No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Can nobel prize winners be predicted
... In this view, delayed recognition is somehow the necessary price that both scientists as well as society must pay at the time to prevent being overwhelmed by attention to perhaps false and useless leads. Following Garfield and Malin (1968) and Costas et al. (2011) it can be suggested that situations of severe patterns of delayed recognition could be also linked to the own fault of researchers as they are not able to communicate their ideas in a proper way. ...
... This concept was suggested byGarfield and Malin (1968) andZuckerman and Miller (1980), and it was also described byvan Dalen and Henkens (2005). ...
In this study an analysis of the effects of the different types of durability on the bibliometric performance at the group level is presented. The scientific production during the period of 1991–2000 of a set of 158 Dutch research groups in chemistry is studied considering several bibliometric indicators in the perspective of the durability of the publications in terms of the citations received. Two citation windows have been considered for the analysis of the effect of the enlargement of the citation period, one including the citations received in the same period of publications (1991–2000) and a second one including eight years more (1991–2008). In addition, qualitative indicators provided by a committee of experts who evaluated the research groups have been analyzed in order to study the relationship between qualitative indicators and quantitative measures, in particular these of durability. Results show that production with “normal” durability is the most rewarded both according to bibliometric indicators and qualitative assessments given by experts. We also find that publications with a delayed pattern do not represent a major problem in the assessment of research groups, as those groups with a higher share of this type of publications do not improve their assessment when the citation window is substantially enlarged. Several discussions are presented regarding the importance of durability analysis in the framework of research assessment situations.
... 6 There are several studies delving into the potential of early career performance and recognition to lead to additional awards later in one's academic career. Seminal papers in the area include Cole and Cole (1967), Garfield and Malin (1968), Inhaber and Przednowek (1976), and Ashton and Oppenheim (1978), who examine the ability of early career performance to act as a predictor for Nobel Prize winners. For a summary and discussion of the awards correlated with the Nobel Prize, see Chan et al. (2014). ...
The time lag between the publication of a major scientific discovery and the conferment of a Nobel Prize has been rapidly increasing for the natural science disciplines (chemistry,
medicine-physiology, and physics), but has not yet matched the corresponding “waiting
period” for the Nobel Prize in Economics. The aim of the present study is to empirically
examine the time gap between pioneering work and Nobel recognition and discuss possible explanations for its variation across time and disciplines. The analysis provides evidence to support the argument that attributes such as bestowments of accolades widely regarded as Nobel Prize precursors, citation indices, and sharing of the award between multiple recipients, may explain this variation, but only to some extent. In the discussion that follows, the notably longer waiting period in economics is attributed to factors such as the laureates’ age, the impact of which the current study cannot empirically examine. Since the Nobel Prize cannot be awarded posthumously, the Nobel Committee members may tend to grand the award to older economists before they pass away and become ineligible.
... 10 According toKosfeld and Neckermann (2011), even symbolic awards lead to an increase in workplace performance, a finding supported in more recent studies byLevitt and Neckermann (2014),Neckermann et al. (2014) andKosfeld et al. (2016).11 Seminal work in this area includesCole and Cole (1967);Garfield and Malin (1968);Inhaber and Przednowek (1976) andAshton and Oppenheim (1978). 12 Similar motivation is exhibited by winners of the John Bates Clark Medal, arguably the second-most prestigious award in economics. ...
Using data for 387 Nobel Prize winners in physics, chemistry, or physiology/medicine from 1901 to 2000, this study focuses on the relation between the timing of prestigious awards and human longevity. In particular, it uses a linear regression model to examine how a winner’s longevity is affected by (1) the age at which the prestigious award is won, (2) the total number of prestigious awards collected, and (3) the delay between the Nobel Prize work and recognition. To alleviate estimation issues stemming from survival selection, we conduct our analyses using subsamples of surviving individuals and controlling for age-specific life expectancy. Our results suggest that receiving the Nobel Prize at a younger age is related to a longer expected lifespan (e.g., obtaining the Nobel Prize 10 years earlier is associated with an additional 1 year of lifespan compared to the average population life expectancy). The results also point to a strong negative association between the age of receiving major scientific awards and relative life expectancy, which further indicates the benefit of early recognition. Yet, we did not find evidence suggesting that the number of prestigious awards received at an earlier age correlated with longevity. Nor are we able to observe that the duration between Nobel Prize work and the award reception (waiting time for the Nobel Prize recognition) is associated with changes in longevity.
... As the most prestigious prize in science, the Nobel Prize recognizes some of the most crucial scientific breakthroughs. There have been constant attempts in identifying Nobel prize-winning discoveries based on citation counts (Garfield & Malin, 1968;Revesz, 2015;Zakhlebin & Horvá t, 2017). Despite its occasional success, citations appear to be a noisy signal for the Nobel, due to a simple reason: while Nobel prize-winning papers all tend to be highly cited, having high citations does not guarantee a Nobel. ...
Newton's centuries-old wisdom of standing on the shoulders of giants raises a crucial yet underexplored question: Out of all the prior works cited by a discovery, which one is its giant? Here, we develop a novel, discipline-independent method to identify the giant for any individual paper, allowing us to systematically examine the role and characteristics of giants in science. We find that across disciplines, about 95% of papers stand on the shoulders of giants, yet the weight of scientific progress rests on relatively few shoulders. Defining a new measure of giant index, we find that, while papers with high citations are more likely to be giants, for papers with the same citations, their giant index sharply predicts a paper's future impact and prize-winning probabilities. Giants tend to originate from both small and large teams, being either highly disruptive or highly developmental. And papers that did not have a giant but later became a giant tend to be home-run papers that are highly disruptive to science. Given the crucial importance of citation-based measures in science, the developed concept of giants may offer a useful new dimension in assessing scientific impact that goes beyond sheer citation counts.
... The prospect of discovering methods and metrics for explaining and predicting breakthrough scientific papers, such as Nobel Prize winning papers, continues to fuel some of the most consequential studies into the science of science research [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. On one hand, predicting significant scientific achievements is a challenging enterprise as an increasing number of studies have revealed the unpredictable nature of scientific success [13]. ...
The breakthrough potentials of research papers can be explained by their boundary-spanning qualities. Here, for the first time, we apply the structural variation analysis (SVA) model and its affiliated metrics to investigate the extent to which such qualities characterize a group of Nobel Prize winning papers. We find that these papers share remarkable boundary spanning traits, marked by exceptional abilities to connect disparate and topically-diverse clusters of research papers. Further, their publications exert structural variations on a scale that significantly alters the betweenness centrality distributions in existing intellectual space. Overall, SVA not only provides a set of leading indicators for describing future Nobel Prize winning papers, but also broadens our understanding of similar prize-winning properties that may have been overlooked among other regular publications.
... La Ley de Bradford (Bookstein, 1994) nos dice que los trabajos publicados en unas pocas revistas (un 20%) son aquellos que acumulan el mayor número de citas (el 80%), lo que dio lugar al Science Citation Index. Como ejemplo, hace mucho que se intenta predecir los premios Nobel usando este indicador (Garfield & Malin, 1968). El problema del sistema es que a veces la comunidad es incapaz de identificar la calidad de trabajos realmente innovadores o lo hace tarde como fue el caso de las "Leyes de Mendel"; este fenómeno es conocido como "Bellas Durmientes" (Van Raan, 2004 Lo principal y fundamental para que un trabajo sea citado es que éste realice una aportación significativa que permita hacer avanzar la ciencia, es decir, la relevancia del propio trabajo, algo ya explicado. ...
The relevance of citations is clear since they constitute a substantial part of most bibliometric indicators. The aims of the present paper are to identify several factors associated with obtaining citations to explain these and, finally, to offer authors a number of useful suggestions. Those studies that have had the greatest influence on science are also those that are most frequently cited. The essential factor leading to a study being cited is that it should make a significant contribution to the advance of science; that is, the relevance of the research. But other essential dimensions exist: Accessibility; Dissemination; Scientific authority. Other predictive factors allow us to predict the number of citations a document may receive: Prior production by the authors; Structural context of the work; Scientific trends; Validity/Obsolescence (expiry) of results; Quality of formal aspects; Theoretical context of the study; Types of work. Finally, some ways are suggested to improve the citations of their works and thus contribute to a wider dissemination and development of science.
... La Ley de Bradford (Bookstein, 1994) nos dice que los trabajos publicados en unas pocas revistas (un 20%) son aquellos que acumulan el mayor número de citas (el 80%), lo que dio lugar al Science Citation Index. Como ejemplo, hace mucho que se intenta predecir los premios Nobel usando este indicador (Garfield & Malin, 1968). El problema del sistema es que a veces la comunidad es incapaz de identificar la calidad de trabajos realmente innovadores o lo hace tarde como fue el caso de las "Leyes de Mendel"; este fenómeno es conocido como "Bellas Durmientes" (Van Raan, 2004 Lo principal y fundamental para que un trabajo sea citado es que éste realice una aportación significativa que permita hacer avanzar la ciencia, es decir, la relevancia del propio trabajo, algo ya explicado. ...
A lo largo de la historia, la calidad de los trabajos científicos ha estado asociada al número de citas que reciben por parte de otros estudios. En este sentido, la cita es un elemento hipertextual fruto del reconocimiento que un autor realiza a otras investigaciones publicadas. El hecho de referenciar un trabajo previo lleva asociado un reconocimiento a dicho estudio y se admite, independientemente de si la cita ha sido positiva o crítica, que ha contribuido a la creación del nuevo trabajo. La relevancia de la cita en el ámbito de la comunicación y la evaluación científica queda patente al ser ésta un elemento sustancial en la mayoría de los indicadores bibliométricos. Factor de Impacto, Índice H o Crown Indicator, entre otros, son calculados a partir de la cita. Además, numerosos buscadores científicos como Google Scholar ordenan los resultados según el número de citas (Rovira et al., 2018). Por tanto, la cita es uno de los elementos principales a la hora de establecer la repercusión de una investigación y, junto con la producción científica, permite el estudio a nivel agregado del conocimiento generado por autores, revistas e instituciones, etc. Tal es así que las bases de datos más utilizadas para la evaluación y estudio de la ciencia (Web of Science, Scopus o Dimensions) elaboran sus indicadores de impacto, repercusión y similitud a partir del registro de los principales elementos descriptivos (título, autores, temática, etc.) y de las referencias de los trabajos indexados. Estas bases de datos no almacenan, por tanto, los textos completos sino lo necesario para la identificación de los registros y para la generación de los indicadores. En los últimos años, con el desarrollo tecnológico han surgido otros métodos para el análisis de la calidad de las investigaciones publicadas (altmetrics, redes sociales, visualizaciones o descargas). Sin embargo, el sistema de citas parece seguir gozando de mayor rigor ya que está vinculado al proceso de creación y publicación de una nueva investigación. No se limita al acto de compartir o visualizar un trabajo, sino que conlleva una acción más compleja que es producto de otro trabajo científico. Por este motivo, la manipulación en el sistema de citas parece más compleja que la alteración de las métricas surgidas recientemente.
... Nonetheless, it is conventionally agreed, that "impact"-I mean the classical impact, pointed out by Eugene Garfield, not the "social impact" or "impact on a society"-is something that is indicated by the fact of being cited and something that is associated with information use. Whatever it was, "impact" can be determined by the level of use of information reflected in bibliographic citations: "impact can be determined by utilizing information inherent in bibliographic citations" (Garfield & Malin, 1968). "Impact is primarily a measure of the use (value?) by the research community of the article in question. ...
Purpose: This work aims to consider the role and some of the 42-year history of the discipline impact factor (DIF) in evaluation of serial publications. Also, the original "symmetric" indicator called the "discipline susceptibility factor" is to be presented. Design/methodology/approach: In accordance with the purpose of the work, the methods are analytical interpretation of the scientific literature related to this problem as well as speculative explanations. The information base of the research is bibliometric publications dealing with impact, impact factor, discipline impact factor, and discipline susceptibility factor. Findings: Examples of the DIF application and modification of the indicator are given. It is shown why research and university libraries need to use the DIF to evaluate serials in conditions of scarce funding for subscription to serial publications, even if open access is available. The role of the DIF for evaluating journals by authors of scientific papers when choosing a good and right journal for submitting a paper is also briefly discussed. An original indicator "symmetrical" to the DIF (the "discipline susceptibility factor") and its differences from the DIF in terms of content and purpose of evaluation are also briefly presented. Research limitations: The selection of publications for the information base of the research did not include those in which the DIF was only mentioned, used partially or not for its original purpose. Restrictions on the length of the article to be submitted in this special issue of the JDIS also caused exclusion even a number of completely relevant publications. Consideration of the DIF is not placed in the context of describing other derivatives from the Garfield impact factor. Practical implications: An underrated bibliometric indicator, viz. the discipline impact factor is being promoted for the practical application. An original indicator "symmetrical" to DIF has been proposed in order of searching serial publications representing the external research fields that might fit for potential applications of the results of scientific activities obtained within the framework of the specific research field represented by the cited specialized journals. Both can be useful in research and university libraries in their endeavors to improve scientific information services. Also, both can be used for evaluating journals by authors of scientific papers when choosing a journal to submit a paper.
Originality/value: The article substantiates the need to evaluate scientific serial publications in library activities—even in conditions of access to huge and convenient databases (subscription packages) and open access to a large number of serial publications. It gives a mini-survey of the history of one of the methods of such evaluation, and offers an original method for evaluating scientific serial publications.
THE AUTHOR'S NOTE: The conference paper exposed below at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335699765_Discipline_Impact_Factor_its_History_and_the_Continuing_Reasons_for_its_Use_Proceedings_of_the_17th_Conference_of_the_International_Society_for_Scientometrics_and_Informetrics_Volume_II_-_Sl_Editioni_ is absorbed by the present article. Also, the presentation exposed below at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333652505_Discipline_Impact_Factor_and_Discipline_Susceptibility_Factor_Some_of_the_History_Paper_presented_at_the_International_Conference_on_Scientometrics_and_Bibiliometrics_SBCKyiv2019_June_04_2019_Kyiv_Ukr may serve as an illustration to it, but, however, is also factually absorbed by this article.
... In academia, citation data play a key role in determining factors ranging from hiring, merit award and tenure, to determining the quality of an institution (Adler & Harzing, 2009;Merton, 1968;Strevens, 2006). Other uses of citation data include determining research funding, internal and external institutional evaluation, determining Nobel Prize winners, among others (Garfield & Malin, 1968;Gingras & Wallace, 2010;Thomson Reuters, 2008, p. 2). ...
Altmetrics are a relatively new phenomenon in research. These metrics measure the attention that research articles receive from nontraditional venues such as social media and the Internet. This study examined how these metrics affect both the readership and citation of articles in communication research. The study examined citation data alongside altmetrics data from academic social networking sites ResearchGate and Mendeley, as well as mentions on Facebook, Twitter, and Google +. Results indicated that all altmetrics positively correlated with citation. Posting articles on sites such as ResearchGate and Mendeley not only impacted readership, it increased the likelihood of citation. Other variables that improved readership and citation were social media mentions, downloadable articles, coauthorship, and an active online presence among scholars. "Research is conducted, published, read and cited," state Casson and Al-Qureshi (2010, p. 655) in a discussion of the role of citation in journal editorial policy. The statement aptly surmises the traditional mode of scholarly production and dissemination. It is the last part of the statement, read and cited, that is the focus of the current study. Here, I used both traditional citation data and the newer, internet-driven altmetrics data to examine the effect of social media attention on peer citation in communication research. Altmetrics measure the attention that research articles garner from nontraditional venues such as social media and the Internet. With altmetrics, Casson and Al-Qur-eshi's quote could as well read as follows: Research is conducted, published, read and cited-but also tweeted, blogged, posted, shared, commented on, uploaded, downloaded, bookmarked, and followed. This study seeks to examine the role and effect of altmetrics in this process. Specifically,
... Data from the Science Citation Index show that Nobel Prize winners are highly cited with total citation counts 50 times more than the average scientist. Using this evidence, Garfield and Malin (1968) used citation counts to successfully predict Nobel Prize winners in 1969, and, since 1989, Thomson Reuters continues to successfully predict who's likely to receive the Nobel Prize. 2 Citation analysis offers more than just a count of citations. It remains a key method in mapping and analysing ideas as part of comprehensive literature reviews (Hart, 1998). ...
As a contribution towards consolidating the information systems (IS) field, we offer a systematic method for distilling a canonical body of knowledge (BOK) for information systems development (ISD), an area that historically accounts for as much as half of all IS research. Based on an integrative synthesis of the literature, we present a map of the most significant ISD research, uncover gaps in its canons and suggest fruitful lines of inquiry for new research. Our review combines citation analysis, which identifies the field's evidence of cumulative tradition, with computer-aided textual analysis, a hermeneutically guided method that organizes the fragmented corpus of ISD literature into coherent knowledge areas. From a pool of over 6500 articles published in the IS Senior Scholars' Basket of Journals, we find 940 IS citation classics, and from that list, 466 ISD articles that offer canonical ISD knowledge distinctive to IS and complementary to other disciplines such as software engineering and project management. From this study, we offer two contributions: (1) a justification for an ISDBOK grounded in the theory of practice and professionalism, and (2) a canonical map of disciplinary ISD knowledge with areas that have demonstrated cumulative tradition and others that require the attention of IS scholars.
... Citations represent the citing author's interpretation of what the research community expects; and through an elaborate process involving claims and counterclaims, act as markers for justifying researchers' theories, procedures, and data (Gilbert, 1976). Because of their significance, Garfield and Malin (1968) used citation counts to predict Nobel Prize winners, and Thomson Reuters has successfully continued with those predictions since 1989 (Thomson Reuters, 2008). ...
Although scientometrics is seeing increasing use in Information Systems (IS) research, in particular for evaluating research efforts and measuring scholarly influence; historically, scientometric IS studies are focused primarily on ranking authors, journals, or institutions. Notwithstanding the usefulness of ranking studies for evaluating the productivity of the IS field’s formal communication channels and its scholars, the IS field has yet to exploit the full potential that scientometrics offers, especially towards its progress as a discipline. This study makes a contribution by raising the discourse surrounding the value of scientometric research in IS, and proposes a framework that uncovers the multi-dimensional bases for citation behaviour and its epistemological implications on the creation, transfer, and growth of IS knowledge. Having identified 112 empirical research evaluation studies in IS, we select 44 substantive scientometric IS studies for in-depth content analysis. The findings from this review allow us to map an engaging future in scientometric research, especially towards enhancing the IS field’s conceptual and theoretical development.
... Now that we have an idea what to look for, we could perhaps proactively look for patterns of this kind in bibliometric research in order to identify scientific breakthroughs and to make interesting predictions for major research awards. Research of this kind could enhance previous attempts to predict who among millions of scientists might qualify for the honor of a Nobel Prize (Garfield & Malin, 1968) by combining relational and evaluative citation analysis methods to provide more convincing evidence. ...
This research-in-progress paper reports bibliometric characteristics that illustrate and give credence to the claim of the Nobel Prize committee that its 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was indeed awarded for a paradigm shift. An all-author co-citation analysis (ACA) of stem cells research 2004-2009 provides an interesting characterization of this paradigm shift, which was triggered by a mid-2006 publication by the younger of the two 2012 laureates. In particular, while ACAs of 2-year time slices for the period consistently indicate the presence of a single cohesive subfield with some fluctuations in membership throughout the period, an ACA of the entire six year period shows instead a closely interlinked pair of subfields, which on closer inspection turn out to represent the pre- and post-paradigm shift states of the field. This bibliometric characterization also correctly identifies the name of the researcher primarily responsible for the paradigm shift, namely, Shinya Yamanaka, as that of the dominant post-shift cited author in that subfield. The relative lack of dominant figures in the subfield in the pre-shift period also underlines the area’s pre-paradigmatic state of multiple conflicting and relatively unsuccessful research directions attempting to address a fundamental crisis in that field at that point.
... Eugene Garfield has been a pioneer in this line of work. As early as 1968, Garfield and Malin (1968) presented a paper at The 135 th Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science on the possibility of predicting future Nobelists. Over the years Garfield (1977;1986;) returned frequently to comment on the topic. ...
This paper explores the possible citation chain reactions of a Nobel Prize using the mathematician Robert J. Aumann as a case example. The results show that the award of the Nobel Prize in 2005 affected not only the citations to his work, but also affected the citations to the references in his scientific oeuvre. The results indicate that the spillover effect is almost as powerful as the effect itself. We are consequently able to document a ripple effect in which the awarding of the Nobel Prize ignites a citation chain reaction to Aumann's scientific ouvre and to the references in its nearest citation network. The effect is discussed using innovation decision process theory as a point of departure to identify the factors that created a bandwagon effect leading to the reported observations.
... A secondary purpose of citation measures is to predict the future performance of authors, such as whether they will win a Nobel Prize (Garfield & Malin, 1968;Gingras & Wallace, 2010). The importance of researchers is reflected in the amount of influence they have on the research of their colleagues. ...
The importance of a research article is routinely measured by counting how many times it has been cited. However, treating all citations with equal weight ignores the wide variety of functions that citations perform. We want to automatically identify the subset of references in a bibliography that have a central academic influence on the citing paper. For this purpose, we examine the effectiveness of a variety of features for determining the academic influence of a citation. By asking authors to identify the key references in their own work, we created a dataset in which citations were labeled according to their academic influence. Using automatic feature selection with supervised machine learning, we found a model for predicting academic influence that achieves good performance on this dataset using only four features. The best features, among those we evaluated, were features based on the number of times a reference is mentioned in the body of a citing paper. The performance of these features inspired us to design an influence-primed h-index (the hip-index). Unlike the conventional h-index, it weights citations by how many times a reference is mentioned. According to our experiments, the hip-index is a better indicator of researcher performance than the conventional h-index.
... Although retrieval was the primary purpose for introduction of the citation index, citation analysis soon became common, and was found to be a valid way to identify highly influential scientists, journals and papers. As evidence it was shown that Nobel Prize winners are among the most highly cited scientists (Garfield, 1977; Garfield & Malin, 1968; Garfield & Welljams-Dorof, 1992). Citation data were used to create a Journal Impact Factor (Garfield, 1972Garfield, , 2006) that is now widely used. ...
An indicator of conformity - the tendency for a scientific paper to reinforce existing belief systems - is introduced. This indicator is based on a computational theory of innovation, where an author's belief systems are compared to socio-cognitive norms. Evidence of the validity of the indicator is provided using a sample of 4180 high impact papers in two experiments. The first experiment is based on a 10 year model of the scientific literature. The robustness of the first experiment is tested using an alternative method for calculating the indicator and two 16-year models of the scientific literature.
... Thus, the ability of scientists for producing steady and directly relevant knowledge that is appreciated by their current peers seems to be a good property for the best reception of scientific work. This is in line with the claim of Garfield and Malin (1968) that “modern cases of Mendelism” are more “the own fault” of researchers as they are not able to “sell” and communicate their ideas in a proper way. Even Mendel’s case has been sometimes attributed to a failure in communication (MacRoberts 1985) rather than to a scientific community neglecting his results. ...
The obsolescence and "durability" of scientific literature have been important elements of debate during many years, especially regarding the proper calculation of bibliometric indicators. The effects of "delayed recognition" on impact indicators have importance and are of interest not only to bibliometricians but also among research managers and scientists themselves. It has been suggested that the "Mendel syndrome" is a potential drawback when assessing individual researchers through impact measures. If publications from particular researchers need more time than "normal" to be properly acknowledged by their colleagues, the impact of these researchers may be underestimated with common citation windows. In this paper, we answer the question whether the bibliometric indicators for scientists can be significantly affected by the Mendel syndrome. Applying a methodology developed previously for the classification of papers according to their durability (Costas et al., J Am Soc Inf Sci Technol 61(8):1564-1581, 2010a; J Am Soc Inf Sci Technol 61(2):329-339, 2010b), the scientific production of 1,064 researchers working at the Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) in three different research areas has been analyzed. Cases of potential "Mendel syndrome" are rarely found among researchers and these cases do not significantly outperform the impact of researchers with a standard pattern of reception in their citations. The analysis of durability could be included as a parameter for the consideration of the citation windows used in the bibliometric analysis of individuals.
... Citations are generally assumed to be an indicator of the quality or impact of a given research publication (Smith 1981). While citation counts are far from perfect indicators of scientific quality (Mac-Roberts andMacRoberts 1986, 1996;Warner 2000), they remain among the most used indicators of scientific impact and are correlated with other forms of scientific recognition (Garfield and Malin 1968;Garfield 1973Garfield , 1992Cole and Cole 1973). Further, while it is certainly the case that research is cited for reasons other than quality, this argument is difficult to maintain when leveled at citation elites. ...
In science, a relatively small pool of researchers garners a disproportionally large number of citations. Still, very little is known about the social characteristics of highly cited scientists. This is unfortunate as these researchers wield a disproportional impact on their fields, and the study of highly cited scientists can enhance our understanding of the conditions which foster highly cited work, the systematic social inequalities which exist in science, and scientific careers more generally. This study provides information on this understudied subject by examining the social characteristics and opinions of the 0.1% most cited environmental scientists and ecologists. Overall, the social characteristics of these researchers tend to reflect broader patterns of inequality in the global scientific community. However, while the social characteristics of these researchers mirror those of other scientific elites in important ways, they differ in others, revealing findings which are both novel and surprising, perhaps indicating multiple pathways to becoming highly cited.
The Nobel Prize is a prestigious award for outstanding contributions in different fields of science. However, the issue of how Nobel laureates stand out from all nominees remains a “black box” to be explored. Using data on nominees and nominators for the prizes in physics, chemistry, and physiology or medicine from 1901 to 1950, in this study, the influences of the academic impact of a nominee’s research, social identities of nominators, and the interaction between the two factors on the nominee’s chance of winning were explored. The main determinants for a nominee to receive a Nobel Prize include the academic impact as measured by using L-index and h-index, and nominators’ academic identity. However, significant disciplinary differences exist in terms of the influences of such factors. In physics, a nominee’s L-index showed a very significant and positive effect, and nominators’ administrative identity was helpful, and also their interactions. In chemistry, a nominee’s h-index, as well as a nominator’s administrative identity and academic identity, were all significant, and similar to physics, interactions between L-index and administrative identity could also increase a nominee’s probability of winning the prize. In physiology or medicine, nominee’s h-index and nominators’ academic identity were of great concern, and when a nominee with a high h-index was nominated by a nominator with a high academic identity, the nominee’s chance of being awarded was observed to be increased.
Acknowledging individuals in research articles is known to be a personal and private expression of appreciation compared to other types of acknowledgment, such as financial support. Early studies have demonstrated the significant relationship between acknowledgement, coauthor, and citation. Little did we know to what extent of these relationships and which prompt what to some degree among them. We adopt a series of multivariate analyses, Bayes’ theorem, statistical analysis, and “before and after” matched-group studies to illustrate the acknowledgement patterns in 6323 research articles of 196 Nobel Prize laureates (NPL) from 2008 to 2018. Acknowledgment is consistently proved to significantly relate to co-authorship and citation where co-authorship and citing have an approximately 10% increasing effect on acknowledgement behavior. Our study is the first to state the order of such triangle: acknowledgement is significantly ahead of co-authorship and arguably occurs before citing behavior. Moreover, acknowledgement strengthens more than half of NPL on their co-authorship for 11% and citation for 72% after they acknowledge others. We verify the substantive possibility of co-authorship and citing behavior from acknowledgement and introduce a formation of a new norm of scholarly communication. This will greatly contribute to the matter of evaluation metrics and social network detection.
Newton’s centuries-old wisdom of standing on the shoulders of giants raises a crucial yet underexplored question: Out of all the prior works cited by a discovery, which one is its giant? Here, we develop a novel, discipline-independent method to identify the giant for any individual paper, allowing us to systematically examine the role and characteristics of giants in science. We find that across disciplines, about 95% of papers stand on the shoulders of giants, yet the weight of scientific progress rests on relatively few shoulders. Defining a new measure of giant index, we find that, while papers with high citations are more likely to be giants, for papers with the same citations, their giant index sharply predicts a paper’s future impact and prize-winning probabilities. Giants tend to originate from both small and large teams, being either highly disruptive or highly developmental. And papers that did not have a giant but later became a giant tend to be home-run papers that are highly disruptive to science. Given the crucial importance of citation-based measures in science, the developed concept of giants may offer a useful new dimension in assessing scientific impact that goes beyond sheer citation counts.
Peer Review
https://publons.com/publon/10.1162/qss_a_00186
Introduction. Analysis of the definitions and perceptions of the notion of “impact”, introduced into circulation by Yu. Garfield in 1955, does not allow to assert that in the scientometrics literature there is a strict definition of this notion at all. Since it is assumed that citedness figures are its reliable indicator, it is necessary to discover what property is actually reflected by this indicator.Materials and methods. Analytical interpretation of the scientific literature related to this problem since 1955.Results. Comparison of the notion of “impact” with the possibilities of its quantitative evaluation by citedness figures demonstrated the unreliability of this basic scientometric method for the assessment of exactly “impact” as in terms of cause-and-effect relationships, “impact” may or may not be the reason for the use of scientific documents reflected in their citedness figures. In other words, citedness is not a very reliable proxy (substitute indicator) to be used for assessing poorly defined (as it was shown in my previous article published in Scholarly Research and Information; 2019;2(1):63–73) notion of “impact”. At the same time, citedness figures reflect the value of cited scientific documents (by reflecting their use while the creation of citing documents).Discussion and Conclusions. If “impact” should not be considered as a key notion of scientometrics, then its place can naturally be taken by the notion of the value of cited documents, their totalities, creators, etc.
Introduction. For a better theoretical understanding of the notion of "impact" (introduced by E. Garfield in 1955) definitions and perceptions of the mentioned notion used in scientometric literature have been analyzed. Materials and methods. Analytical interpretation of the scientific literature related to this problem (since 1955). The author considers the concept "impact" in its initial meaning of 'scientific impact'. Results. The existing and used meanings of the term “impact” either are treated as a synonym of “influence” or do not go beyond the concept of “strong impression”, or coincide with the meaning of the term “pertinence”, or refer to purely technical indicators.
Discussion and Conclusions. The conclusion has been made that that it is unreasonable to consider “impact” as a key notion of scientometrics because the notion is not sufficiently defined.
To explore the relation between early career performance or recognition and receiving the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, we compare winners of the John Bates Clark Medal, the most prestigious early career recognition for economists, with other successful scholars. The initial comparison combines JBCM winners with scholars published in leading economics journals, controlling for educational background (institution conferring the Ph.D.) and publication and citation success. We then narrow the comparison group down to those given relatively early recognition (based on age category) in the form of other major awards. Lastly, we compare the JBCM awardees with synthetic counterfactuals that best resemble their pre-award academic career performance. All three analyses provide strong support for the notion that winning the JBCM is related to receiving the Nobel Prize, the award of which is also correlated with early career performance success as measured by number of publications and citations.
Bibliometric indicators, citation counts and/or download counts are increasingly being used to inform personnel decisions such as hiring or promotions. These statistics are very often misused. Here we provide a guide to the factors which should be considered when using these so-called quantitative measures to evaluate people. Rules of thumb are given for when begin to use bibliometric measures when comparing otherwise similar candidates.
As métricas fazem parte do ciclo de investigação científica, desde a candidatura a financiamento, a promoção na carreira, e na avaliação dos resultados da investigação. Estes são publicados geralmente sob a forma de artigo científico, embora possa também ser software e inclusive, muitos deles acompanhado por um conjunto
de dados, suporte da própria investigação realizada. Tradicionalmente, métricas como o Factor de Impacto, e muitas outras, foram e continuam sendo utilizadas na avaliação das pesquisas e currículos. Nos últimos anos estas métricas têm sofrido críticas devido à sua má utilização, tendo dado origem a tomadas de posição como a Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) e o Manifesto de Leiden. Dentre as métricas surgidas
com a Web estão as chamadas “altmetrias”, nomeadas oficialmente em 2010, consideradas complementares às tradicionais que fazem uso das plataformas da Web Social para recolha de dados. As “altmetrias” tornaram-se, assim, o objeto de um campo de investigação, no qual se procura dar respostas ao significado destas métricas e à possibilidade da sua efetiva utilização.
O objetivo geral do trabalho é o de refletir sobre os desenvolvimentos de métricas complementares, incluindo as limitações da sua utilização. Para cumprir o objetivo deste trabalho que é, essencialmente, uma revisão e discussão da literatura, foi efetuada uma recolha na Web of Science, Library and Information Science Source
da EBSCO e ResearchGate. O volume de trabalhos publicados sobre o tema originou um recorte temporal, tendo sido considerados apenas os trabalhos publicados em 2015. A restante literatura utilizada não versa estritamente sobre “altmetrias”, mas é essencial para a compreensão deste estudo. Alguns dos trabalhos considerados (de Lin e Fenner (2013) sobre os ALMs, da NISO (2014) acerca da implementação das “altmetrias” e o de Haustein, Bowman e Costas (2015) sobre a interpretação das “altmetrias”) são, pela sua importância, usados de um modo mais intensivo, até porque se pensa que terão consequências nas considerações futuras sobre esta matéria.
Alguns dos resultados e discussões atuais referem que estas métricas possuem potencialidades para medir o impacto da pesquisa científica para além do mundo académico, sobretudo porque são mais rápidas de obter, mostram o impacto para diferentes produtos académicos, a diversidade de fontes altmétricas permite adicionar robustez aos cálculos através da triangulação, os seus dados são mais transparentes
pois estão publicamente disponíveis e podem ajudar na descoberta de tendências de linhas de investigação. Apesar disso, ainda não é claro o que está a ser medido e tal como acontece com as métricas tradicionais, podem ser manipuladas.
Dentre as conclusões possíveis, salienta-se que poderão vir a ter uma maior aceitação, para a qual contribui a normalização em curso, e que as ações do presente irão influenciar o futuro destas novas métricas.
Metrics are part of the scientific research cycle, from application to funding, career promotion, and evaluation of research results. Most of them are published in journals, and other scientific outputs such as software and even many of them include a set of data that support the research itself. Traditionally, metrics such as the Impact Factor, among others, were and continue to be used in the evaluation of research and
curricula. In recent years these metrics have been criticized because of its misuse, have given rise to statements such as the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) and the Manifesto of Leiden. Among the metrics that have arisen with the Web are so-called "altmetrics" named officially in 2010, regarded as complementary to traditional making use of the Social Web platforms for data collection. The "altmetrics"
became thus the object of a research field in which it seeks to provide answers to the meaning of these metrics and the possibility of their effective use.
The overall objective of this study is to reflect on the development of additional metrics, including the current limits and limitations of its use. To fulfill the objective of this work that is, essentially, a review and discussion of the literature, the sources used were the Web of Science from Thomson Reuteurs, Libray and Information Science Source from EBSCO, and ResearchGate. The volume of papers published on the subject produced a time frame, and only the works published in 2015 were considered. The remaining literature used in spite of being not strictly about "altmetrics" it was considered essential for its understanding. Some of the works about the ALMS (Lin and Fenner, 2013), the implementation of the "altmetrics" (NISO, 2014), and the interpretation of "altmetrics" (Haustein, Bowman and Costas, 2015) are by its importance used more intensively, because we think that they will have consequences in the future consideration of this matter.
Some of the results and current discussions indicate that these metrics have the potential to measure the impact of scientific research beyond the academic world, especially because they are faster to obtain, show the impact for different academic products, the diversity of altmetrics sources allows to add robustness to calculations by triangulating, its data is more transparent because they are publicly available and can
help in discovery research trend lines. Nevertheless, it is still not clear what is to be measured, and as with the traditional metrics can be handled.
Among the possible conclusions, we stress that are likely to have greater acceptance, which contributes to the ongoing normalization, and that the present actions will influence the future of these new metrics.
Research funding organizations invest substantial resources to monitor mission-relevant research findings to identify and support promising new lines of inquiry. To that end, we have been pursuing the development of tools to identify research publications that have a strong likelihood of driving new avenues of research. This paper describes our work towards incorporating multiple time-dependent and -independent features of publications into a model to identify candidate breakthrough papers as early as possible following publication. We used multiple random forest models to assess the ability of indicators to reliably distinguish a gold standard set of breakthrough publications as identified by subject matter experts from among a comparison group of similar Thomson Reuters Web of Science™ publications. These indicators were then tested for their predictive value in random forest models. Model parameter optimization and variable selection were used to construct a final model based on indicators that can be measured within 6 months post-publication; the final model had an estimated true positive rate of 0.77 and false positive rate of 0.01.
Nobel Laureates in Physiology or Medicine who received the Prize between 1969 and 2011 are compared to a matched group of scientists to examine productivity, impact, coauthor-ship and international collaboration patterns embedded within research networks. After matching for research domain, h-index, and year of first of publication, we compare biblio-metric statistics and network measures. We find that the Laureates produce fewer papers but with higher average citations. The Laureates also produce more sole-authored papers both before and after winning the Prize. The Laureates have a lower number of coauthors across their entire careers than the matched group, but are equally collaborative on average. Further, we find no differences in international collaboration patterns. The Laureates coauthor network reveals significant differences from the non-Laureate network. Laureates are more likely to build bridges across a network when measuring by average degree, density , modularity, and communities. Both the Laureate and non-Laureate networks have " small world " properties, but the Laureates appear to exploit " structural holes " by reaching across the network in a brokerage style that may add social capital to the network. The dynamic may be making the network itself highly attractive and selective. These findings suggest new insights into the role "star scientists" in social networks and the production of scientific discoveries.
Stem cell research has been a fast growing, highly successful, and at the same time highly controversial field in recent years. Using a highly optimized author co-citation analysis methodology to study the intellectual structure of this field over the time period 2004–2009, we find that the induced pluripotent stem cell breakthrough that earned Shinya Yamanaka the 2012 Nobel Prize in Medicine did indeed quickly redefine its entire research field,
and thus might truly qualify as a “paradigm shift” in Kuhn’s sense.
We apply tournament theory to explain the process within which selection of named professorships takes place and a procedural justice test to justify winning the named professorship tournament. Specifically, we estimate the probability that management professors hold one of the highest rewards for academic research productivity, a named professorship, as a function of his or her research credentials, as measured by the number of articles published in a small core of elite management journals. Alphabetically, these are Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, Journal of Operations Management, Management Science, Operations Research, Organization Science, and Strategic Management Journal. Although each of the eight journals is positively related to the probability of attaining a named professorship, the Academy of Management Review and the Academy of Management Journal emerge as the two most influential management journals.
Although differential ranking in science is not readily visible to lay observers, American science is, in fact, sharply graded. Rewards and facilities for research are concentrated among relatively few investigators and organizations. This distinctive pattern of stratification, at odds with the egalitarian ethos of science, is not solely attributable to the distribution of talent in the scientific community. There is however a high correlation between assessed contributions to science and investigators' scientific standing. The present pattern of stratification is the outcome of processes of allocation of men and resources among various sectors of science which include selective recruitment and socialization of young investigators, differential access to publication and research facilities, and differential recognition of scientists' contributions through citations to their work and honorific awards. In a time when the legitimacy of reward systems in many social institutions is routinely challenged, scientists are apt to accept their own as just and correct.
This paper attempts to analyse the publication productivity of Anthony J. Leggett, the 2003 Nobel Prize winner in physics. His contributions peaked in 1987, 1994, and 1998 with 10 papers each. He had 194 publications during 1964 - 2004 in domains like Superfluid 3He (65), Foundations of Quantum Mechanics (36), Dissipative Quantum Systems (24), Atomic Alkali Gases (18), and Miscellaneous (51)which were analysed for authorship pattern with his 70 collaborators. Most active collaborators with Anthony J Leggett were: A. Garg with six papers and A. O. MCaldeira, D. M. Ginsberg, D. J. Vanharlingen , F. Sols, S.Takagi and D. A. Wollman with five papers each. His productivity coefficient was 0.60 which clearly indicates that his productivity
increased after 50 percentile age. The highest degree of collaboration (1) for Anthony J. Leggett was found during 1964, 1971 and 1983. Journals have been the most preferred channel of communication, where as many as 139 papers out of 194 have been published. The core journals publishing his papers were: Phys. Rev. Leu. (42), Phys. Rev. B (9), J. Low Temp. Phys. (8),Phys. Rev. A (7), Ann. Phys. (6), Foundations of physics (6), J. Phys.(5), Prog. Theor: Phys. (5), and Rev. Mod. Phys. (5).Publication density was 3.02 and publication concentration was 3.59.
By revealing who has really influenced the course of science the Science Citation Index seems to be a valuable sociometric tool for historians and sociologists.
In order to derive in a convincing manner the formula of Goldberger and Treiman for the rate of charged pion decay, we consider the possibility that the divergence of the axial vector current in β-decay may be proportional to the pion field. Three models of the pion-nucleon interaction (and the weak current) are presented that have the required property. The first, using gradient coupling, has the advantage that it is easily generalized to strange particles, but the disadvantages of being unrenormalizable and of bringing in the vector and axial vector currents in an unsymmetrical way. The second model, using a strong interaction proposed by Schwinger and a weak current proposed by Polkinghorne, is renormalizable and symmetrical between V and A, but it involves postulating a new particle and is hard to extend to strange particles. The third model resembles the second one except that it is not necessary to introduce a new particle. (Renormalizability in the usual sense is then lost, however). Further research along these lines is suggested, including consideration of the possibility that the pion decay rate may be plausibly obtained under less stringent conditions.
The system of strongly interacting particles is discussed, with electromagnetism, weak interactions, and gravitation considered as perturbations. The electric current jα, the weak current Jα, and the gravitational tensor θαβ are all well-defined operators, with finite matrix elements obeying dispersion relations. To the extent that the dispersion relations for matrix elements of these operators between the vacuum and other states are highly convergent and dominated by contributions from intermediate one-meson states, we have relations like the Goldberger-Treiman formula and universality principles like that of Sakurai according to which the ρ meson is coupled approximately to the isotopic spin. Homogeneous linear dispersion relations, even without subtractions, do not suffice to fix the scale of these matrix elements; in particular, for the nonconserved currents, the renormalization factors cannot be calculated, and the universality of strength of the weak interactions is undefined. More information than just the dispersion relations must be supplied, for example, by field-theoretic models; we consider, in fact, the equal-time commutation relations of the various parts of j4 and J4. These nonlinear relations define an algebraic system (or a group) that underlies the structure of baryons and mesons. It is suggested that the group is in fact U(3)×U(3), exemplified by the symmetrical Sakata model. The Hamiltonian density θ44 is not completely invariant under the group; the noninvariant part transforms according to a particular representation of the group; it is possible that this information also is given correctly by the symmetrical Sakata model. Various exact relations among form factors follow from the algebraic structure. In addition, it may be worthwhile to consider the approximate situation in which the strangeness-changing vector currents are conserved and the Hamiltonian is invariant under U(3); we refer to this limiting case as "unitary symmetry." In the limit, the baryons and mesons form degenerate supermultiplets, which break up into isotopic multiplets when the symmetry-breaking term in the Hamiltonian is "turned on." The mesons are expected to form unitary singlets and octets; each octet breaks up into a triplet, a singlet, and a pair of strange doublets. The known pseudoscalar and vector mesons fit this pattern if there exists also an isotopic singlet pseudoscalar meson χ0. If we consider unitary symmetry in the abstract rather than in connection with a field theory, then we find, as an attractive alternative to the Sakata model, the scheme of Ne'eman and Gell-Mann, which we call the "eightfold way"; the baryons N, Λ, Σ, and Ξ form an octet, like the vector and pseudoscalar meson octets, in the limit of unitary symmetry. Although the violations of unitary symmetry must be quite large, there is some hope of relating certain violations to others. As an example of the methods advocated, we present a rough calculation of the rate of K+→μ++ν in terms of that of π+→μ++ν.
Scientists are not so much born as made by those who teach them by research, which argues for the perpetuation of centres of excellence. This was the theme of this address by Sir Hans Krebs at the inauguration of the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne earlier this year.
A rapid, sensitive method is described for measuring C14-aminoacyl-sRNA interactions with ribosomes which are specifically induced by the appropriate RNA codewords prior to peptide-bond
formation. Properties of the codeword recognition process and the minimum oligonucleotide chain length required to induce
such interactions are presented. The trinucleotides, pUpUpU, pApApA, and pCpCpC, but not dinucleotides, specifically direct
the binding to ribosomes of phenylalanine-, lysine-, and proline-sRNA, respectively.
Since 5'-terminal, 3'-terminal, and internal codewords differ in chemical structure, three corresponding classes of codewords
are proposed. The recognition of each class in this system is described. The template efficiency of trinucleotide codewords
is modified greatly by terminal phosphate. Triplets with 5'-terminal phosphate are more active as templates than triplets
without terminal phosphate. Triplets with 3'- or 3' (2')-terminal phosphate are markedly less active as templates. These findings
are discussed in relation to the probable functions of terminal codewords. The modification of RNA and DNA codewords, converting
sense into missense or nonsense codewords, is suggested as a possible regulatory mechanism in protein synthesis.