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Correlating article citedness and journal impact: an empirical investigation by field on a large-scale dataset

Author

Listed:
  • Giovanni Abramo

    (National Research Council of Italy)

  • Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo

    (National Research Council of Italy
    University of Rome “Tor Vergata”)

  • Flavia Costa

    (University of Rome “Tor Vergata”)

Abstract

In spite of previous research demonstrating the risks involved, and counsel against the practice as early as 1997, some research evaluations continue to use journal impact alone as a surrogate of the number of citations of hosted articles to assess the latter’s impact. Such usage is also taken up by research administrators and policy-makers, with very serious implications. The aim of this work is to investigate the correlation between the citedness of a publication and the impact of the host journal. We extend the analyses of previous literature to all STEM fields. Then we also aim to assess whether this correlation varies across fields and is stronger for highly cited authors than for lowly cited ones. Our dataset consists of a total of almost one million authorships of 2010–2019 publications authored by about 28,000 professors in 230 research fields. Results show a low correlation between the two indicators, more so for lowly cited authors as compared to highly cited ones, although differences occur across fields.

Suggested Citation

  • Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo & Flavia Costa, 2023. "Correlating article citedness and journal impact: an empirical investigation by field on a large-scale dataset," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(3), pages 1877-1894, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:128:y:2023:i:3:d:10.1007_s11192-022-04622-0
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-022-04622-0
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Abramo, Giovanni & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea & Felici, Giovanni, 2019. "Predicting publication long-term impact through a combination of early citations and journal impact factor," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 32-49.
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    6. Lanu Kim & Jason H. Portenoy & Jevin D. West & Katherine W. Stovel, 2020. "Scientific journals still matter in the era of academic search engines and preprint archives," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 71(10), pages 1218-1226, October.
    7. George A. Lozano & Vincent Larivière & Yves Gingras, 2012. "The weakening relationship between the impact factor and papers' citations in the digital age," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(11), pages 2140-2145, November.
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    15. Ciriaco Andrea D'Angelo & Cristiano Giuffrida & Giovanni Abramo, 2011. "A heuristic approach to author name disambiguation in bibliometrics databases for large-scale research assessments," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 62(2), pages 257-269, February.
    16. Tobias Kiesslich & Marlena Beyreis & Georg Zimmermann & Andreas Traweger, 2021. "Citation inequality and the Journal Impact Factor: median, mean, (does it) matter?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(2), pages 1249-1269, February.
    17. Lin Zhang & Ronald Rousseau & Gunnar Sivertsen, 2017. "Science deserves to be judged by its contents, not by its wrapping: Revisiting Seglen's work on journal impact and research evaluation," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(3), pages 1-18, March.
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