Principal Component Analysis of 39 Scientific Impact Measures

Bollen J, Van de Sompel H, Hagberg A, Chute R, 2009 A Principal Component Analysis of 39 Scientific Impact Measures. PLoS ONE 4(6): e6022.
 
Background
 
The impact of scientific publications has traditionally been expressed in terms of citation counts. However, scientific activity has moved online over the past decade. To better capture scientific impact in the digital era, a variety of new impact measures has been proposed on the basis of social network analysis and usage log data. Here we investigate how these new measures relate to each other, and how accurately and completely they express scientific impact.
 
Methodology
 
We performed a principal component analysis of the rankings produced by 39 existing and proposed measures of scholarly impact that were calculated on the basis of both citation and usage log data.
 
Our results indicate that the notion of scientific impact is a multi-dimensional construct that can not be adequately measured by any single indicator, although some measures are more suitable than others. The commonly used citation Impact Factor is not positioned at the core of this construct, but at its periphery, and should thus be used with caution.
 
Received: May 14, 2009; Accepted: May 26, 2009; Published: June 29, 2009
 
Excerpts and Links To Full Text Available From
 

Received as email to several listservs, from Gerry McKiernan (McKiernan, Gerard) [LIB] [gerrymck@iastate.edu], June 29, 2009.

IEEE Xplore now available on your mobile device

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IEEE Xplore just released a beta mobile search interface. The interface provides a single search box that is easy to view on a mobile display. Searches display the top ten results with full abstracts. Useful results can be emailed for later retrieval. To start searching, point your mobile browser to http://m.ieeexplore.ieee.org/

Or for regular searching, visit http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/dynhome.jsp

 

New content partners for Scitopia.org

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Scitopia.org has added three new content partners to its free science and engineering search portal. The Association of Facilities Engineering (AFE), Society of Exploration Geophysicists (GEF), and the Institute for Computer Science, Social-Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering (ICST) will join 21 other science and engineering societies, including AIAA, ASME, IEEE, SPIA and more, in making their journal and scholarly material easily searchable via Scitopia.org. 

Scitopia.org which originally offered basic keyword and advanced searching, now also offers "extras" such as RSS feeds, alert emails, a browser plug in, and a variety of widgets. This is a great free search engine to use along side or instead of Google Scholar. If you are are searching from Princeton University, look for the Find it at PUL button when you click on the link for an article. To learn more, visit Scitopia.org or start searching here:

 

 

The announcement from this week's Special Libraries Association Conference in Washington DC was reported by KnowledgeSpeak.co.

CiteSeerX beta reaches over 1 million articles

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Pennsylvania State University announced Tuesday that it's "Scientific Literature Digital Library and Search Engine," CiteSeerX has reached over 1 million articles and other scholarly works. Focusing on literature in computer and information science, CiteSeerX allows you to do more than just search the literature. Most articles are available in fulltext via PDF or PS format. In addition, CiteSeerX provides citation information for the articles available and allows citation searching. You can search for documents, authors, and even tables. Their Autonomous Citation Indexing facilitates finding the Most Cited documents, citations, and authors, as well as creating a Venue Impact Rating.

To read Penn State's press release click here, or click here to start searching.

 

 

Top 20 Countries in Engineering

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Last month Sciencewatch.com put out a ranking of the top 20 countries in engineering. The ranking is based on "the highest total citations to their papers published in Thomson Reuters-indexed journals of Engineering over an 11-year period." You can view the list below, or read about it here.

Ranked by Citations
Rank       Field Papers Citations Citations Per Paper
1 USA  202,141 1,115,430 5.52
2 JAPAN  66,882 237,154 3.55
3 GERMANY  46,643 231,381 4.96
4 ENGLAND  47,910 227,272 4.74
5 PEOPLES R CHINA  64,435 201,881 3.13
6 FRANCE  38,455 186,951 4.86
7 CANADA  34,015 149,229 4.39
8 ITALY  33,372 146,901 4.4
9 TAIWAN  27,786 96,036 3.46
10 SOUTH KOREA  30,013 91,955 3.06
11 SPAIN  21,025 88,569 4.21
12 AUSTRALIA  17,407 81,127 4.66
13 NETHERLANDS  13,727 74,175 5.4
14 INDIA  23,382 68,534 2.93
15 SWITZERLAND  10,481 67,600 6.45
16 RUSSIA  22,847 58,059 2.54
17 SWEDEN  10,608 57,944 5.46
18 BELGIUM  8,999 49,792 5.53
19 SINGAPORE  11,744 48,797 4.16
20 TURKEY  11,962 41,586 3.48

 

Sciencewatch.com is put out by Thomas Reuters, makers of the popular citation searching database Web of Science, and offers a wealth of information and tools to keep you up to date with new research in science, technology, and medicine. Some of the useful resources from Sciencwatch.com include:  New Hot Papers lists new papers that are among the top tenth of a percent in citations for the last bimonthly period and Research Front Maps creates a visual representation of links between new highly cited papers in a particular field.

 

New Government Data sources

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Both the United States and Canada launched new data web portals this month.

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Data.gov is the United States' new data website offering a limited number of datasets in a broad range of categories including: Energy and Utilities, Science and Technology, and Transportation among others. Two searchable catalogs are provided, a raw data catalog and a tools catalog with links to data mining tools. A video tutorial is available at http://www.data.gov/howtouse. You can also make recommendations for datasets that are not already included. To read the Whitehouse press release visit http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Democratizing-Data/

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In Canada, the National Research Council launched the new Gateway to Scientific Data which provides access to Canadian scientific, technical and medical data sets as well as information for scientists on best practices for managing data. The Scientific Data Sets cover a wide range of subjects including Aerospace, Biochemistry, Environment, Geosciences, Physics, and Thermodynamics among others. To learn more or search the data sets visit http://cisti-icist.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/eng/services/cisti/gateway-scientific-data.html

Research Forum Today

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ASCE Journals "Preview Manuscripts"

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The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) now publishes pre-print copies of manuscripts online within 72 hours of of acceptance to an ASCE journal, making information available months before the copyedited version is available online and in print. According to ASCE:

"Preview papers are functionally integrated into ASCE's Research Library and all papers are searchable. Preview papers are also included in the e-mail notification of new papers, which can be requested through the ASCE Research Library's email alerting system."

To read more about ASCE Preview Manuscripts and how to cite them visit: http://pubs.asce.org/journals/pap/ or to search the ASCE Research Library visit: http://www.ascelibrary.org/

ASM Alloy Phase Diagrams Center

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Princeton University Libraries has a five day trial to ASM International’s Alloy Phase Diagram Center. This online tool “allows subscribers to explore, search and view more than 28,000 binary and ternary phase diagrams and associated phase data for more than 6,200 systems from their Web browsers.”

The trial is available until May 19th at http://www.asminternational.org/AsmEnterprise/APD/

If you have any questions or comments about the Phase Diagrams Center or the trial, please contact myself at wdressel@princeton.edu or Adriana Popescu at popescua@princeton.edu.

ASCE desktop research library

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The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has a new desktop program called ASCE Research Library NOW!

ASCE Research Library NOW! allows you to easily search the ASCE Research Library, Bookstore, and Career Connections, as well as receive Civil Engineering alerts right on your desktop.

This PC based software is free and does not require an ASCE membership. A brief registration is required for the download and access to the internet is needed to use the software.

To learn more and download the ASCE Research Library NOW! visit: http://www.asce.org/bookstore/widget.cfm

To search the Civil Engineering Database and ASCE Research Library online, visit: http://cedb.asce.org/ and http://www.ascelibrary.org/

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