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How well does I3 perform for impact measurement compared to other bibliometric indicators? The convergent validity of several (field-normalized) indicators

Author

Listed:
  • Lutz Bornmann

    (Administrative Headquarters of the Max Planck Society)

  • Alexander Tekles

    (Administrative Headquarters of the Max Planck Society
    Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich)

  • Loet Leydesdorff

    (University of Amsterdam)

Abstract

Recently, the integrated impact indicator (I3) was introduced where citations are weighted in accordance with the percentile rank class of each publication in a set of publications. I3 can also be used as a field-normalized indicator. Field-normalization is common practice in bibliometrics, especially when institutions and countries are compared. Publication and citation practices are so different among fields that citation impact is normalized for cross-field comparisons. In this study, we test the ability of the indicator to discriminate between quality levels of papers as defined by Faculty members at F1000Prime. F1000Prime is a post-publication peer review system for assessing papers in the biomedical area. Thus, we test the convergent validity of I3 (in this study, we test I3/N—the size-independent variant of I3 where I3 is divided by the number of papers) using assessments by peers as baseline and compare its validity with several other (field-normalized) indicators: the mean-normalized citation score, relative-citation ratio, citation score normalized by cited references, characteristic scores and scales, source-normalized citation score, citation percentile, and proportion of papers which belong to the x% most frequently cited papers (PPtop x%). The results show that the PPtop 1% indicator discriminates best among different quality levels. I3 performs similar as (slightly better than) most of the other field-normalized indicators. Thus, the results point out that the indicator could be a valuable alternative to other indicators in bibliometrics.

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  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:119:y:2019:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-019-03071-6
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-019-03071-6
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Pech, Gerson & Delgado, Catarina, 2021. "Screening the most highly cited papers in longitudinal bibliometric studies and systematic literature reviews of a research field or journal: Widespread used metrics vs a percentile citation-based app," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(3).
    2. Loet Leydesdorff & Lutz Bornmann & Jonathan Adams, 2019. "The integrated impact indicator revisited (I3*): a non-parametric alternative to the journal impact factor," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 119(3), pages 1669-1694, June.
    3. Bornmann, Lutz & Tekles, Alexander & Zhang, Helena H. & Ye, Fred Y., 2019. "Do we measure novelty when we analyze unusual combinations of cited references? A validation study of bibliometric novelty indicators based on F1000Prime data," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(4).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bibliometrics; I3; Field normalization; Citation analysis; Convergent validity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty

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