IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v125y2020i2d10.1007_s11192-020-03660-w.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Assessing the publication impact using citation data from both Scopus and WoS databases: an approach validated in 15 research fields

Author

Listed:
  • Gerson Pech

    (Rio de Janeiro State University)

  • Catarina Delgado

    (University of Porto
    University of Porto)

Abstract

In a recent paper ( https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03386-9 ) we proposed a model to estimate the citations of an article in a database (Scopus/Web of Science) in which it is not indexed using the percentile rank of the database (Web of Science/Scopus) in which it is indexed. In this study we supplement the previous work with three advances: (1) by using 15 different research fields, corresponding to over 1 million papers, since we previously used only four fields; (2) by measuring the agreement between the percentile ranks in both databases using Lin’s concordance correlation coefficient, since this coefficient has not been used previously to measure this agreement, but as a test with a sample of 15,400 papers to compare the actual and estimated number of citations; and (3) by using a robust data cleaning procedure. The results revealed a substantial concordance between percentile ranks of papers indexed in these two databases in all the research fields studied, and that this concordance is even stronger for high percentile values. This level of concordance suggests that we can consider the percentile of a paper in a database in which it is not indexed as being equal to the percentile of this paper in a database in which it is indexed. In other words, we increased the reliability of our previous conclusions that the percentile rank can be used as a citation database-normalization. The results of this study contribute to improve the use of citation counts in bibliometric studies, and to calculate research indicators when we need to use both bibliographic databases.

Suggested Citation

  • Gerson Pech & Catarina Delgado, 2020. "Assessing the publication impact using citation data from both Scopus and WoS databases: an approach validated in 15 research fields," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(2), pages 909-924, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:125:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-020-03660-w
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-020-03660-w
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-020-03660-w
    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/s11192-020-03660-w?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. Rodríguez-Navarro, Alonso & Brito, Ricardo, 2018. "Double rank analysis for research assessment," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 31-41.
    2. Abramo, Giovanni & Aksnes, Dag W. & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea, 2020. "Comparison of research performance of Italian and Norwegian professors and universities," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(2).
    3. Bornmann, Lutz & Leydesdorff, Loet & Wang, Jian, 2013. "Which percentile-based approach should be preferred for calculating normalized citation impact values? An empirical comparison of five approaches including a newly developed citation-rank approach (P1," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(4), pages 933-944.
    4. Lutz Bornmann & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2019. "Normalisation of citation impact in economics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(2), pages 841-884, August.
    5. Bornmann, Lutz & Leydesdorff, Loet & Mutz, Rüdiger, 2013. "The use of percentiles and percentile rank classes in the analysis of bibliometric data: Opportunities and limits," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 158-165.
    6. Judit Bar-Ilan, 2008. "Which h-index? — A comparison of WoS, Scopus and Google Scholar," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 74(2), pages 257-271, February.
    7. Anne-Wil Harzing & Satu Alakangas, 2016. "Google Scholar, Scopus and the Web of Science: a longitudinal and cross-disciplinary comparison," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 106(2), pages 787-804, February.
    8. Fairclough, Ruth & Thelwall, Mike, 2015. "More precise methods for national research citation impact comparisons," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 895-906.
    9. Philippe Mongeon & Adèle Paul-Hus, 2016. "The journal coverage of Web of Science and Scopus: a comparative analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 106(1), pages 213-228, January.
    10. Lutz Bornmann, 2013. "How to analyze percentile citation impact data meaningfully in bibliometrics: The statistical analysis of distributions, percentile rank classes, and top-cited papers," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 64(3), pages 587-595, March.
    11. Petersen, Alexander M. & Pan, Raj K. & Pammolli, Fabio & Fortunato, Santo, 2019. "Methods to account for citation inflation in research evaluation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(7), pages 1855-1865.
    12. Moed, Henk F. & Bar-Ilan, Judit & Halevi, Gali, 2016. "A new methodology for comparing Google Scholar and Scopus," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 533-551.
    13. Haunschild, Robin & Bornmann, Lutz, 2016. "Normalization of Mendeley reader counts for impact assessment," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 62-73.
    14. Abramo, Giovanni & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea, 2020. "A novel methodology to assess the scientific standing of nations at field level," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1).
    15. Anne-Wil Harzing, 2019. "Two new kids on the block: How do Crossref and Dimensions compare with Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic, Scopus and the Web of Science?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(1), pages 341-349, July.
    16. 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.
    17. Waltman, Ludo, 2016. "A review of the literature on citation impact indicators," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 365-391.
    18. Henk F. Moed, 2016. "Comprehensive indicator comparisons intelligible to non-experts: the case of two SNIP versions," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 106(1), pages 51-65, January.
    19. Sangwal, Keshra, 2013. "Citation and impact factor distributions of scientific journals published in individual countries," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 487-504.
    20. Vasilios D. Kosteas, 2018. "Predicting long-run citation counts for articles in top economics journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(3), pages 1395-1412, June.
    21. Gerson Pech & Catarina Delgado, 2020. "Percentile and stochastic-based approach to the comparison of the number of citations of articles indexed in different bibliographic databases," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(1), pages 223-252, April.
    22. Paul Donner, 2017. "Document type assignment accuracy in the journal citation index data of Web of Science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 113(1), pages 219-236, October.
    23. Filippo Radicchi & Claudio Castellano, 2012. "A Reverse Engineering Approach to the Suppression of Citation Biases Reveals Universal Properties of Citation Distributions," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(3), pages 1-9, March.
    24. Valderrama-Zurián, Juan-Carlos & Aguilar-Moya, Remedios & Melero-Fuentes, David & Aleixandre-Benavent, Rafael, 2015. "A systematic analysis of duplicate records in Scopus," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 570-576.
    25. Ludo Waltman & Michael Schreiber, 2013. "On the calculation of percentile-based bibliometric indicators," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 64(2), pages 372-379, February.
    26. Franceschini, Fiorenzo & Maisano, Domenico & Mastrogiacomo, Luca, 2016. "Empirical analysis and classification of database errors in Scopus and Web of Science," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 933-953.
    27. Lutz Bornmann & Richard Williams, 2020. "An evaluation of percentile measures of citation impact, and a proposal for making them better," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(2), pages 1457-1478, August.
    28. Ludo Waltman & Michael Schreiber, 2013. "On the calculation of percentile‐based bibliometric indicators," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 64(2), pages 372-379, February.
    29. Shuo Xu & Liyuan Hao & Xin An & Dongsheng Zhai & Hongshen Pang, 2019. "Types of DOI errors of cited references in Web of Science with a cleaning method," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(3), pages 1427-1437, September.
    30. Brito, Ricardo & Rodríguez-Navarro, Alonso, 2018. "Research assessment by percentile-based double rank analysis," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 315-329.
    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. Katchanov, Yurij L. & Markova, Yulia V. & Shmatko, Natalia A., 2023. "Uncited papers in the structure of scientific communication," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2).
    2. 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).
    3. Ana-Beatriz Hernández-Lara & Maria-Victoria Sánchez-Rebull & Angels Niñerola, 2021. "Six Sigma in Health Literature, What Matters?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(16), pages 1-13, August.

    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. Gerson Pech & Catarina Delgado, 2020. "Percentile and stochastic-based approach to the comparison of the number of citations of articles indexed in different bibliographic databases," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(1), pages 223-252, April.
    2. 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).
    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. Waltman, Ludo, 2016. "A review of the literature on citation impact indicators," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 365-391.
    5. Alonso Rodríguez-Navarro & Ricardo Brito, 2019. "Probability and expected frequency of breakthroughs: basis and use of a robust method of research assessment," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 119(1), pages 213-235, April.
    6. Michael Gusenbauer, 2022. "Search where you will find most: Comparing the disciplinary coverage of 56 bibliographic databases," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(5), pages 2683-2745, May.
    7. Brito, Ricardo & Rodríguez-Navarro, Alonso, 2018. "Research assessment by percentile-based double rank analysis," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 315-329.
    8. Lutz Bornmann & Rüdiger Mutz & Robin Haunschild & Felix Moya-Anegon & Mirko Almeida Madeira Clemente & Moritz Stefaner, 2021. "Mapping the impact of papers on various status groups in excellencemapping.net: a new release of the excellence mapping tool based on citation and reader scores," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(11), pages 9305-9331, November.
    9. Lutz Bornmann & Richard Williams, 2020. "An evaluation of percentile measures of citation impact, and a proposal for making them better," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(2), pages 1457-1478, August.
    10. Vivek Kumar Singh & Prashasti Singh & Mousumi Karmakar & Jacqueline Leta & Philipp Mayr, 2021. "The journal coverage of Web of Science, Scopus and Dimensions: A comparative analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(6), pages 5113-5142, June.
    11. Rodríguez-Navarro, Alonso & Brito, Ricardo, 2018. "Technological research in the EU is less efficient than the world average. EU research policy risks Europeans’ future," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 718-731.
    12. Sergio Copiello, 2019. "The open access citation premium may depend on the openness and inclusiveness of the indexing database, but the relationship is controversial because it is ambiguous where the open access boundary lie," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 121(2), pages 995-1018, November.
    13. Shirley Ainsworth & Jane M. Russell, 2018. "Has hosting on science direct improved the visibility of Latin American scholarly journals? A preliminary analysis of data quality," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(3), pages 1463-1484, June.
    14. 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.
    15. 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.
    16. 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.
    17. Mike Thelwall, 2019. "The influence of highly cited papers on field normalised indicators," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 118(2), pages 519-537, February.
    18. Dag W. Aksnes & Liv Langfeldt & Paul Wouters, 2019. "Citations, Citation Indicators, and Research Quality: An Overview of Basic Concepts and Theories," SAGE Open, , vol. 9(1), pages 21582440198, February.
    19. Shir Aviv-Reuven & Ariel Rosenfeld, 2023. "A logical set theory approach to journal subject classification analysis: intra-system irregularities and inter-system discrepancies in Web of Science and Scopus," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(1), pages 157-175, January.
    20. Tatiana Marina & Ivan Sterligov, 2021. "Prevalence of potentially predatory publishing in Scopus on the country level," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(6), pages 5019-5077, June.

    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:125:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-020-03660-w. 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.