IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/infome/v8y2014i1p123-135.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Classification method for detecting coercive self-citation in journals

Author

Listed:
  • Yu, Tian
  • Yu, Guang
  • Wang, Ming-Yang

Abstract

Journal self-citations strongly affect journal evaluation indicators (such as impact factors) at the meso- and micro-levels, and therefore they are often increased artificially to inflate the evaluation indicators in journal evaluation systems. This coercive self-citation is a form of scientific misconduct that severely undermines the objective authenticity of these indicators. In this study, we developed the feature space for describing journal citation behavior and conducted feature selection by combining GA-Wrapper with RelifF. We also constructed a journal classification model using the logistic regression method to identify normal and abnormal journals. We evaluated the performance of the classification model using journals in three subject areas (BIOLOGY, MATHEMATICS and CHEMISTRY, APPLIED) during 2002–2011 as the test samples and good results were achieved in our experiments. Thus, we developed an effective method for the accurate identification of coercive self-citations.

Suggested Citation

  • Yu, Tian & Yu, Guang & Wang, Ming-Yang, 2014. "Classification method for detecting coercive self-citation in journals," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 123-135.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:8:y:2014:i:1:p:123-135
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2013.11.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751157713000898
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.joi.2013.11.001?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. Chia-Lin Chang & Esfandiar Maasoumi & Michael McAleer, 2016. "Robust Ranking of Journal Quality: An Application to Economics," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(1), pages 50-97, January.
    2. Finardi, Ugo, 2013. "Correlation between Journal Impact Factor and Citation Performance: An experimental study," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 357-370.
    3. Frandsen, Tove Faber, 2007. "Journal self-citations—Analysing the JIF mechanism," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 47-58.
    4. Juan Miguel Campanario, 2011. "Large increases and decreases in journal impact factors in only one year: The effect of journal self-citations," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 62(2), pages 230-235, February.
    5. Juan Miguel Campanario, 2010. "Self-citations that contribute to the journal impact factor: An investment-benefit-yield analysis," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 61(12), pages 2575-2580, December.
    6. Stephen Carley & Alan L. Porter & Jan Youtie, 2013. "Toward a more precise definition of self-citation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 94(2), pages 777-780, February.
    7. Dag W. Aksnes, 2003. "A macro study of self-citation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 56(2), pages 235-246, February.
    8. Juan Miguel Campanario, 2010. "Self‐citations that contribute to the journal impact factor: An investment‐benefit‐yield analysis," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 61(12), pages 2575-2580, December.
    9. Juan Miguel Campanario, 2011. "Large increases and decreases in journal impact factors in only one year: The effect of journal self‐citations," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 62(2), pages 230-235, February.
    10. S. le Cessie & J. C. van Houwelingen, 1992. "Ridge Estimators in Logistic Regression," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 41(1), pages 191-201, March.
    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. Dong-Hui Yang & Xin Li & Xiaoxia Sun & Jie Wan, 2016. "Detecting impact factor manipulation with data mining techniques," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(3), pages 1989-2005, December.
    2. Diego Raphael Amancio, 2015. "Comparing the topological properties of real and artificially generated scientific manuscripts," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 105(3), pages 1763-1779, December.
    3. Taşkın, Zehra & Doğan, Güleda & Kulczycki, Emanuel & Zuccala, Alesia Ann, 2021. "Self-Citation Patterns of Journals Indexed in the Journal Citation Reports," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(4).
    4. Martin Szomszor & David A. Pendlebury & Jonathan Adams, 2020. "How much is too much? The difference between research influence and self-citation excess," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(2), pages 1119-1147, May.
    5. Silvio Peroni & Paolo Ciancarini & Aldo Gangemi & Andrea Giovanni Nuzzolese & Francesco Poggi & Valentina Presutti, 2020. "The practice of self-citations: a longitudinal study," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(1), pages 253-282, April.
    6. Hunter Bennett & Ben Singh & Flynn Slattery, 2024. "Journal self-citations trends in sport sciences: an analysis of disciplinary journals from 2013 to 2022," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(8), pages 4741-4750, August.
    7. Thelwall, Mike & Wilson, Paul, 2014. "Regression for citation data: An evaluation of different methods," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 963-971.
    8. Jiayin Pei & Guang Yu & Xianyun Tian & Maureen Renee Donnelley, 2017. "A new method for early detection of mass concern about public health issues," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(4), pages 516-532, April.
    9. Juan Miguel Campanario, 2018. "Journals that Rise from the Fourth Quartile to the First Quartile in Six Years or Less: Mechanisms of Change and the Role of Journal Self-Citations," Publications, MDPI, vol. 6(4), pages 1-15, November.
    10. Chekhovich, Yury V. & Khazov, Andrey V., 2022. "Analysis of duplicated publications in Russian journals," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1).
    11. Mingyang Wang & Jiaqi Zhang & Shijia Jiao & Xiangrong Zhang & Na Zhu & Guangsheng Chen, 2020. "Important citation identification by exploiting the syntactic and contextual information of citations," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(3), pages 2109-2129, December.

    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. Martin Szomszor & David A. Pendlebury & Jonathan Adams, 2020. "How much is too much? The difference between research influence and self-citation excess," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(2), pages 1119-1147, May.
    2. Marcelo Mendoza, 2021. "Differences in Citation Patterns across Areas, Article Types and Age Groups of Researchers," Publications, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-23, October.
    3. Zaggl, Michael A., 2017. "Manipulation of explicit reputation in innovation and knowledge exchange communities: The example of referencing in science," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(5), pages 970-983.
    4. Tehmina Amjad & Ying Ding & Ali Daud & Jian Xu & Vincent Malic, 2015. "Topic-based heterogeneous rank," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 104(1), pages 313-334, July.
    5. Salustiano Martínez-Fierro & María Paula Lechuga Sancho, 2021. "Descriptive Elements and Conceptual Structure of Glass Ceiling Research," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(15), pages 1-20, July.
    6. Yi-Ching Liaw & Te-Yi Chan & Chin-Yuan Fan & Cheng-Hsin Chiang, 2014. "Can the technological impact of academic journals be evaluated? The practice of non-patent reference (NPR) analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(1), pages 17-37, October.
    7. Juan Miguel Campanario, 2018. "Journals that Rise from the Fourth Quartile to the First Quartile in Six Years or Less: Mechanisms of Change and the Role of Journal Self-Citations," Publications, MDPI, vol. 6(4), pages 1-15, November.
    8. Rodrigo Costas & Thed N. Leeuwen & María Bordons, 2010. "Self-citations at the meso and individual levels: effects of different calculation methods," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 82(3), pages 517-537, March.
    9. Xue-Li Liu & Shuang-Shuang Gai & Jing Zhou, 2016. "Journal Impact Factor: Do the Numerator and Denominator Need Correction?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(3), pages 1-15, March.
    10. Pajić, Dejan, 2015. "On the stability of citation-based journal rankings," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 990-1006.
    11. Chia-Lin Chang & Michael McAleer, "undated". "Quality Weighted Citations Versus Total Citations in the Sciences and Social Sciences, with an Application to Finance and Accounting," Documentos de Trabajo del ICAE 2015-01, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales, Instituto Complutense de Análisis Económico, revised Jan 2015.
    12. Christopher J Greenwood & George J Youssef & Primrose Letcher & Jacqui A Macdonald & Lauryn J Hagg & Ann Sanson & Jenn Mcintosh & Delyse M Hutchinson & John W Toumbourou & Matthew Fuller-Tyszkiewicz &, 2020. "A comparison of penalised regression methods for informing the selection of predictive markers," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(11), pages 1-14, November.
    13. Chia-Lin Chang & Michael Mcaleer, 2014. "Just How Good Are The Top Three Journals In Finance? An Assessment Based On Quantity And Quality Citations," Annals of Financial Economics (AFE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 9(01), pages 1-31.
    14. Dejian Yu & Wanru Wang & Shuai Zhang & Wenyu Zhang & Rongyu Liu, 2017. "A multiple-link, mutually reinforced journal-ranking model to measure the prestige of journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 111(1), pages 521-542, April.
    15. František Dařena & Jan Přichystal, 2018. "Analysis of the Association between Topics in Online Documents and Stock Price Movements," Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis, Mendel University Press, vol. 66(6), pages 1431-1439.
    16. Hui Li & Weishu Liu, 2020. "Same same but different: self-citations identified through Scopus and Web of Science Core Collection," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(3), pages 2723-2732, September.
    17. James Hartley, 2012. "To cite or not to cite: author self-citations and the impact factor," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 92(2), pages 313-317, August.
    18. Chang, C-L. & McAleer, M.J. & Oxley, L., 2012. "Journal Impact Factor, Eigenfactor, Journal Influence and Article Influence," Econometric Institute Research Papers EI 2012-27, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Erasmus School of Economics (ESE), Econometric Institute.
    19. Nikolaos A. Kazakis, 2014. "Bibliometric evaluation of the research performance of the Greek civil engineering departments in National and European context," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(1), pages 505-525, October.
    20. Jerome K. Vanclay, 2012. "Impact factor: outdated artefact or stepping-stone to journal certification?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 92(2), pages 211-238, August.

    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:8:y:2014:i:1:p:123-135. 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.