Research evaluation
Vol 33(1), February 2007
By
Apr 20, 2008 - 11:45 AM

Banks MG. 2006. An extension of the Hirsch Index: indexing scientific topics and compounds. Scientometrics 69:161–168. (http://www.arxiv.org/abs/physics/0604216)
Michael Banks, of the MPI for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, has calculated the now familiar h-index (or Hirsch index) for some chemical compounds and topics in physics. He proposes a new measure, m, which is the h-index for a topic divided by the number of years since it first appeared in print. Gallium nitride and buckminsterfullerene top the chemical compounds, with m-indices of 2.12 and 5.10 respectively. As for topics in physics, carbon nanotubes, nanowires and quantum dots come first with ms of 12.85, 8.75 and 7.84.

Cockerill M. 2006. Identifying the most important research – is there more to life than impact factor? The Write Stuff 15(3):82–84. (www.emwa.org)
Impact factor has become one of the most debated themes on research evaluation. This article in the official journal of the European Medical Writers Association explores the developments in citation tracking services since the pioneering work of Eugene Garfield, who created what is now a de facto standard (impact factor): Google scholar, Scopus, CrossRef, CiteSeer and CiteBAse. Alternatives to impact factors (article-level citation information, downloads, etc) are critically discussed.

Godin B. 2006. On the origins of bibliometrics. Scientometrics 68(1):109–133.
Among the many statistics on science (scientometrics), bibliometrics is one of the few subfields concerned with measuring the output side of science. According to most "histories", bibliometrics owes its systematic development mainly to DJD Price and Eugene Garfield, and work conducted before the 1950s is usually relegated to prehistory. But psychologists began collecting statistics on their discipline in the early 1900s. Publications were counted in addresses, reviews and histories of psychology for several decades. Both the volume and the systematic nature of these efforts should be considered as pioneering work, and their authors considered as forerunners to bibliometrics.

Grens K. 2006. NSF examines plateau in US publications. The Scientist 14 Nov (www.the-scientist.com/news/display/36407/)
The Science Resources Statistics Division of the National Science Foundation held a workshop to explore why the number of US science publications remained essentially the same from 1992 to 2002, leading to a drop in the US share of publications from 38% to 30%. One of the reasons is that the percentage of US publications is declining as other countries increase their output. This is partly due to an increase in global collaborations and to a growing appreciation among non-US researchers for the value of publishing in English-language journals, making it more competitive for American scientists to get their work accepted. Much of the new competition appears to be coming from China.


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