Abstract
This paper presents a methodological proposal based on the identification of highly cited papers (HCPs) at domestic-level in the Spanish Public University System (SUPE), in order to find the most outstanding publications in the local context. The principal aim is to detect different activity and impact profiles among Spanish universities and differentiate those institutions that play a more significant role. To determine which and how many are the highly cited papers at the domestic level (HCP-DL) collected in the Web of Science, three citation thresholds (1, 5, and 10%) were established. Thematic classification in Incites/Essential Science Indicators areas is used. The results show a preponderance of HCPs in the field of Space Science, while the polytechnic universities have high visibility in the Computer Science area. It has been observed that the presence of HCPs in a given area is involved with universities specialized in teaching and research activities. In absolute terms, the big non-specialized universities are major producers of HCPs and hold the leading positions in our results. However, when efficiency is analyzed in relative terms, some small, specialized universities reveal themselves to be more efficient at producing HCPs (% of HCPs or citations per HCP). We think that this methodology, due to its simplicity, its ease of calculation, and the knowledge it provides, can be very useful to analyze the national systems of any country, in order to know the impact and visibility of the research carried out in its scientific institutions or research areas.
Highlights
Right from the creation of the impact factor (IF) by Garfield (1955), the field of scientometrics assumed this indicator as a measure of analysis of scientific performance based on the number of citations a journal achieves
Traditional studies based on bibliometrics can be complemented with new indicators such as altmetrics, which measure the interest that research arouses in society and have had a particular impact since their appearance in 2010 (Priem and Hemminger, 2010)
The present study proposes a methodology focused on identifying highly cited papers (HCPs) produced by Spanish public universities using the figures for the SUPE as a reference
Summary
Right from the creation of the impact factor (IF) by Garfield (1955), the field of scientometrics assumed this indicator as a measure of analysis of scientific performance based on the number of citations a journal achieves. Several studies have shown that journal’s IF does not accurately reflect the impact of each individual article (Seglen, 1997; Garfield, 2006), many institutions and national evaluation systems still use it. As MartínMartín et al (2018) comment, “Since the classic study by Bollen et al (2009), where the data came primarily from usage logs provided by publishers, many papers have been published on the nature of online article-level metrics.”. Some of these studies have tried to correlate traditional citation with citation over different platforms that offer indicators of social media impact As MartínMartín et al (2018) comment, “Since the classic study by Bollen et al (2009), where the data came primarily from usage logs provided by publishers, many papers have been published on the nature of online article-level metrics.” Some of these studies have tried to correlate traditional citation with citation over different platforms that offer indicators of social media impact
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
