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The evaluation of citation distributions

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  • Javier Ruiz-Castillo

Abstract

This paper reviews a number of recent contributions that demonstrate that a blend of welfare economics and statistical analysis is useful in the evaluation of the citations received by scientific papers in the periodical literature. The paper begins by clarifying the role of citation analysis in the evaluation of research. Next, a summary of results about the citation distributions? basic features at different aggregation levels is offered. These results indicate that citation distributions share the same broad shape, are highly skewed, and are often crowned by a power law. In light of this evidence, a novel methodology for the evaluation of research units is illustrated by comparing the high- and low-citation impact achieved by the U.S., the European Union, and the rest of the world in 22 scientific fields. However, contrary to recent claims, it is shown that mean normalization at the sub-field level does not lead to a universal distribution. Nevertheless, among other topics subject to ongoing research, it appears that this lack of universality does not preclude sensible normalization procedures to compare the citation impact of articles in different scientific fields.
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  • Javier Ruiz-Castillo, 2012. "The evaluation of citation distributions," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 291-310, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:series:v:3:y:2012:i:1:p:291-310
    DOI: 10.1007/s13209-011-0074-3
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    Cited by:

    1. Neus Herranz & Javier Ruiz-Castillo, 2012. "Multiplicative and fractional strategies when journals are assigned to several subfields," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(11), pages 2195-2205, November.
    2. Lutz Bornmann & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2019. "Normalisation of citation impact in economics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(2), pages 841-884, August.
    3. Brito, Ricardo & Navarro, Alonso Rodríguez, 2021. "The inconsistency of h-index: A mathematical analysis," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1).
    4. Herranz, Neus & Ruiz-Castillo, Javier, 2012. "Sub-field normalization in the multiplicative case: Average-based citation indicators," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 543-556.
    5. Neus Herranz & Javier Ruiz-Castillo, 2013. "The end of the “European Paradox”," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 95(1), pages 453-464, April.
    6. Rodríguez-Navarro, Alonso & Brito, Ricardo, 2018. "Double rank analysis for research assessment," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 31-41.
    7. Campanario, Juan Miguel, 2015. "Providing impact: The distribution of JCR journals according to references they contribute to the 2-year and 5-year journal impact factors," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 398-407.
    8. Lutz Bornmann & Werner Marx, 2014. "How to evaluate individual researchers working in the natural and life sciences meaningfully? A proposal of methods based on percentiles of citations," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(1), pages 487-509, January.
    9. Javier Ruiz-Castillo, 2012. "The evaluation of citation distributions," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 291-310, March.
    10. Abramo, Giovanni & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea & Soldatenkova, Anastasiia, 2017. "An investigation on the skewness patterns and fractal nature of research productivity distributions at field and discipline level," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 324-335.
    11. Banshal, Sumit Kumar & Gupta, Solanki & Lathabai, Hiran H & Singh, Vivek Kumar, 2022. "Power Laws in altmetrics: An empirical analysis," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3).
    12. Brito, Ricardo & Rodríguez-Navarro, Alonso, 2018. "Research assessment by percentile-based double rank analysis," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 315-329.
    13. Bouyssou, Denis & Marchant, Thierry, 2016. "Ranking authors using fractional counting of citations: An axiomatic approach," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 183-199.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Citation analysis; Power law; Research performance; Poverty measurement; European paradox; O31; Y80; Z00;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A11 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Role of Economics; Role of Economists
    • A12 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines
    • D60 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - General
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty

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