Self-citation Rate Research Articles

Comparison of Journal Self-Citation Rates between Some Chinese and Non-Chinese International Journals

BackgroundThe past 3 decades have witnessed a boost in science development in China; in parallel, more and more Chinese scientific journals are indexed by the Journal Citation Reports issued by Thomson Reuters (SCI). Evaluation of the performance of these Chinese SCI journals is necessary and helpful to improve their quality. This study aimed to evaluate these journals by calculating various journal self-citation rates, which are important parameters influencing a journal impact factor.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe defined three journal self-citation rates, and studied these rates for 99 Chinese scientific journals, almost exhausting all Chinese SCI journals currently available. Likewise, we selected 99 non-Chinese international (abbreviated as ‘world’) journals, with each being in the same JCR subject category and having similar impact factors as their Chinese counterparts. Generally, Chinese journals tended to be higher in all the three self-citation rates than world journal counterparts. Particularly, a few Chinese scientific journals had much higher self-citation rates.Conclusions/SignificanceOur results show that generally Chinese scientific journals have higher self-citation rates than those of world journals. Consequently, Chinese scientific journals tend to have lower visibility and are more isolated in the relevant fields. Considering the fact that sciences are rapidly developing in China and so are Chinese scientific journals, we expect that the differences of journal self-citation rates between Chinese and world scientific journals will gradually disappear in the future. Some suggestions to solve the problems are presented.

Bibliometric Analysis of the Journal of Cross- Cultural Psychology During the First Ten Years of the New Millennium

A bibliometric analysis of research articles published in the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology ( JCCP) during the first 10 years (2001-2010) of the new millennium was provided. There were 457 original research articles, which were cited 6,187 times in 4,227 citing papers (January 25, 2012). Although the largest number of articles were authored by researchers from the United States (52.3%), Canada (12.0%), and People’s Republic of China (11.6%), the highest impact articles were written by Israeli (30.5 citations per article), Estonian (29.5), and Swiss (23.6) psychologists. The country self-citation rates or biases were highest in the United States (+22.9%), the Netherlands (+20.7%), and People’s Republic of China (+20.5%), showing that the small-world networks operate most strongly in these three countries. As revealed by a cross-journal citation pattern, JCCP had the strongest influence on personality and social psychology research and negligible on intelligence and cognitive research. The impact of the research articles published in JCCP on the core psychology journals remained at the same (modest) level, while the journal self-citation bias demonstrated a slight increase during the last 10 years.

Citation patterns in organization and management journals: Margins and centres

Citations tell us something about the patterns of knowledge exchange around a particular journal. To examine this network, one can use Thomson Reuters’ Journal Citation Reports database and derive three basic citation relationships: the numbers of articles citing (and thus influenced by) a journal, articles cited by (thus influencing) a journal, as well as the self-citation rate of the journal. In this article we examine the patterns relating to 27 selected journals in organization and management. The article proposes an influence metric with a citing and cited pair. The metric is applied to develop a taxonomy which classifies journals into one of four types of influence network, and comments on the way in which this sort of citation data locates Organization clearly on the margins in a number of important ways. We also comment on whether marginalization is an effect of interdisciplinarity, and political and methodological heterodoxy.

Influence of open access journals of biomedicine in China on academic exchanges

Objective To compare the influence of open access journals ( OAJ ) of biomedicine on academic exchanges by empirically analyzing the journals enrolled in the Chinese science citation database-the core (CSCD-C).Methods Multivariate statistical analysis was performed on OAJ and non OAJ in CSCD by using bibliometric and statistical methods,SPSS software and rank-sum test.Results The OAJ were accounted for only 31.63％ of the total enrolled journals,the average ratio of funded papers in OAJ was 72.29％.Statistical journals had high influence in the discipline.The selfcitation rates of clinical medicine OAJ and special medical OAJ were high.The average impact factor and h index in biological OAJ were high.The average impact factor of preventive medicine OAJ was high.The average h index of comprehensive non OAJ was high.Conclusions The distribution of OAJ is uneven among different disciplines.The ratio of funded papers is higher in OAJ than in non OAJ with insignificant differences in discipline influence. Key words: Open access journal; Academic exchange; Influence

Short Term Impact of the Chilean Journal of Agricultural Research: A Bibliometric Analysis

In January 2007, the Chilean Journal of Agricultural Research was indexed by the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI). This paper reviews the research that has been published since 2007 by using records extracted from the Web of Science database. The papers published were mostly affiliated to researchers from Chile, and six out of the ten most-contributing countries were from Latin America. The analysis by institutions showed Universidad de Concepcion as the most prolific, although this result is not valid. A lack of standardization in the manner the Instituto de Investigaciones Agropecuarias (INIA) subscribed its address on each paper caused a disaggregation of the information. This was proven by the manual curation of each record that was affiliated to any of the centers belonging to INIA. The journal has a self-citation rate of 19.3%, value that is relatively high if compared to other journals from the same subject category listed on The Journal Citation Reports 2010. Finally, this work should be considered a bibliometric snapshot of the current situation of the journal that will serve as a benchmark when new evaluations are made in a few-years time.

THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF’S FAREWELL

THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF’S FAREWELL

Journal Self-citation Analysis of Some Chinese Sci-tech Periodicals

This study investigates self-citation rates of 222 Chinese journals within seven groups including 76 journals of agronomy (34.2 percent), 57 of biology (25.7 percent), 28 of environmental science and technology (12.6 percent), 15 of forestry (6.8 percent), 24 of academic journals of agricultural university (10.8 percent), 9 of aquatic sciences (4.1 percent), and 13 of animal husbandry and veterinary medicine (5.9 percent). The average self-citation rates range from 2 percent to 67 percent in 2006, 1 percent to 68 percent in 2007 and 0 percent to 67 percent in 2008. There is a significant difference in self-citation rate between most groups of journals. The self-citation rate is positively and significantly correlated with the self-citation rate in 2006 for all 222 journals (N = 222, R2 = 0.194, P = 0.004) (P < 0.05). However, the self-citation rate is not significantly correlated with the journal's impact factor in 2007 (N = 222, R2 = 0.114, P = 0.091) and 2008 (N = 222, R2 = 0.112, P = 0.096) (P < 0.05) for the 222 journals. The relationship between self-citation rate and journal impact factor is discussed.

Citation pattern and lifespan: a comparison of discipline, institution, and individual

Citation frequency is often used in hiring and tenure decisions as an indicator of the quality of a researcher's publications. In this paper, we examine the influence of discipline, institution, journal impact factor, length of article, number of authors, seniority of author, and gender on citation rate of top-cited papers for academic faculty in geography and forestry departments. Self-citation practices and patterns of citation frequency across post-publication lifespan were also examined. Citation rates of the most-highly cited paper for all tenured forestry (N = 122) and geography (N = 91) faculty at Auburn University, Michigan State University, Northern Arizona University, Oklahoma State University, Pennsylvania State University, Texas A&M University, University of Florida, University of Massachusetts, University of Washington, and Virginia Tech were compared. Foresters received significantly more citations than geographers (t = 2.46, P = 0.02) and more senior authors received more citations than junior researchers (r 2 = 0.14, P = 0.03). Articles published in journals with higher impact factors also received more citations (r 2 = 0.28, P = 0.00). The median self-citation rate was 10% and there was no temporal pattern to the frequency of citations received by an individual article (x 2 = 176). Our results stress the importance of only comparing citation rates within a given discipline and confirm the importance of author-seniority and journal rankings as factors that influence citation rate of a given article.

A bibliometric analysis and comparison on three information science journals: JASIST, IPM, JOD, 1998–2008

Employing a citation analysis, this study explored and compared the bibliometric characteristics and the subject relationship with other disciplines of and among the three leading information science journals, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (JASIST), Information Processing and Management and Journal of Documentation. The citation data were drawn from references of each article of the three journals during 1998 and 2008. The Ulrich's Periodical Directory, Library of Congress Subject Heading, retrieved from the WorldCat, and LISA database were used to identify the main class, subclass and subject of cited journals and books. Quantitative results on the number of JASIST, IPM and JOD literature references, average number of references cited per paper, document type of cited literature and the journal self-citation rate are reported. Moreover, the highly cited journals and books, the main classes and subclasses of cited journals and books in papers of the three journals, the highly cited subjects in journals and books of library and information science were identified and analyzed. Comparison on the characteristics of cited journals and books confirmed that all the three journals under study are information science oriented, except JOD which is library science orientation. JASIST and IPM are very much in common and diffuse to other disciplines more deeply than JOD.

Journal Self-citation Analysis of Some Chinese Sci-tech Periodicals

This study investigates self-citation rates of 222 Chinese journals within seven groups including 76 journals of agronomy (34.2 percent), 57 of biology (25.7 percent), 28 of environmental science and technology (12.6 percent), 15 of forestry (6.8 percent), 24 of academic journals of agricultural university (10.8 percent), 9 of aquatic sciences (4.1 percent), and 13 of animal husbandry and veterinary medicine (5.9 percent). The average self-citation rates range from 2 percent to 67 percent in 2006, 1 percent to 68 percent in 2007 and 0 percent to 67 percent in 2008. There is a significant difference in self-citation rate between most groups of journals. The self-citation rate is positively and significantly correlated with the self-citation rate in 2006 for all 222 journals ( N = 222, R 2 = 0.194, P = 0.004) ( P < 0.05). However, the self-citation rate is not significantly correlated with the journal's impact factor in 2007 ( N = 222, R 2 = 0.114, P = 0.091) and 2008 ( N = 222, R 2 = 0.112, P = 0.096) ( P < 0.05) for the 222 journals. The relationship between self-citation rate and journal impact factor is discussed.

국내 과학기술 연구자의 한국 학술지 인용패턴 연구

A large and reliable citation database is necessary to identify and analyze citation behavior of Korean researchers in science and technology. Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI) built the Korea Science Citation Database (KSCD), and have provided Korea Science Citation Index (KSCI) and Korea Journal Citation Reports (KJCR) services. In this article, citing behavior of Korean scientists on Korean journals was examined by using the KSCD that covers 459 Korean core journals. This research dealt with (1) statistical numeric information of journals in KSCD, (2) analysis of document types cited. (3) ratio of domestic to international documents cited and ratio of citing different disciplines. (4) analysis on immediacy index, peak time, and half-life of cited documents, and (5) analysis on impact of journals based on KJCR citation indicators. From this research, we could find the immediacy citation rate (average 2.36%), peak-time (average 1.7 years) and half-life (average 5.2 years) of cited journals in Korea. We also found that the average journal self-citation rate is more than 50% in every field. In sum, citing behavior of Korean scientists on Korean journals was comprehensively identified from this research.

Artifactual Increase in Journal Self-Citation

After submission of a manuscript to a peer-reviewed anesthesia journal, several authors were asked to cite additional references from the journal to which they submitted. We hypothesized that there were differences among the anesthesiology journals in both the total number of self-citations and the proportion of self-citations to the total number of references in each manuscript for the years 2005 and 2010. We conducted a review of a sample of manuscripts from 2005 and 2010 to examine the number and rate of self-citations. As a secondary analysis, we reviewed impact factor (IF), rate of self-referencing, and contribution of self-citations to IF in the population of manuscripts published in 8 anesthesia journals between 2000 and 2009 using the ISI Journal Citation Reports. The number (P < 0.0001) and rate (P < 0.0001) of self-citations among the different journals were significantly different in 2005, with similar results for 2010 in the number (P < 0.0001) and rate (P = 0.0002) of self-citations. The mean range of number of self-citations ranged from 0.45 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.06 to 0.84) to 3.95 (95% CI, 2.2 to 5.7) in 2005 and from 0.25 (95% CI, -0.05 to 0.55) to 4.5 (95% CI, 2.2 to 6.9) in 2010. On a per-journal basis, no difference in the number of self-citations was noted between 2005 and 2010. Analysis of the ISI Journal Citation Reports from 2000 to 2009 suggested a general decline in the contribution of self-cites to the IF over time for the aggregate journals (Spearman correlation coefficient (Rs) -0.25 (95% CI, -0.45 to -0.03), P = 0.02), with the exception of the journal in question (Rs = 0.59 (95% CI, -0.1 to 0.88), P = 0.05). Positive correlations were found between self-cited rate and IF (Rs 0.52, 95% CI, 0.34 to 0.66, P < 0.0001), percentage of self-cites to years used in IF calculation and IF (Rs 0.41, 95% CI, 0.21 to 0.58, P < 0.0001), and δ-IF and IF (Rs 0.89, 95% CI, 0.84 to 0.93, P < 0.0001). Although the number and rate of self-citations differed among anesthesia journals, the contribution of self-citation to IF has declined over time for most anesthesia journals. These results suggest periodic reassessment may be important to ensure that the publication process remains transparent and impartial to bias.

On Evaluation Of Faculty Research Impact Of Citation Analysis

&lt;p class="MsoBlockText" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: normal; font-family: &amp;quot;CG Times&amp;quot;,&amp;quot;serif&amp;quot;; font-size: 10pt;"&gt;Citation analysis is gaining importance in evaluation of faculty research because of the need for objective, consistent analysis and because of the availability of databases that provide citation information.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;An overview of citation analysis is presented, along with criteria for and examples of manual and electronic citation analysis.&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;The example of the manual count determines the average number of bibliographic citations per article; the recency of the citation;&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;the author self-citation rate; the percentage of citations listed in the articles from books, journals, or other publications;&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;the average number of pages per article; the incidence of citations to the journal in which the article is published (journal self-citations).&lt;span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;The examples of the electronic count give number of citations from authors in other journals, impact factor, immediacy index, and cited half-life. Results provide insight into availability of data and possible uses of that data; i.e., faculty and research evaluation, selection of journals in which to publish, and implications for the future.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

Analysis of articles and citations of Chinese Journal of Pediatrics from 1950 to 2009

To explore the articles, authors and citations of the articles published in Chinese Journal of Pediatrics, and have a clear view of the characteristics of this journal in its different development stages. Bibliometric methods were used to analyze the published articles, cooperation, regional distribution, core authors, corresponding authors and high-quantities of publication institutes, and also to calculate the number of citations per paper, types of citations, language-based citation number, Price index, self-cited rate and the distribution of journals based on citations. Totally 5534 academic articles were published during the 60 years, of which the number of articles written by more than one author was 4669 (80.71%), with a degree of collaboration as 3.87, and a rate of collaboration as 84.37%. The number of articles by a single author was 865 (19.29%). As for the regions from where the papers were submitted, the top one was Beijing, which had 1495 articles published (27.01%). The top 15 institutes in number of articles had published 2254 articles (40.73%). The average citation rate was 84.15%, and the number of citations was 48 854. The number of citations per paper was 10.06, the Price index and self-cited rate were 55.57% and 6.12%, respectively. The number of citations from foreign language literature was 35 781 (69.1%). The citation number of journals was 43 266 (84.5%), which is markedly higher than the citations of books and others. Chinese Journal of Pediatrics has a wide distribution of authors and a high cooperative rate. This journal has a group of high-level core authors since founded in 1950, and it shows an adequate ability of absorbing and using scientific information. The articles published in this journal not only objectively reflected the distribution of the research powers, but also the development status of pediatrics in our country.

Self-citation: comparison between Radiology, European Radiology and Radiology for 1997–1998

This study investigates the incidence of self-citation (authors citing their own work) for scholarly articles in ten journals published by the American Physiological Society. We analysed authorship and referencing practices of all original research articles published in the first ordinary issue of each journal in both 2000 and 2010, comprising 271 and 212 articles, respectively. Self-citation is common in these journals and represents a total of 17.75% of all citations. Only 9 (1.86%) of the articles analysed did not self-cite. Author position significantly influenced the rate of self-citation with last authors being self-cited significantly more than any other author. This was likely a result of the cumulative nature of scientific research within a specific discipline and the necessary desire to promote ones own work for associated academic benefit. The country in which the work was conducted also influenced the rate of self-citation, with last authors based in North America self-citing more than last authors from Asian countries. A comparison of self-citation rates between decades (2000 and 2010) revealed an increase in the number of authors and number of citations per article between 2000 and 2010, however the mean percentage of self-cited articles did not differ between the years. Finally, there were no differences in the percentage of self-citation between the different journals analysed.

한국운동역학회지의 국제화와 SCI-E 등재 방안

Korean Journal of Sport Biomechanics(KJSB) is facing down by a great challenge. Following the long-term plan of the Korean Society of Sport Biomechanics, the KJSB has entered a new era in 2010 in the sense that the some papers are published in English. Immense efforts are needed to accomplish the original goal of KJSB becoming an internationally recognized journal. The 2009 Spring International Conference of the KSSB was held in this connection with the subject of the vitalization of the KJSB. A special topic were presented at the Conference and vigorous discussions followed. The Editor-in-Chief of KJSB presented strategies to improve the number of suggestion to the KJSB. The Manager of Thomson Reuter gave a presentation on how KJSB can grow into the SCI-expanded journal. This manuscript is presented on the basis of the presentations and the discussions at the meeting for the purpose of finding the way in aiming the direction of the long-term goal of the KJSB. Other evaluation criteria such as journal self-citation rate. SCI citation rate and SCI impact factor need to modify the score ranges.

Citation Analysis of the Chinese Journal of Hand Surgery from 2005 to 2009

Objective To study the citation pattern of articles published by the Chinese Journal of Hand Surgery(CJHS),and analyze the characterisdcs of literature requirement by scientists working in the field of hand surgery.Methods Bibliometrics methods were applind to analyze the references cited in all 942 articles published in 30 issues of CJHS from 2005 to 2009,such as number of citations,citation rate,citation languages,document type of citations,year of citation and Price index.Self-citation rate and Price index were calculated.Results 1he citation rate of the 942 articles was 87.37%,with 5 390 overall citations and 6.55 citations per article.Main types of citations are journal(90.71%)and books(9.29%).Price Index was 44.97%.Selfcitation rate was 31.61%.The references from the 18 highly-ranked journals accounted for 66.21%of all the references.Conclusion Chinese Journal of Hand Surgeryis a high query specialized periodical in the field of hand surgery.Foreign language in the citations is single.The citations are of new contents and recent publications. Key words: Citation analysis; Scientific periodicals; Bibliometrics

Self-citation in Chinese biomedical journals

We investigated the self-citation rates of 884 Chinese biomedical journals, including 185 general medicine journals, 96 preventive medicine journals, 103 Chinese traditional medicine journals, 66 basic medicine journals, 370 clinical medicine journals, and 64 pharmaceutical journals. The average self-citation rates of these journals for the years 2005-2007 were 0.113 ± 0.124, 0.099 ± 0.098 and 0.092 ± 0.089, respectively, i.e. a downward trend year by year. The upper limits of normal values of self-citation rates for the same period were 0.316, 0.260 and 0.238, respectively. A significant difference was found in self-citation rate between biomedical journals of different subjects. 52 Chinese biomedical journals had no self-citation in 2007. The total citation frequency and impact factor of these 52 biomedical journals were 263 and 0.206, respectively, which were very much lower than the average levels of all Chinese biomedical journals in 2007. A self-citation rate higher than the upper limit was considered as excessive self-citation: 62 (7.01%), 68 (7.69%) and 66 (7.47%) biomedical journals showed excessive self-citation in the years 2005-2007, respectively. However, a certain amount of self-citation is reasonable and necessary.

Zipf’s law and log-normal distributions in measures of scientific output across fields and institutions: 40 years of Slovenia’s research as an example

Slovenia’s Current Research Information System (SICRIS) currently hosts 86,443 publications with citation data from 8359 researchers working on the whole plethora of social and natural sciences from 1970 till present. Using these data, we show that the citation distributions derived from individual publications have Zipfian properties in that they can be fitted by a power law P ( x ) ∼ x − α , with α between 2.4 and 3.1 depending on the institution and field of research. Distributions of indexes that quantify the success of researchers rather than individual publications, on the other hand, cannot be associated with a power law. We find that for Egghe’s g -index and Hirsch’s h -index the log-normal form P ( x ) ∼ exp ⁡ [ − a ln ⁡ x − b ( ln ⁡ x ) 2 ] applies best, with a and b depending moderately on the underlying set of researchers. In special cases, particularly for institutions with a strongly hierarchical constitution and research fields with high self-citation rates, exponential distributions can be observed as well. Both indexes yield distributions with equivalent statistical properties, which is a strong indicator for their consistency and logical connectedness. At the same time, differences in the assessment of citation histories of individual researchers strengthen their importance for properly evaluating the quality and impact of scientific output.

Individual, country, and journal self-citation in soil science

Self-citation is common practice in most sciences but it differs between disciplines, countries and journals. Here we report on self-citation in soil science. We investigated citations in the major soil science journals and conducted an analysis on a country basis and for the subdiscipline of Pedometrics. It was found that the median rate of individual self-citation was 12%, and ranged from 5 to 60% in 31 soil science journals. A high rate of journal self-citation was accompanied by a high impact factor ranking, but ranking based on the Eigenfactor™ revealed a very different ranking compared to the impact factor score ranking. The distribution of country self-citation rate follows a power law, and a logarithmic function was fitted to the data. Taking into account the logarithmic function, China had high rates of self-citations whereas Egypt, Algeria, Ukraine, and Indonesia have low levels of self-citations. With few exceptions, self-citation rates in soil science are reasonable and comparable to the other biophysical sciences.