IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v117y2018i3d10.1007_s11192-018-2945-x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Accuracy of author names in bibliographic data sources: an Italian case study

Author

Listed:
  • Camil Demetrescu

    (Sapienza University of Rome)

  • Andrea Ribichini

    (Sapienza University of Rome)

  • Marco Schaerf

    (Sapienza University of Rome
    North Caucasus Federal University)

Abstract

We investigate the accuracy of how author names are reported in bibliographic records excerpted from four prominent sources: WoS, Scopus, PubMed, and CrossRef. We take as a case study 44,549 publications stored in the internal database of Sapienza University of Rome, one of the largest universities in Europe. While our results indicate generally good accuracy for all bibliographic data sources considered, we highlight a number of issues that undermine the accuracy for certain classes of author names, including compound names and names with diacritics, which are common features to Italian and other Western languages.

Suggested Citation

  • Camil Demetrescu & Andrea Ribichini & Marco Schaerf, 2018. "Accuracy of author names in bibliographic data sources: an Italian case study," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 117(3), pages 1777-1791, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:117:y:2018:i:3:d:10.1007_s11192-018-2945-x
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-018-2945-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-018-2945-x
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11192-018-2945-x?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. Dag W. Aksnes, 2008. "When different persons have an identical author name. How frequent are homonyms?," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 59(5), pages 838-841, March.
    2. Franceschini, Fiorenzo & Maisano, Domenico, 2017. "Critical remarks on the Italian research assessment exercise VQR 2011–2014," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 337-357.
    3. William W. Hood & Concepción S. Wilson, 2003. "Informetric studies using databases: Opportunities and challenges," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 58(3), pages 587-608, November.
    4. Lokman I. Meho & Kiduk Yang, 2007. "Impact of data sources on citation counts and rankings of LIS faculty: Web of science versus scopus and google scholar," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 58(13), pages 2105-2125, November.
    5. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo & Flavia Di Costa, 2011. "National research assessment exercises: the effects of changing the rules of the game during the game," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 88(1), pages 229-238, July.
    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. Camil Demetrescu & Irene Finocchi & Andrea Ribichini & Marco Schaerf, 2022. "On computer science research and its temporal evolution," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(8), pages 4913-4938, August.
    2. Mahsa Kaveh & Mahdieh Mirzabeigi & Hajar Sotudeh & Amirsaeid Moloodi, 2022. "The effects of the challenges in the transliteration of Persian names into English on the recall of retrieved results in the web of science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(2), pages 1099-1128, February.
    3. 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.
    4. Gordana Budimir & Sophia Rahimeh & Sameh Tamimi & Primož Južnič, 2021. "Comparison of self-citation patterns in WoS and Scopus databases based on national scientific production in Slovenia (1996–2020)," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(3), pages 2249-2267, March.
    5. Amrollah Shamsi & Rafaela Carolina Silva & Ting Wang & N. Vasantha Raju & Karen Santos-d’Amorim, 2022. "A grey zone for bibliometrics: publications indexed in Web of Science as anonymous," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(10), pages 5989-6009, October.
    6. Camil Demetrescu & Irene Finocchi & Andrea Ribichini & Marco Schaerf, 2020. "On bibliometrics in academic promotions: a case study in computer science and engineering in Italy," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(3), pages 2207-2228, September.

    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. Demetrescu, Camil & Lupia, Francesco & Mendicelli, Angelo & Ribichini, Andrea & Scarcello, Francesco & Schaerf, Marco, 2019. "On the Shapley value and its application to the Italian VQR research assessment exercise," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 87-104.
    2. Fernanda Morillo & Ignacio Santabárbara & Javier Aparicio, 2013. "The automatic normalisation challenge: detailed addresses identification," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 95(3), pages 953-966, June.
    3. Jan Schulz, 2016. "Using Monte Carlo simulations to assess the impact of author name disambiguation quality on different bibliometric analyses," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 107(3), pages 1283-1298, June.
    4. Camil Demetrescu & Andrea Ribichini & Marco Schaerf, 2020. "Are Italian research assessment exercises size-biased?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(1), pages 533-549, October.
    5. Cathelijn J F Waaijer & Benoît Macaluso & Cassidy R Sugimoto & Vincent Larivière, 2016. "Stability and Longevity in the Publication Careers of U.S. Doctorate Recipients," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(4), pages 1-15, April.
    6. Takanori Ida & Naomi Fukuzawa, 2013. "Effects of large-scale research funding programs: a Japanese case study," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 94(3), pages 1253-1273, March.
    7. Borrett, Stuart R. & Sheble, Laura & Moody, James & Anway, Evan C., 2018. "Bibliometric review of ecological network analysis: 2010–2016," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 382(C), pages 63-82.
    8. Nianhang Xu & Winnie P. H. Poon & Kam C. Chan, 2014. "Contributing Institutions and Authors in International Business Research: A Quality-Based Assessment," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 54(5), pages 735-755, October.
    9. Isidro F. Aguillo, 2012. "Is Google Scholar useful for bibliometrics? A webometric analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 91(2), pages 343-351, May.
    10. Dejian Yu & Sun Meng, 2018. "An overview of biomass energy research with bibliometric indicators," Energy & Environment, , vol. 29(4), pages 576-590, June.
    11. Elena Rivo-López & Mónica Villanueva-Villar & Alberto Vaquero-García, 2016. "Family office: a new category in family business research?," Working Papers. Collection C: Family business 1601, Universidade de Vigo, GEN - Governance and Economics research Network.
    12. Parul Khurana & Kiran Sharma, 2022. "Impact of h-index on author’s rankings: an improvement to the h-index for lower-ranked authors," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(8), pages 4483-4498, August.
    13. Martín-Martín, Alberto & Orduna-Malea, Enrique & Thelwall, Mike & Delgado López-Cózar, Emilio, 2018. "Google Scholar, Web of Science, and Scopus: A systematic comparison of citations in 252 subject categories," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 1160-1177.
    14. Yu, Hairong & Davis, Mari & Wilson, Concepción S. & Cole, Fletcher T.H., 2008. "Object-relational data modelling for informetric databases," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 240-251.
    15. Wildgaard, Lorna, 2016. "A critical cluster analysis of 44 indicators of author-level performance," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 1055-1078.
    16. García-Pérez, Miguel A., 2011. "Strange attractors in the Web of Science database," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 214-218.
    17. Loizides, Orestis-Stavros & Koutsakis, Polychronis, 2017. "On evaluating the quality of a computer science/computer engineering conference," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 541-552.
    18. Kjetil K. Haugen & Frode E. Sandnes, 2016. "The new Norwegian incentive system for publication: from bad to worse," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(2), pages 1299-1306, November.
    19. Kam C. Chan & Anna Fung & Hung-Gay Fung & Jot Yau, 2016. "A Citation Analysis of Business Ethics Research: A Global Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 136(3), pages 557-573, July.
    20. Petridis, Konstantinos & Malesios, Chrisovalantis & Arabatzis, Garyfallos & Thanassoulis, Emmanuel, 2013. "Efficiency analysis of forestry journals: Suggestions for improving journals’ quality," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 505-521.

    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:spr:scient:v:117:y:2018:i:3:d:10.1007_s11192-018-2945-x. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.