IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/infome/v5y2011i3p360-368.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Fractional counting of citations in research evaluation: A cross- and interdisciplinary assessment of the Tsinghua University in Beijing

Author

Listed:
  • Zhou, Ping
  • Leydesdorff, Loet

Abstract

In the case of the scientometric evaluation of multi- or interdisciplinary units one risks to compare apples with oranges: each paper has to be assessed in comparison to an appropriate reference set. We suggest that the set of citing papers can be considered as the relevant representation of the field of impact. In order to normalize for differences in citation behavior among fields, citations can be fractionally counted proportionately to the length of the reference lists in the citing papers. This new method enables us to compare among units with different disciplinary affiliations at the paper level and also to assess the statistical significance of differences among sets. Twenty-seven departments of the Tsinghua University in Beijing are thus compared. Among them, the Department of Chinese Language and Linguistics is upgraded from the 19th to the second position in the ranking. The overall impact of 19 of the 27 departments is not significantly different at the 5% level when thus normalized for different citation potentials.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhou, Ping & Leydesdorff, Loet, 2011. "Fractional counting of citations in research evaluation: A cross- and interdisciplinary assessment of the Tsinghua University in Beijing," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 360-368.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:5:y:2011:i:3:p:360-368
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2011.01.010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751157711000113
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.joi.2011.01.010?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rafael Ball & Bernhard Mittermaier & Dirk Tunger, 2009. "Creation of journal-based publication profiles of scientific institutions — A methodology for the interdisciplinary comparison of scientific research based on the J-factor," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 81(2), pages 381-392, November.
    2. Loet Leydesdorff & Tobias Opthof, 2010. "Scopus's source normalized impact per paper (SNIP) versus a journal impact factor based on fractional counting of citations," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 61(11), pages 2365-2369, November.
    3. Kalervo Järvelin & Olle Persson, 2008. "The DCI index: Discounted cumulated impact‐based research evaluation," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 59(9), pages 1433-1440, July.
    4. Anton J. Nederhof, 2006. "Bibliometric monitoring of research performance in the Social Sciences and the Humanities: A Review," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 66(1), pages 81-100, January.
    5. Wolfgang Glänzel & Bart Thijs & András Schubert & Koenraad Debackere, 2009. "Subfield-specific normalized relative indicators and a new generation of relational charts: Methodological foundations illustrated on the assessment of institutional research performance," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 78(1), pages 165-188, January.
    6. Loet Leydesdorff & Lutz Bornmann, 2011. "How fractional counting of citations affects the impact factor: Normalization in terms of differences in citation potentials among fields of science," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 62(2), pages 217-229, February.
    7. Alexander I. Pudovkin & Eugene Garfield, 2002. "Algorithmic procedure for finding semantically related journals," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 53(13), pages 1113-1119, November.
    8. Henk F. Moed, 2011. "The source normalized impact per paper is a valid and sophisticated indicator of journal citation impact," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 62(1), pages 211-213, January.
    9. Zitt, Michel, 2010. "Citing-side normalization of journal impact: A robust variant of the Audience Factor," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 4(3), pages 392-406.
    10. Loet Leydesdorff, 2006. "Can scientific journals be classified in terms of aggregated journal‐journal citation relations using the Journal Citation Reports?," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 57(5), pages 601-613, March.
    11. Henk F. Moed, 2011. "The source normalized impact per paper is a valid and sophisticated indicator of journal citation impact," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 62(1), pages 211-213, January.
    12. Waltman, Ludo & van Eck, Nees Jan & van Leeuwen, Thed N. & Visser, Martijn S. & van Raan, Anthony F.J., 2011. "Towards a new crown indicator: Some theoretical considerations," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 37-47.
    13. Ismael Rafols & Loet Leydesdorff, 2009. "Content‐based and algorithmic classifications of journals: Perspectives on the dynamics of scientific communication and indexer effects," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 60(9), pages 1823-1835, September.
    14. Michel Zitt & Henry Small, 2008. "Modifying the journal impact factor by fractional citation weighting: The audience factor," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 59(11), pages 1856-1860, September.
    15. Philip M. Davis, 2008. "Eigenfactor: Does the principle of repeated improvement result in better estimates than raw citation counts?," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 59(13), pages 2186-2188, November.
    16. Kalervo Järvelin & Olle Persson, 2008. "Erratum re: “The DCI‐index: Discounted cumulated impact‐based research evaluation”, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 59(9), 1433‐1440," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 59(14), pages 2350-2352, December.
    17. Michel Zitt & Suzy Ramanana-Rahary & Elise Bassecoulard, 2005. "Relativity of citation performance and excellence measures: From cross-field to cross-scale effects of field-normalisation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 63(2), pages 373-401, April.
    18. Erjia Yan & Ying Ding, 2010. "Weighted citation: An indicator of an article's prestige," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 61(8), pages 1635-1643, August.
    19. Wolfgang Glänzel & András Schubert, 2003. "A new classification scheme of science fields and subfields designed for scientometric evaluation purposes," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 56(3), pages 357-367, March.
    20. Franceschet, Massimo, 2010. "The difference between popularity and prestige in the sciences and in the social sciences: A bibliometric analysis," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 4(1), pages 55-63.
    21. Moed, Henk F., 2010. "Measuring contextual citation impact of scientific journals," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 4(3), pages 265-277.
    22. Loet Leydesdorff, 2008. "Caveats for the use of citation indicators in research and journal evaluations," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 59(2), pages 278-287, January.
    23. Lundberg, Jonas, 2007. "Lifting the crown—citation z-score," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 1(2), pages 145-154.
    24. Opthof, Tobias & Leydesdorff, Loet, 2010. "Caveats for the journal and field normalizations in the CWTS (“Leiden”) evaluations of research performance," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 4(3), pages 423-430.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Frank Havemann & Birger Larsen, 2015. "Bibliometric indicators of young authors in astrophysics: Can later stars be predicted?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 102(2), pages 1413-1434, February.
    2. Loet Leydesdorff, 2012. "Alternatives to the journal impact factor: I3 and the top-10% (or top-25%?) of the most-highly cited papers," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 92(2), pages 355-365, August.
    3. Csomós, György, 2020. "Introducing recalibrated academic performance indicators in the evaluation of individuals’ research performance: A case study from Eastern Europe," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(4).
    4. Loet Leydesdorff & Lutz Bornmann, 2012. "Testing differences statistically with the Leiden ranking," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 92(3), pages 781-783, September.
    5. Ludo Waltman & Nees Jan Eck, 2013. "Source normalized indicators of citation impact: an overview of different approaches and an empirical comparison," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 96(3), pages 699-716, September.
    6. Loet Leydesdorff, 2013. "An evaluation of impacts in “Nanoscience & nanotechnology”: steps towards standards for citation analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 94(1), pages 35-55, January.
    7. Loet Leydesdorff & Ping Zhou & Lutz Bornmann, 2013. "How can journal impact factors be normalized across fields of science? An assessment in terms of percentile ranks and fractional counts," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 64(1), pages 96-107, January.
    8. Fiorenzo Franceschini & Maurizio Galetto & Domenico Maisano & Luca Mastrogiacomo, 2012. "The success-index: an alternative approach to the h-index for evaluating an individual’s research output," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 92(3), pages 621-641, September.
    9. Henk F. Moed, 2016. "Comprehensive indicator comparisons intelligible to non-experts: the case of two SNIP versions," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 106(1), pages 51-65, January.
    10. Rafols, Ismael & Leydesdorff, Loet & O’Hare, Alice & Nightingale, Paul & Stirling, Andy, 2012. "How journal rankings can suppress interdisciplinary research: A comparison between Innovation Studies and Business & Management," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(7), pages 1262-1282.
    11. Kuan, Chung-Huei & Huang, Mu-Hsuan & Chen, Dar-Zen, 2013. "Cross-field evaluation of publications of research institutes using their contributions to the fields’ MVPs determined by h-index," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 455-468.
    12. Zhiqi Wang & Wolfgang Glänzel & Yue Chen, 2020. "The impact of preprints in Library and Information Science: an analysis of citations, usage and social attention indicators," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(2), pages 1403-1423, November.
    13. Wang, Xuefeng & Huang, Meng & Wang, Hongyuan & Lei, Ming & Zhu, Donghua & Ren, Jie & Jabeen, Munazza, 2014. "International Collaboration Activity Index: Case study of dye-sensitized solar cells," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 854-862.
    14. Wolfgang Glänzel & Henk F. Moed, 2013. "Opinion paper: thoughts and facts on bibliometric indicators," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 96(1), pages 381-394, July.
    15. Bouyssou, Denis & Marchant, Thierry, 2016. "Ranking authors using fractional counting of citations: An axiomatic approach," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 183-199.
    16. Waltman, Ludo & van Eck, Nees Jan, 2013. "A systematic empirical comparison of different approaches for normalizing citation impact indicators," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(4), pages 833-849.
    17. Radicchi, Filippo & Castellano, Claudio, 2012. "Testing the fairness of citation indicators for comparison across scientific domains: The case of fractional citation counts," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 121-130.
    18. Jeppe Nicolaisen & Tove Faber Frandsen, 2021. "Number of references: a large-scale study of interval ratios," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(1), pages 259-285, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Waltman, Ludo, 2016. "A review of the literature on citation impact indicators," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 365-391.
    2. Loet Leydesdorff, 2013. "An evaluation of impacts in “Nanoscience & nanotechnology”: steps towards standards for citation analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 94(1), pages 35-55, January.
    3. Mingers, John & Leydesdorff, Loet, 2015. "A review of theory and practice in scientometrics," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 246(1), pages 1-19.
    4. Loet Leydesdorff, 2012. "Alternatives to the journal impact factor: I3 and the top-10% (or top-25%?) of the most-highly cited papers," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 92(2), pages 355-365, August.
    5. Bouyssou, Denis & Marchant, Thierry, 2016. "Ranking authors using fractional counting of citations: An axiomatic approach," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 183-199.
    6. Franceschini, Fiorenzo & Maisano, Domenico, 2014. "Sub-field normalization of the IEEE scientific journals based on their connection with Technical Societies," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 508-533.
    7. Liwei Cai & Jiahao Tian & Jiaying Liu & Xiaomei Bai & Ivan Lee & Xiangjie Kong & Feng Xia, 2019. "Scholarly impact assessment: a survey of citation weighting solutions," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 118(2), pages 453-478, February.
    8. Pablo Dorta-González & María Isabel Dorta-González & Rafael Suárez-Vega, 2015. "An approach to the author citation potential: measures of scientific performance which are invariant across scientific fields," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 102(2), pages 1467-1496, February.
    9. Loet Leydesdorff & Tobias Opthof, 2012. "A rejoinder on energy versus impact indicators," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 90(2), pages 745-748, February.
    10. Loet Leydesdorff & Ping Zhou & Lutz Bornmann, 2013. "How can journal impact factors be normalized across fields of science? An assessment in terms of percentile ranks and fractional counts," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 64(1), pages 96-107, January.
    11. P. Dorta-González & M. I. Dorta-González, 2013. "Comparing journals from different fields of science and social science through a JCR subject categories normalized impact factor," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 95(2), pages 645-672, May.
    12. Ludo Waltman & Nees Jan Eck, 2013. "Source normalized indicators of citation impact: an overview of different approaches and an empirical comparison," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 96(3), pages 699-716, September.
    13. Waltman, Ludo & van Eck, Nees Jan & van Leeuwen, Thed N. & Visser, Martijn S., 2013. "Some modifications to the SNIP journal impact indicator," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 272-285.
    14. Waltman, Ludo & van Eck, Nees Jan, 2013. "A systematic empirical comparison of different approaches for normalizing citation impact indicators," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(4), pages 833-849.
    15. Ludo Waltman & Erjia Yan & Nees Jan Eck, 2011. "A recursive field-normalized bibliometric performance indicator: an application to the field of library and information science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 89(1), pages 301-314, October.
    16. Dorta-González, P. & Dorta-González, M.I., 2013. "Impact maturity times and citation time windows: The 2-year maximum journal impact factor," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 593-602.
    17. Wolfgang Glänzel & Henk F. Moed, 2013. "Opinion paper: thoughts and facts on bibliometric indicators," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 96(1), pages 381-394, July.
    18. Wolfgang Glänzel & András Schubert & Bart Thijs & Koenraad Debackere, 2011. "A priori vs. a posteriori normalisation of citation indicators. The case of journal ranking," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 87(2), pages 415-424, May.
    19. Dorta-González, Pablo & Dorta-González, María Isabel & Santos-Peñate, Dolores Rosa & Suárez-Vega, Rafael, 2014. "Journal topic citation potential and between-field comparisons: The topic normalized impact factor," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 406-418.
    20. Lutz Bornmann & Alexander Tekles & Loet Leydesdorff, 2019. "How well does I3 perform for impact measurement compared to other bibliometric indicators? The convergent validity of several (field-normalized) indicators," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 119(2), pages 1187-1205, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:5:y:2011:i:3:p:360-368. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/joi .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.