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Does the Scopus author ID suffice to track scientific international mobility? A case study based on Leibniz laureates

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  • Valeria Aman

    (German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW))

Abstract

In this paper I outline how author identifiers enable to track international mobility of scientists. Authorship systems help to distinguish among similar names and provide information on affiliations and thus countries of stay. This study explores the relation between CV data and Scopus data in regard to tracking international mobility of scientists. To test the consistency and applicability of data on mobility episodes, residence countries as provided in CVs of a set of German scientists were compared against country information in the affiliations of their publications. Therefore, the CVs of Leibniz laureates were coded for the period 1996–2015 and their publications were gathered on the basis of Scopus author ID. Results show that the majority of scientists under study have a single author ID (68.4%). However, there are laureates with so-called ‘split identities’ where more than one author ID exists. Most of them have a dominant author ID that covers the majority of their publications and one or more additional IDs with only a few publications causing these split identities. Recall statistic shows that the use of the dominant author ID of each laureate would result in around 97% of their publication output. In contrast, the precision of Scopus author ID proves to be high. A random sample shows that all publications assigned to a specific author ID relate to a single individual, so that the precision statistic would yield 100%. Further results show that the registry systems ORCID and ResearcherID are no alternatives to Scopus author ID, because a minority of laureates make use of these identifier systems and data is often incomplete. Unlike ORCID and ResearcherID that suffer from a selection bias as those scientists who remain in science maintain their author profiles, Scopus author ID exists for every author publishing in sources covered by Scopus. The comparison of mobility data in Scopus versus CV data shows that bibliometric data is suitable to identify a scientist’s international mobility and appears to be a good solution if there are no CVs available or if they are incomplete. Furthermore, the reasons for inconsistencies in mobility data are discussed. These mainly reside in the lack of co-author affiliations, incomplete CV data, and other minor reasons.

Suggested Citation

  • Valeria Aman, 2018. "Does the Scopus author ID suffice to track scientific international mobility? A case study based on Leibniz laureates," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 117(2), pages 705-720, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:117:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-018-2895-3
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-018-2895-3
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Momeni, Fakhri & Karimi, Fariba & Mayr, Philipp & Peters, Isabella & Dietze, Stefan, 2022. "The many facets of academic mobility and its impact on scholars' career," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2).
    3. Xie, Qing & Zhang, Xinyuan & Kim, Giyeong & Song, Min, 2022. "Exploring the influence of coauthorship with top scientists on researchers’ affiliation, research topic, productivity, and impact," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3).
    4. Mike Thelwall, 2020. "Mid-career field switches reduce gender disparities in academic publishing," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(3), pages 1365-1383, June.
    5. Asli Ebru Şanlitürk & Samin Aref & Emilio Zagheni & Francesco C. Billari, 2022. "Homecoming after Brexit: evidence on academic migration from bibliometric data," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2022-019, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    6. Xinyi Zhao & Samin Aref & Emilio Zagheni & Guy Stecklov, 2022. "Return migration of German-affiliated researchers: analyzing departure and return by gender, cohort, and discipline using Scopus bibliometric data 1996–2020," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(12), pages 7707-7729, December.
    7. Liang, Zhentao & Ba, Zhichao & Mao, Jin & Li, Gang, 2023. "Research complexity increases with scientists’ academic age: Evidence from library and information science," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1).
    8. Christophe Boudry & Manuel Durand-Barthez, 2020. "Use of author identifier services (ORCID, ResearcherID) and academic social networks (Academia.edu, ResearchGate) by the researchers of the University of Caen Normandy (France): A case study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(9), pages 1-16, September.
    9. Alexander Subbotin & Samin Aref, 2021. "Brain drain and brain gain in Russia: Analyzing international migration of researchers by discipline using Scopus bibliometric data 1996–2020," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(9), pages 7875-7900, September.
    10. Zhang, Lin & Qi, Fan & Sivertsen, Gunnar & Liang, Liming & Campbell, David, 2023. "Gender differences in the patterns and consequences of changing specialization in scientific careers," SocArXiv ep5bx, Center for Open Science.
    11. Liu, Meijun & Hu, Xiao, 2022. "Movers’ advantages: The effect of mobility on scientists’ productivity and collaboration," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3).
    12. Raminta Pranckutė, 2021. "Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus: The Titans of Bibliographic Information in Today’s Academic World," Publications, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-59, March.
    13. Chang, Ying-Han & Huang, Mu-Hsuan, 2023. "Analysis of factors affecting scientific migration move and distance by academic age, migrant type, and country: Migrant researchers in the field of business and management," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1).
    14. Jeppe Nicolaisen & Tove Faber Frandsen, 2022. "Epistemic community formation: a bibliometric study of recurring authors in medical journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(7), pages 4167-4189, July.
    15. Valeria Aman, 2022. "Internationally mobile scientists as knowledge transmitters: A lexical‐based approach to detect knowledge transfer," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 73(10), pages 1418-1431, October.

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