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Effects of the durability of scientific literature at the group level: Case study of chemistry research groups in the Netherlands

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  • Costas, Rodrigo
  • van Leeuwen, Thed N.
  • van Raan, Anthony F.J.

Abstract

In this study an analysis of the effects of the different types of durability on the bibliometric performance at the group level is presented. The scientific production during the period of 1991–2000 of a set of 158 Dutch research groups in chemistry is studied considering several bibliometric indicators in the perspective of the durability of the publications in terms of the citations received. Two citation windows have been considered for the analysis of the effect of the enlargement of the citation period, one including the citations received in the same period of publications (1991–2000) and a second one including eight years more (1991–2008). In addition, qualitative indicators provided by a committee of experts who evaluated the research groups have been analyzed in order to study the relationship between qualitative indicators and quantitative measures, in particular these of durability. Results show that production with “normal” durability is the most rewarded both according to bibliometric indicators and qualitative assessments given by experts. We also find that publications with a delayed pattern do not represent a major problem in the assessment of research groups, as those groups with a higher share of this type of publications do not improve their assessment when the citation window is substantially enlarged. Several discussions are presented regarding the importance of durability analysis in the framework of research assessment situations.

Suggested Citation

  • Costas, Rodrigo & van Leeuwen, Thed N. & van Raan, Anthony F.J., 2013. "Effects of the durability of scientific literature at the group level: Case study of chemistry research groups in the Netherlands," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(4), pages 886-894.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:42:y:2013:i:4:p:886-894
    DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2012.11.006
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Rodrigo Costas & Thed N. van Leeuwen & Anthony F.J. van Raan, 2010. "Is scientific literature subject to a ‘Sell-By-Date’? A general methodology to analyze the ‘durability’ of scientific documents," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 61(2), pages 329-339, February.
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    Cited by:

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    2. Waltman, Ludo, 2016. "A review of the literature on citation impact indicators," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 365-391.
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    4. Lachance, Christian & Larivière, Vincent, 2014. "On the citation lifecycle of papers with delayed recognition," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 863-872.
    5. Pengfei Jia & Weixi Xie & Guangyao Zhang & Xianwen Wang, 2023. "Do reviewers get their deserved acknowledgments from the authors of manuscripts?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(10), pages 5687-5703, October.
    6. Min Song & Keun Young Kang & Tatsawan Timakum & Xinyuan Zhang, 2020. "Examining influential factors for acknowledgements classification using supervised learning," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(2), pages 1-21, February.

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