Beginners' Bibliometrics?

Are you wondering how bibliometrics affect academics and institutions? Would you like to help create publication plans, impact reports, and more?
Introducing the new series...

Basic Bibliometrics for Librarians! (or Bibliometrics in baby-steps)

There are so many people wanting to know more about Bibliometrics, Impact, and other research support services, that I thought I would start a series of posts with some very short quick  intros to, well, some stuff.

I have learned so much over the past few months I just thought I'd put a few things out there for others. Let me know if there is actually any interest... If you have suggested topics, post them in the comments and I'll start scheduling some future posts.

So, what are Bibliometrics? 

Bibliometrics are methods of statistically analysing information. That's all.

Increasingly, bibliometrics are being used as a measure of research impact or research influence. This can affect ranking and funding of authors and of institutions. That's why we need to know about it.


A common example of bibliometrics is the use of citation analysis - for example - how many times a researcher's work has been cited in key literature.  
Citation analysis is used in searching for materials and judging its quality. 

Some data that is used for citation measurement includes:

• Number of times an author is cited
• Number of times an article is cited
• Number of articles published
• Number of articles published in a journal each year
• Number of journals in a subject area
• Half-life of journals
• Cited half-life of journals

Citation measurement is not perfect because:

• No single data source is comprehensive. 
• Publication dates can affect results.
• Frequency of a journal can also affect results.
• An article may be cited because it is really dodgy.
• Commercial products used for citation counts do not consider website sources, repositories or open source resources.
• Some articles might be widely read by individuals who never publish.
• Only a small number of articles are highly cited and these are found in a small number of journals (and fields)

Thanks to Macquarie University Library for some of this info...

Next post will be.... Journal Impact for Dummies.