Mapping and classification of agriculture in Web of Science: other subject categories and research fields may benefit

Abstract

Fields of science (FOS) can be used for the assessment of publishing patterns and scientific output. To this end, WOS JCR (Web of Science/Journal Citation Reports) subject categories are often mapped to Frascati-related OECD FOS (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development). Although WOS categories are widely employed, they reflect agriculture (one of six major FOS) less comprehensively. Other fields may benefit from agricultural WOS mapping. The aim was to map all articles produced nationally (Slovenia) by agricultural research groups, over two decades, to their corresponding journals and categories in order to visualize the strength of links between the categories and scatter of articles, based on WOS-linked raw data in COBISS/SciMet portal (Co-operative Online Bibliographic System and Services/Science Metrics) and national CRIS--Slovenian Current Research Information System. Agricultural groups are mapped into four subfields: Forestry and Wood Science, Plant Production, Animal Production, and Veterinary Science. Food science is comprised as either plant- or animal-product-related. On average, 50 % of relevant articles are published outside the scope of journals mapped to WOS agricultural categories. The other half are mapped mostly to OECD Natural-, Medical- and Health Sciences, and Engineering-and-Technology. A few selected journals and principal categories account for an important part of all relevant documents (core). Even many core journals/categories as ascertained with power laws (Bradford's law) are not mapped to agriculture. Research-evaluation based on these classifications may underestimate multidisciplinary dimensions of agriculture, affecting its position among scientific fields and also subsequent funding if established on such ranking.