodologies and the limits of conventional rankings.

Originality/value

The conclusions presented in this paper appear innocuous, but standard practice is to use restrictive measures, to employ letter grades, and to prioritize only one stakeholder: scholars. These practices are poorly suited to the entrepreneurship field.

Details

International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, vol. 19 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1355-2554

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 15 August 2023

Serhii Nazarovets and Olesya Mryglod

This article presents the results of a quantitative analysis of Ukrainian arts and humanities (A&H) research from 2012 to 2021, as observed in Scopus. The overall publication…

Abstract

Purpose

This article presents the results of a quantitative analysis of Ukrainian arts and humanities (A&H) research from 2012 to 2021, as observed in Scopus. The overall publication activity and the relative share of A&H publications in relation to Ukraine's total research output, comparing them with other countries. The study analyzes the diversity and total number of sources, as well as the geographic distribution of authors and citing authors, to provide insights into the internationalization level of Ukrainian A&H research. Additionally, the topical spectrum and language usage are considered to complete the overall picture.

Design/methodology/approach

This study uses the Scopus database as the primary data source for analyzing the general bibliometric characteristics of Ukrainian A&H research. All document types, except Erratum, were considered. A language filter was applied to compare the bibliometric characteristics of English versus non-English publications. In addition to directly imported data from Scopus, the study employs the ready-to-use SciVal tools to operate with A&H subcategories and calculate additional bibliometric characteristics, such as Citations per Publication (CPP), Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) and journal quartiles. Information on the country of journal publishers and details on delisted journals from Scopus were obtained from the official Source Title List available on the Elsevier website and the SCImago Journal and Country Rank Portal.

Findings

According to the results obtained, the publication patterns for Ukrainian A&H research exhibit dynamics comparable to those of other countries, with a gradual increase in the total number of papers and sources. However, the citedness is lower than expected, and the share of publications in top-quartile sources is lower for 2020–2021 period compared to the previous years. The impact of internationally collaborative papers, especially those in English, is higher. Nevertheless, over half of all works remain uncited, probably due to the limited readership of the journals selected for publication.

Originality/value

This study provides original insights into the bibliometric characteristics of Ukrainian A&H publications between 2012 and 2021, as assessed using the Scopus database. The authors’ findings reveal that Ukraine's A&H publications have higher visibility than some Asian countries with similar population sizes. However, in comparison to other countries of similar size, Ukraine's research output is smaller. The authors also discovered that cultural and historical similarities with neighboring countries play a more significant role in publication activity than population size. This study highlights the low integration of Ukrainian A&H research into the global academic community, evident through a decline in papers published in influential journals and poor citedness. These findings underscore the importance for authors to prioritize disseminating research in influential journals, rather than solely focusing on indexing in particular databases.

Details

Library Hi Tech, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0737-8831

Keywords

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