IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v50y2001i2d10.1023_a1010577824449.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Two decades of "Scientometrics". An interdisciplinary field represented by its leading journal

Author

Listed:
  • Urs Schoepflin

    (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
    Research Association for Science Communication and Information e. V. (RASCI)Frankfurt/Oder)

  • Wolfgang Glänzel

    (Research Association for Science Communication and Information e. V. (RASCI)Frankfurt/Oder
    Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences)

Abstract

The development of the field of bibliometric and scientometric research is analysed byquantitative methods to answer the following questions: (1) Is bibliometrics evolving from a softscience field towards rather hard (social) sciences (Schubert-Maczelka hypothesis)? (2) Canbibliometrics be characterised as a social science field with stable characteristics(Wouters-Leydesdorff hypothesis)? (3) Is bibliometrics a heterogeneous field, the sub-disciplinesof which have their own characteristics? Are these sub-disciplines more and more consolidating,and are predominant sub-disciplines impressing their own characteristics upon the whole field(Glänzel-Schoepflin hypothesis)? The Price Index per paper, the percentage of references toserials, the mean references age, and the mean reference rate are calculated based on all articlesand their respective references in Scientometrics in 1980, 1989, and 1997. The articles areclassified in six categories. The findings suggest, that the field is in fact heterogeneous, and eachsub-discipline has its own characteristics. While the contribution of these sub-disciplines inScientometrics was still well-balanced in 1980, papers dealing with case studies and methodologybecame dominant by 1997.

Suggested Citation

  • Urs Schoepflin & Wolfgang Glänzel, 2001. "Two decades of "Scientometrics". An interdisciplinary field represented by its leading journal," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 50(2), pages 301-312, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:50:y:2001:i:2:d:10.1023_a:1010577824449
    DOI: 10.1023/A:1010577824449
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1023/A:1010577824449
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1023/A:1010577824449?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. L. Egghe, 1997. "Price index and its relation to the mean and median reference age," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 48(6), pages 564-573, June.
    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. Qian Wang & Shixian Luo & Jiao Zhang & Katsunori Furuya, 2022. "Increased Attention to Smart Development in Rural Areas: A Scientometric Analysis of Smart Village Research," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-28, August.
    2. Dutt Bharvi & K. C. Garg & Anita Bali, 2003. "Scientometrics of the international journal Scientometrics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 56(1), pages 81-93, January.
    3. Mark William Neff & Elizabeth A. Corley, 2009. "35 years and 160,000 articles: A bibliometric exploration of the evolution of ecology," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 80(3), pages 657-682, September.
    4. Feifei Wang & Junping Qiu & Houqiang Yu, 2012. "Research on the cross-citation relationship of core authors in scientometrics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 91(3), pages 1011-1033, June.
    5. Bluma C. Peritz & Judit Bar-Ilan, 2002. "The sources used by bibliometrics-scientometrics as reflected in references," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 54(2), pages 269-284, June.
    6. Yunwei Chen & Katy Börner & Shu Fang, 2013. "Evolving collaboration networks in Scientometrics in 1978–2010: a micro–macro analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 95(3), pages 1051-1070, June.
    7. András Schubert, 2002. "The Web of Scientometrics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 53(1), pages 3-20, January.

    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. Wang, Xianwen & Wang, Zhi & Mao, Wenli & Liu, Chen, 2014. "How far does scientific community look back?," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 562-568.
    2. L. Egghe, 2010. "A model showing the increase in time of the average and median reference age and the decrease in time of the Price Index," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 82(2), pages 243-248, February.
    3. Anthony G. Stacey, 2021. "Ages of cited references and growth of scientific knowledge: an explication of the gamma distribution in business and management disciplines," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(1), pages 619-640, January.
    4. Ivan Jarić & Jelena Knežević-Jarić & Mirjana Lenhardt, 2014. "Relative age of references as a tool to identify emerging research fields with an application to the field of ecology and environmental sciences," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 100(2), pages 519-529, August.
    5. Pei-Shan Chi & Wolfgang Glänzel, 2022. "An article-based cross-disciplinary study of reference literature for indicator improvement," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(12), pages 7077-7089, December.
    6. Zhenyu Gou & Fan Meng & Zaida Chinchilla-Rodríguez & Yi Bu, 2022. "Encoding the citation life-cycle: the operationalization of a literature-aging conceptual model," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(8), pages 5027-5052, August.
    7. Stacey, Anthony G, 2020. "Robust parameterisation of ages of references in published research," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3).
    8. Egghe, L., 2013. "The functional relation between the impact factor and the uncitedness factor revisited," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 183-189.
    9. Richard Klavans & Kevin W. Boyack, 2008. "Thought leadership: A new indicator for national and institutional comparison," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 75(2), pages 239-250, May.
    10. C. B. Amat & A. Yegros Yegros, 2009. "Median age difference of references as indicator of information update of research groups: A case study in Spanish food research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 78(3), pages 447-465, March.
    11. Yanhui Song & Feng Ma & Siluo Yang, 2015. "Comparative study on the obsolescence of humanities and social sciences in China: under the new situation of web," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 102(1), pages 365-388, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:50:y:2001:i:2:d:10.1023_a:1010577824449. 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.