Chi-Shiou Lin

Counting methods, country rank changes, and counting inflation in the assessment of national research productivity and impact

The counting of papers and citations is fundamental to the assessment of research productivity and impact. In an age of increasing scientific collaboration across national borders, the counting of papers produced by collaboration between multiple countries, and citations of such papers, raises concerns in country-level research evaluation. In this study, we compared the number counts and country ranks resulting from five different counting methods. We also observed inflation depending on the method used. Using the 1989 to 2008 physics papers indexed in ISIs Web of Science as our sample, we analyzed the counting results in terms of paper count (research productivity) as well as citation count and citation–paper ratio (CP ratio) based evaluation (research impact). The results show that at the country-level assessment, the selection of counting method had only minor influence on the number counts and country rankings in each assessment. However, the influences of counting methods varied between paper count, citation count, and CP ratio based evaluation. The findings also suggest that the popular counting method (whole counting) that gives each collaborating country one full credit may not be the best counting method. Straight counting that accredits only the first or the corresponding author or fractional counting that accredits each collaborator with partial and weighted credit might be the better choices.

The influences of counting methods on university rankings based on paper count and citation count

In an age of intensifying scientific collaboration, the counting of papers by multiple authors has become an important methodological issue in scientometric based research evaluation. Especially, how counting methods influence institutional level research evaluation has not been studied in existing literatures. In this study, we selected the top 300 universities in physics in the 2011 HEEACT Ranking as our study subjects. We compared the university rankings generated from four different counting methods (i.e. whole counting, straight counting using first author, straight counting using corresponding author, and fractional counting) to show how paper counts and citation counts and the subsequent university ranks were affected by counting method selection. The counting was based on the 1988–2008 physics papers records indexed in ISI WoS. We also observed how paper and citation counts were inflated by whole counting. The results show that counting methods affected the universities in the middle range more than those in the upper or lower ranges. Citation counts were also more affected than paper counts. The correlation between the rankings generated from whole counting and those from the other methods were low or negative in the middle ranges. Based on the findings, this study concluded that straight counting and fractional counting were better choices for paper count and citation count in the institutional level research evaluation.

Examining social tagging behaviour and the construction of an online folksonomy from the perspectives of cultural capital and social capital

This study explores the relationships between cultural and social capital and online social tagging behaviour in Delicious.com, a social bookmarking web site that offers social tagging functionalities. Based on Bourdieu’s conception of cultural and social capital, an online questionnaire was developed to measure Delicious users’ capital possession and its influences on social tagging behavioural tendencies. The study findings showed that the offline/online cultural capital and offline social capital affected information organization-oriented tagging; offline/online social capital affected social oriented-tagging; offline/online cultural capital and offline/online social capital both affected strategic tagging; offline/online social capital affected tagging imitation. Based on the findings, we made inferences on the user roles and the power structure of a social tagging folksonomy community.

International collaboration and counting inflation in the assessment of national research productivity

In this paper we describe how different accounting procedures affected the counting of scientific paper numbers at the country level and the country ranks based on paper production quantity in physics. Using 1989--2008 citation data, we also report the counting inflation ratio between different accounting procedures. We found that, in general, different accounting procedures yielded relatively similar and stable rankings. But for certain clusters of countries, the normal count procedure tended to favor the more advanced Western countries. In contrast, the newly developed countries received more credit in the adjusted and straight count procedures.

Selection practices for Web-based government publications in state depository library programs: Comparing active and passive approaches

Abstract This paper describes a comparative case study of the capture and selection practices used to populate electronic depositories of born-digital state government publications. The three case sites illustrate differences in collection building approaches, technological infrastructures, and statutory contexts. The findings reveal two basic modes of selection practices—active selection and passive selection, and three selection models based on the loci of selection control—library selection, liaison selection, and creator selection. Also, the findings suggest the power of defining and selecting government publications for state depositories is shifting from government agencies to state libraries in the active selection model. The authors argue for the need to attend to Web publications in non-traditional formats (e.g., an interactive HTML document) and to include common publications produced for lay citizens (e.g., brochures, fact sheets, FAQs, etc.) in the permanent collections in order to fully document government activities for the historical record.

Counting methods & university ranking by H‐index

This paper describes the results from using four counting methods that represented three different counting approaches – i.e., whole counting, straight counting, and fractional counting, on university rankings based on H-index. Using a large bibliometric dataset that contained 20 years of physics research papers and citations from Web of Science, we tested the methods on the data and sorted 299 universities based on H-index scores. Prior to the counting and sorting, the original WOS data were carefully controlled to ensure that papers and citations of each university were identified and correctly differentiated in the analyses. Findings showed that the three counting approaches did result in observable differences in h-index scores and institution ranks.

Librarian-Initiated Publications Discovery: How Do Digital Depository Librarians Discover and Select Web-Based Government Publications for State Digital Depositories?

Abstract This paper reports on a study of librarian initiated publications discovery (LIPD) in U.S. state digital depository programs using the OCLC Digital Archive to preserve web-based government publications for permanent public access. This paper describes a model of LIPD processes based on empirical investigations of four OCLC DA-based digital depositories. The model is composed of stages including site visit, site scan, selection, re-conceptualization, and two bibliographic verification steps; action strategies at each stage and the observed practices at each site are reported. This paper also describes how librarian perceptions of web publications as discrete objects and bibliographic objects influence the selection and retention of government web content. Finally, the paper discusses several problems associated with the observed LIPD methodologies and technologies.