Introduction to Bibliometrics

Bibliometrics is the statistical analysis of bibliographic data, commonly

focusing on citation analysis of research outputs and publications, i.e. how
many times research outputs and publications are being cited. Bibliometric
analysis is becoming an increasingly important way to measure and assess
research impact of individuals, groups of individuals or institutions. Many
research field use Bibliometric method to explore the impact of their field. It
is used to provide quantitative analysis of academic literature. Bibliometrics
are measures of an author's influence or impact. Citation analysis is an area
of bibliometrics research in which citations in scholarly articles are used to
establish relationships between authors or articles. Two commonly used
bibliometrics are impact factor and h-index. See the link on the left of this
page (white paper from Thomson Reuters) for more information about how
these metrics are used. See the links on the Resources page for information
on how to look up/calculate numerical values for these and other metrics.

Due to limitations associated with bibliometrics (as highlighted in the issues

and limitations section), bibliometrics measures should always be used in
conjunction with other data such as funding received, number of patents,
awards granted and qualitative measures such as peer review.

Definition of Bibliometrics
Bibliometrics can be defined as the combination of two words i.e.
BIblio+Matrics. These are the Latin words which means books and
measurement respectively. So it can be defined as the measurement of
books. It denotes the application of mathematical and statistical methods to
book. This is called as quantitative analysis.

Some other definitions of bibliometrics are given as follows

According to Hawkins(1977) defined Bibliometrics as the
application of quantitative analysis in the bibliographic references of
the body of the literature.
The British Standard Institution(1976) describe the same
Bibliometrics as the application of mathematical and statistical method
in the study of the use of documents and statistical method in the
study of the use of documents and publication patterns.

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 Alan Prichard, 1969 defined it as the application of mathematics and
statistical methods to books and other media of communication.
According to Wikipedia Bibliometrics is a statistical analysis of
written publication such as books or articles or other publications.

Why use Bibliometrics?

Bibliometrics could help with a number of activities, including:

Demonstrating the importance and impact of your own research and/or

that of your research group. This can be useful for:
Applying for tenure, promotion or grants
Including bibliometrics data on your CV
Demonstrating the value of your research to your institution
Demonstrating return on investment to funding bodies, industry
and the general public
Identifying areas of research strength and weaknesses. This can be
useful for:
informing future research priorities for an institution
Identifying top performing journals in a subject area. This can be useful
for:
Deciding where to publish
Learning more about a subject area
Identifying emerging areas of research
Identifying top researchers in a subject area. This can be useful for:
Locating potential collaborators or competitors
Learning more about a subject area
Informing the recruitment process
To identify the authorship trends in documents in various subjects.
To identify the usefulness of retrospective and current awareness
services.
To identify past, present and as well as forecast future publishing
trends.
To identify core periodical in different disciplines (through the
application of Bradford's law of scattering and citation analysis).
To formulate collection development and management policy.
To study obsolence and dispersion of scientific literature.
To study about the productivity of the institutions/ individual and the
disciplines.
To develop norms for standardization.
To formulate stacking and weeding policies.
To initiate effective multilevel network system.

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Key points to remember while conducting bibliometrics analysis
Always compare like with like, for example:
Groups and individuals in the same or similar discipline.
Groups and individuals in the same stage of their academic career.
Journals in the same discipline or category
Similar size institutions.
Dont rely on a single bibliometrics tool; results can vary depending on
the tool used because the content covered by each tool varies, as does
the depth of coverage and discipline coverage.
Be aware that some disciplines rely less on publishing in journals than
others and will therefore fare less favorably.
Put the data in context using a combination of metrics and other
qualitative information where appropriate.

Main Bibliometric Tools

Tools About Access Metrics Available

SciVal SciVal is a subscription Via a Scholarly Output
based subscription.
research performance Citation Count
assessment tool which uses The University of
data from Scopus. It allows Leeds has a Cited
you to benchmark individual subscription to Publications
researchers, groups of SciVal. It can be
researchers and institutions accessed via the Citation Impact
based on a variety of Library
bibliometric measures. It Catalogue H-index
holds information for 4600 by searching for
research institutions and SciVal. Journal Count
220 countries. Collaboration
You will need to
register for a free Academic-
Elsevier account Corporate
to
log-into the
resource. You will
be prompted to
do this when you
access it via the

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 Library
Catalogue.
Scop Scopus is a subscription Via a Scholarly output
us based subscription.
citation database of peer Citation counts
reviewed literature from
more than 21,000 journals, The University of H-index
40,000 books, 6.5 million Leeds has a
conference papers and 24 Subscription to Number of co-
million patents. The Scopus. It can be authors
coverage of social accessed via the
sciences material is broader Library SCImago Journal
than Web of Science. At Catalogue Rank
present, citation data is only by searching for
available for papers Scopus. Scopus SNIP
published from 1996
onwards.
Web Web of Science is a Via a Scholarly output
of subscription based citation subscription.
Scien database of more than The University of Citation counts
ce 12,000 journals and over Leeds has a H-index
160,000 conference Subscription to
proceedings. Web of Science. Journal impact
Coverage includes science, It can be factor
social science and arts and accessed via the
humanities dating back to Library
1900. Catalogue
by searching for
web of Science
Journ Journal Citation Reports is a Via a Journal impact
al subscription based resource subscription. factor
Citati which allows you to
on evaluate and compare The University of Most frequently
Repo journals using citation data Leeds has a cited journals in
rts from over 11,000 journals. subscription to a field
Coverage includes science, Journal Citation
medicine and social Reports. It can Highest impact
sciences dating back to be journals in a field
1998. access via the
Library Largest journals
Catalogue in a field
by searching for
Journal Citation

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 Reports.

Main Metrics
The following table gives more information about some of the main metrics
used to measure the impact of research outputs and publications.

Metric What Does it Matter?

Scholarly output
Citations counts
Field-weighted cited impact
Outputs in top percentiles
H-index
Journal impact factor
SCImago Journal Rank
The total number of outputs
published. It measures productivity
rather than impact.
The number of citations received. It
measures citations for individual
outputs or a set of outputs.
The ratio of citations received,
relative to the expected world
average for the subject field,
publication type and publication
year.
The number or percentage of
outputs in the top most-cited
publications in the world/UK/specific
country
The productivity and impact of a
researchers outputs. It is based on
the number of publications as well
as the number of citations they have
received. An author has an H-index
of n if they have published n papers,
each of which has been cited at
least n times. Example: to have an
H-index of 15, 15 of your papers
must have been cited at least 15
times.
The importance of a particular
journal. It is based on the average
number of citations received per
paper published in that journal in
the preceding 2 years
The importance of a particular
journal. It is an alternative to the
Journal Impact Factor. The SCImago

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 Journal Rank places higher
value/weight to citations from more
prestigious journals.
Scopus SNIP The importance of a particular
journal. The Scopus Snip normalizes
for citation rate subject differences.
It is a ratio of a journal's citation
count per paper and the citation
potential in its subject field.

Advantages of Bibliometrics
Growth of literature.
Growth of knowledge.
It is straightforward method, since based on the simple counting.
On the first sight they are objective and unbiased.

Limitations of Bibliometrics
There are a number of limitations associated with bibliometrics; therefore it
is important to use bibliometrics measures in conjunction with other
measures. The following section lists some of the main limitations.

Issues and limitations of bibliometrics

The use of bibliometrics continues to remain controversial due to the
following issues and limitations:
Citations patterns can differ greatly between disciplines, for example,
in certain disciplines research outputs may be cited more frequently
than in other disciplines. Therefore it is important to compare
researchers, or groups of researchers against those from the same or
similar discipline.
Some disciplines such as the arts, humanities and social sciences rely
less on publishing in journals yet bibliometrics commonly focuses on
journal article citations.
A paper may be cited in a negative rather than a positive way yet the
citation would still be counted.
The tools used to gather bibliometrics data do not cover all research
areas and do not index all publications. Results will vary depending on
the tool you use.
Manipulation of the system by researchers inappropriately self-citing,
citing colleagues, splitting outputs into many articles etc. can distort
the data. A number of bibliometrics tools now allow you to exclude
self-citations.

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 Experienced researchers will have an advantage over early career
researchers when using certain metrics as they will have produced
more outputs. Therefore it is important to compare researchers who
are at the same stage of their career.

It is important to remember that bibliometrics measures dont necessarily

measure the quality of research output and instead focuses on the impact of
research, i.e. how often the work is being cited. Just because a research
output is highly cited doesnt necessarily mean that the work is of good
quality. This is why it is important to use bibliometrics in conjunction with
other data such as funding received, number of patents, awards granted and
qualitative measures such as peer review.

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