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BOSQUE 34(2): 211-219, 2013 DOI: 10.4067/S0717-92002013000200010
211
Paper-based productivity ranking of Chilean forestry institutions
Ranking de productividad basado en artículos cientícos de instituciones forestales chilenas
Eduardo Acuña a*, Miguel Espinosa a, Jorge Cancino a
*Autor de correspondencia: a Universidad de Concepción, Facultad de Ciencias Forestales, Victoria 631,
ciudad Universitaria, Concepción, Chile, edacuna@udec.cl
SUMMARY
Using the information from the two main online scientic databases, Scopus and Web of Science (WoS), the scientic productivity of
Chilean research institutions associated with the forestry sector was analyzed for the period 2000-2011. The following factors were
analyzed: number of publications indexed in WoS and Scopus, citation frequency, impact indexes, h-Index, international contribution,
self-citing and subject area of publications. The articles selected indicated afliation either to faculties that offered undergraduate
Forestry Programs in March 2012 or to public and private institutions associated with the forestry sector. Using this information,
a ranking of scientic productivity for each institution was established according to the number of publications registered in WoS.
Results show that the universities which offered Forestry Programs published 515 articles in WoS indexed journals and 625 in Scopus,
corresponding to 88.5 and 85.0 % of the publications in the period, respectively. Universidad de Concepción, Universidad Austral de
Chile and Universidad de Chile concentrate more than two-thirds of WoS and Scopus-indexed articles; the number of publications
per researcher indicates that Ponticia Universidad Católica de Chile and Universidad de Concepción are in rst and second place
followed by Universidad Austral de Chile and Universidad de Chile. Most publications (more than 80 %) are concentrated between
the years 2006 and 2011. The main research subjects in Universidad de Concepción, Universidad Austral de Chile and Universidad
de Chile are Forestry and Biodiversity, and Conservation and Ecology. In Ponticia Universidad Católica de Chile, it is Agriculture.
Key words: forestry publications, productivity ranking, research impact, Scopus, Web of Science.
RESUMEN
Se analizó la productividad cientíca, para el periodo 2000-2011, de las instituciones de investigación chilenas relacionadas con el
sector forestal en base a la información extraída de las dos principales bases de datos cientícas en línea Scopus y Web of Science
(WoS). Los factores analizados fueron: número de publicaciones indexadas en WoS y Scopus, frecuencia de citas, índices de impacto,
Índice h, contribución internacional, autocitas y el área temática de las revistas. Se seleccionaron todos aquellos artículos en los
cuales se indicaba la aliación de los investigadores a las facultades que impartían la carrera de Ingeniería Forestal dentro del periodo
de estudio y a instituciones públicas y privadas vinculadas con el sector forestal. Con esta información, se estableció un ranking de
productividad cientíca para cada institución en función del número de publicaciones registradas en WoS. Los resultados muestran
que las universidades que ofrecen Ingeniería Forestal han publicado 515 artículos en revistas indexadas en WoS y 625 en Scopus,
correspondiente al 88,5 y el 85,0 % de las publicaciones en el período, respectivamente. Las universidades de Concepción, Austral
de Chile y de Chile concentran más de dos tercios de los artículos indexados en WoS y Scopus; el número de publicaciones por
investigador indica que la Ponticia Universidad Católica de Chile y Universidad de Concepción ocupan el primer y segundo lugar
seguidos por la Universidad Austral de Chile y la Universidad de Chile. La mayoría de los artículos se publicaron (más del 80 %)
entre los años 2006-2011. Las principales áreas de investigación en la universidades de Concepción, Austral de Chile y de Chile son
-según la denominación de WoS- Forestry y Biodiversity, Conservation and Ecology. En la Ponticia Universidad Católica de Chile
es Agriculture.
Palabras clave: publicaciones forestales, ranking de productividad, impacto de la investigación, Scopus, Web of Science.
INTRODUCTION
In the last few decades, increased attention has been
paid to the scientic productivity of institutions and their
researchers. The evaluation of scientic production and
productivity is a contemporary theme; indeed, an increa-
sing number of journals in specic elds, including fores-
try sciences, publish articles evaluating researchers, pro-
grams or institutions (Bouyssou and Marchant 2010, Bue-
la-Casal et al. 2010), partially due to the fact that science
policy increasingly includes scientic productivity as a
key factor determining nancing of future projects. For
example, in Chile, in order to accredit doctoral programs,
the academic staff must present high levels of scientic
productivity (CNA-Chile 2010). In Spain, the Doctoral
Programs that meet a number of quality requirements have
BOSQUE 34(2): 211-219, 2013
Productivity ranking of Chilean forestry institutions
212
access to nancial aids (Buela-Casal and Castro 2008,
Musi-Lechuga et al. 2011). At international level, there
are now multiple rankings that compare countries and uni-
versities according to their scientic productivity (ARWU,
Shanghai Jiao Tong University, THE-QS, Times Higher
Education Supplement, WR, Cybermetrics CSIC Lab,
SCImago Institutions Rankings, Ranking Iberoamerican
SIR 2010) or institutions inside a country (Baeza 2010)
in Chile; (Anderson and Tressler 2011) in New Zealand;
(Buela-Casal et al. 2011) in Spain; (Katranidis et al. 2012)
in Greece; (Matthews 2012) in South Africa; (Vanclay and
Bornmann 2012) in Australia; (Wang et al. 2012) in The
United State of America; (Wilkins and Huisman 2012) in
United Kingdom). The practice of evaluating research pro-
ductivity has been consolidated in practically every scien-
tic eld. According to Abramo and D’Angelo (2011),
bibliometric indicators will be preferred to peer-review
processes for research evaluation because it is faster, easier
and cheaper, and its results are more transparent. However,
some authors mention that the use of publication indica-
tors for promotion, funding and scholarships may distort
the scientic publication process (Buela-Casal 2010, Chou
et al. 2013). The Council of Canadian Academies (Coun-
cil of Canadian Academies 2012) agreed that quantitative
indicators must be used to inform rather than to replace
the human judgment and expertise in the research funding
allocation process.
In the forestry sector, publications on scientic pro-
ductivity using bibliometric indicators, such as the Jour-
nal Impact Factor and the Scimago Journal Ranking, have
analyzed: a) the effect that these publications have on the
researchers’ professional careers (MacLean 2008); b) the
prestige rate of the principal forestry academic journals
at international level (Vanclay 2008) and those published
in China (Perez et al. 2004); c) the impact of forestry re-
search related to social sciences and Aboriginal communi-
ties in Canada (Klenk et al. 2010); d) research productivity
of universities, departments, and Forestry Programs in the
United States and Canada (Laband and Zhang 2006) or
factors that inuence citation rates of top-cited papers for
faculty in geography and forestry departments across ten
major public universities in the United States (Slyder et
al. 2011); e) publication patterns of award-winning forest
scientists (Vanclay 2012), and f) metrics to evaluate re-
search performance in academic institutions (Vanclay and
Bornmann 2012).
In Chile, although there are rankings that establish some
productivity indicators at university level (Baeza 2010),
few are oriented to determining scientic productivity in
a particular scientic eld. Forestry science, a discipline
that has greatly expanded in Chile in the last few deca-
des, offers the opportunity to evaluate the evolution of its
scientic productivity. The quantication and qualitative
evaluation of the productivity of the research institutions
in forestry will permit to know the importance of each ins-
titution, its contribution to the scientic development of
the sector and the main subject of research. Moreover, re-
sults could provide a basis for better understanding of the
global development of forest research, and a potential gui-
de for young researchers and applicants to study Forestry
Programs. We aim to analyze the scientic productivity of
Chilean research institutions associated with the forestry
sector for the period 2000-2011, based on the two princi-
pal online scientic databases: Scopus and Web of Science
(ex-Institute for Scientic Information, ISI).
METHODS
The information employed in this document was ma-
nually collected using the online versions of the most im-
portant research databases of academic journals: Scopus
and Web of Science (WoS) accessed in January 2012. In
the online version of Scopus, an “Advanced Search” with
the commands AFFILORG for the key words “forest”,
“forestry”, “forestal”, “forestales” and AFFILCOUNTRY
for “Chile”; in WoS, with Organization (OG) and Country
(CU) with the same keywords was used. Even though WoS
and Scopus present great similarity, comparative studies
between these two data bases indicate they are comple-
mentary for research use (Meho and Yang 2007, Chirici
2012). In the search for author name or title of articles,
common orthographic signs of the Spanish language such
as accent and tilde were not considered.
The scientic productivity was analyzed for the pe-
riod January 2000 to December 2011 (twelve years) for
the following factors: i) number of publications indexed
in WoS and Scopus, ii) frequency of citations, iii) impact
indexes, iv) self-citation, v) h-Index and vi) international
collaboration. The selected articles indicated afliation to
faculties that offered undergraduate Forestry Programs in
March 2012 (CIFAG 2012, Universia 2012), as well as
public and private institutions associated with the forestry
sector (table 1).
All contributions of full-time professors, associated
researchers, doctorate students, post-doctoral researchers,
visiting professors and emeritus professors for the Facul-
ty/Department of these universities as well as the public
and private institutions mentioned above were included.
When a publication had several authors from different ins-
titutions, it was assigned to each of the participating insti-
tutions. No publication was repeated in the databases.
A journal was considered indexed in the WoS in the
year that it was included in one of the following Citation
Databases: Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Scien-
ces Citation Index and Arts & Humanities Citation Index,
whose search was performed on its web site. Scopus indi-
cates the year covered by this database in the “Sources”
section of its web site. The impact index was obtained
from the online versions of Scimago Journal Rank (SJR)
and Journal Impact Factor (JIF) of Journal Citations Re-
ports (JCR) of WoS, in January 2012. We calculated the
weighted average SJR and the weighted average JIF of
BOSQUE 34(2): 211-219, 2013
Productivity ranking of Chilean forestry institutions
213
Table 1. Universities with Forestry Programs and public and private institutions analyzed in the study.
Universidades con Ingeniería Forestal e instituciones públicas y privadas analizados en el estudio.
Universities Institutions
Public institutions Private institutions
•Ponticia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC) •Instituto Forestal (INFOR) •Forestal Celco S.A./Bioforest
•Universidad Austral de Chile (UACH) •Corporación Nacional
Forestal (CONAF)
•Compañía Manufacturera de
Paleles y Cartones (CMPC)
•Universidad Católica del Maule (UCMAULE)
•Universidad de Chile (UCHILE)
•Universidad de Concepción (UDEC)
•Universidad de Talca (UTALCA)
•Universidad Mayor (UMAYOR)
•Universidad de la Frontera (UFRO)
•Universidad Católica de Temuco (UCT)
each institution; that is, the product of SJR or JIF of each
journal by the number of publications in the journal, divi-
ded by the total number of publications of the institution
indexed in Scopus or WoS, respectively. The h-Index is
based on a list of publications ranked downwards by num-
ber of times cited. The value of h is equal to the number of
papers (N) in the list that has N or more citations (Hirsch
2005). For example, an h-Index of 5 means that ve publi-
cations have been cited ve or more times.
Self-citation of all the publications indexed in JCR was
obtained with the Backward Only command using the tool
Citation Map of the Web of Science and then manually
counting the number of references and self-citations of
each publication; while in Scopus manually counting self-
citations of the rst author. A reference was considered to
be a self-citation when the rst author cites works in which
she/he is the rst author. For each article, the ratio (NA/
NCB) was calculated; where NA is the number of self-
citations and NCB is the number of bibliographic citations.
The contribution of international institutions was es-
timated by the afliation of the publications’ foreign
authors, determining the ratio of the number of foreign
institutions and the total number of authors.
To determine the number of researchers for each uni-
versity that offers an undergraduate program in Forestry,
each university’s web page was accessed in April 2012.
Then, the relative contribution of each researcher was cal-
culated following Laband and Zhang (2006) approach. In
the case of two universities, Ponticia Universidad Cató-
lica de Chile (PUC) and Universidad Católica del Maule
(UCMAULE), that offer undergraduate programs other
than Forestry (i.e., Facultad de Agronomía e Ingeniería Fo-
restal and Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias y Forestales, res-
pectively), only the publications of the researchers belon-
ging to the corresponding department (i.e., Departamento
de Ecosistemas y MedioAmbiente (PUC) and Departa-
mento de CienciasForestales (UCMAULE)) were consi-
dered. The same procedure was followed with Universidad
de la Frontera (UFRO) and Universidad Católica de Te-
muco (UCT), which no longer maintain an undergraduate
Forestry Program but retain an academic unit in forestry
sciences. Only the publications of full-time academics
were recorded. These data were used to establish a scien-
tic productivity ranking for the institutions considered,
organizing them according to the number of publications
included in WoS. In addition, the number of researchers
of each institution that published in WoS and Scopus, and
the subject area where they published were also described.
RESULTS
Scientic productivity. For the study period (2000-2011),
566 articles were published in WoS-indexed journals (six
in Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) and zero in Arts
& Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI)) and 685 on Sco-
pus; where 635 were papers, 24 reviews, 23 conference
articles and three letters. All the articles included in WoS
were also included in Scopus. The 119 articles difference
between WoS and Scopus (685-566) relates to publications
in journals edited mainly in Chile (e.g., Gayana Botánica
and Bosque)1 not registered in WoS. The universities which
provide Forestry Programs published 515 articles in WoS-
indexed articles and 625 in Scopus, corresponding to 88.5
and 85.0 %, respectively, of the period’s publications. These
gures reect that universities sustain the forestry research
in the country. Universidad de Concepción, Universidad
Austral de Chile and Universidad de Chile were responsi-
ble for almost over two-thirds of the articles published on
WoS (64.9 %) and Scopus (64.9 %) (table 2). Even though
the number of publications is probably underestimated be-
cause researchers of other faculties/departments than fores-
1 Journals indexed in Science Citation Index Expanded in 2008 and 2009,
respectively.
BOSQUE 34(2): 211-219, 2013
Productivity ranking of Chilean forestry institutions
214
Table 2. Ranking of the Chilean forestry institutions organized according to WoS-indexed publications.
Clasicación de las instituciones forestales chilenas organizadas de acuerdo a las publicaciones indizadas en WoS.
Institution
(1) Ranking
based on
WoS articles
(2)
Number of
researchers
(3)
Scientic
production
Scientic productivity Number of
citations
Self citations
(%)
Impact indexes
(weighted
average)
h-Index IC
(%)
(16)
WoS
(4) Scopus
(5)
WoS per
researcher
(6)
Scopus per
researcher
(7)
WoS
(8) Scopus
(9)
WoS
(10) Scopus
(11)
JIF
(12)
SJR
(13)
WoS
(14) Scopus
(15)
Univ. de Concepción 1 25 155 185 6.20 7.40 900 1.018 6.70 6.79 1.86 0.11 15 15 20.45
Univ. Austral de Chile 2 30 141 179 4.70 5.97 821 915 7.80 8.04 1.46 0.07 14 15 21.23
Univ. de Chile 3 29 97 113 3.34 3.90 404 496 6.04 6.42 1.41 0.08 12 13 19.64
Ponticia Univ. Católica
de Chile
4 9 83 96 9.22 10.67 220 263 5.66 6.27 1.54 0.10 9 9 15.21
Univ. de Talca 5 14 25 31 1.79 2.21 83 85 - 7.22 0.87 0.05 5 5 9.25
Univ. Católica del Maule 6 10 12 17 1.20 1.70 20 25 7.63 6.80 1.16 0.05 4 3 14.53
Univ. Mayor 7 3 2 4 0.67 1.33 30 35 7.43 - 0.72 0.09 2 3 19.64
Univ. de la Frontera
(UFRO
W/I 17 19 W/I W/I 34 21 0.73 0.73 2.27 1.05 3 2 7.14
Univ. Católica de Temuco
(UCT)
W/I 7 7 W/I W/I 2 2 1.73 2.21 0.42 0.22 1 1 24.25
Corporación Nacional
Forestal -W/I 21 27 W/I W/I 117 145 6.31 6.74 1.64 0.07 7 7 17.19
InstitutoForestal - W/I 19 25 W/I W/I 126 140 5.72 8.50 1.54 0.06 7 8 25.67
BosquesArauco/Bioforest -W/I 15 18 W/I W/I 115 146 8.55 4.91 1.58 0.07 6 6 24.17
Forestal Mininco - W/I 12 14 W/I W/I 81 76 4.91 7.87 1.40 0.06 5 5 35.25
Sum 606 735
JIF: Journal impact factor according to Journal Citation Report. SJR: Scimago Journal Rank, according to Scimago. IC: International collaboration. W/I: Without information.
BOSQUE 34(2): 211-219, 2013
Productivity ranking of Chilean forestry institutions
215
try may also publish in forestry topics, evidence suggests
that most publications are concentrated in universities.
The number of publications (and citations) increased stea-
dily over time in the universities, especially for the univer-
sities of Concepción, Austral de Chile, de Chile and Pon-
ticia Universidad Católica de Chile, in this order. This
growth has been leading from the year 2006 (gure 1).
During the period 2006 to 2011, publications increased
more than ve times respect to the period 2000-2005
(table 3). Accordingly, the mean annual publications in-
creased from 14.3 to 86.7 and 19.7 to 102.8 in WoS and
Scopus, respectively. Even though the number of citations
by WoS increased from 1086 to 1865 and by Scopus from
1240 to 2127, for the period 2000-2005 to 2006-2011, the
average of citations per article decreased from 12.6 to 3.6
in WoS and from 10.5 to 3.5 in Scopus.
The positive trend observed between 2006 and 2011 is
due to several factors such as an increment of international
cooperation: during this span the number of papers publis-
hed by a Chilean researcher with at least one foreign author
increased from 13 % to more than 19 %. Other factors are
the policy followed by universities to give monetary in-
centive to publishing in international journals (mainly in
WoS) and to hiring professionals with a postgraduate de-
gree (mostly Doctors). In addition to government policies
that increased funding for research and innovation (Baeza
2010).
The difference that is observed between the total num-
ber of WoS and Scopus publications in table 2, table 3 and
Appendix (606 vs 566 and 735 vs 685, respectively) can
be explained by the methodology used: when a publica-
tion is shared by more than one institution, it was assigned
to each one.
Table 3. Total number of publications and citations by sub-period.
Número total de publicaciones y citaciones por sub-periodos.
Period
Number of
publications Mean annual
publications
Number of
citations Mean annual
citations
WoS Scopus Wo S Scopus Wo S Scopus WoS Scopus
2000-2005 86 118 14.3 19.7 1088 1240 181.3 206.7
2006-2011 520 617 86.7 102.8 1863 2127 310.5 354.5
Total 606 735 50.5 61.3 2951 3367 245.9 280.6
Figure 1. Number of peer-reviewed publications (i.e. papers) by institution between 2000 and 2011, (PUI: public institutions and PVI:
private institutions).
Número de publicaciones revisadas por pares (i.e. artículos) por institución entre 2000 y 2011, (PUI: instituciones públicas y PVI:
instituciones privadas).
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
Accumulated publications
Publications (Number)
Year
Accumulated UDEC UACH UCHILE
PUC UMAYOR UCMAULE UTALCA
UFRO UCT PUI PVI
BOSQUE 34(2): 211-219, 2013
Productivity ranking of Chilean forestry institutions
216
Individual productivity. An indicator of individual produc-
tivity is the number of publications per researcher. This
factor reduces the potential bias associated to the size of
the research institution and explains Ponticia Univer-
sidad Católica de Chile and Universidad de Concepción
reaching the rst and second places of the ranking, with a
mean per researcher and year of 0.77 and 0.52 by WoS and
0.89 and 0.62 by Scopus, respectively. The productivity
of Ponticia Universidad Católica de Chile by Scopus is
higher than the national mean by the year 2009: 0.72 vs
0.89 (CONICYT 2012).
In terms of production volume, 75 % of the publica-
tions are concentrated in 10 authors in Universidad de
Concepción, nine in Universidad Austral de Chile, six in
Universidad de Chile and four in Ponticia Universidad
Católica de Chile. Of the 93 full time academics of these
universities (table 2), 67 of them have one or more publi-
cations and 26 are responsible for the 75 % of the total
publications in the study period. In other words, the pro-
duction in the eld of forestry research is concentrated in
a few authors. The forestry scientic productivity for Chi-
lean researchers is very similar to that from Italian forestry
researchers: a relatively small number are very productive
authors and a large number of authors present limited con-
tribution (Chirici 2012).
Citations. Universities de Concepción, Austral de Chi-
le and de Chile are ranked in the top three for number of
citations with averages between 4.2 and 5.8 citations per
publication according to WoS and between 4.4 and 5.5 ac-
cording to Scopus (columns 8 and 9, table 2). This position
in the ranking varies with the other indicators. Considering
only universities -with the exception of Universidad Ma-
yor with a very few publications-, all of them show low
value of self-citation mainly Ponticia Universidad Cató-
lica de Chile and Universidad de Chile with values of 5.66
and 6.04 % for WoS and 6.27 and 6.42 % for Scopus, res-
pectively (column 10 and 11, table 2); these are very low
values when compared with those reported by Minasny
et al .(2010) for soil sciences, even though these authors
considered all the publication’s authors, which was not the
case for the present study. The self-citation rate varied
according to the scientic discipline considered, as shown
by Hyland (2003), Fowler and Aksnes (2007) and Minas-
ny et al. (2010). This thematic is complex and difcult to
quantify since both, the author of an article and the pu-
blished journal, are interested in self-citation. According
to Schreiber (2007), an unbiased citation estimator should
exclude self-references.
Impact indexes. The impact factors JIF and SJR are hig-
her for Universidad de Concepción in comparison with
Ponticia Universidad Católica de Chile, Universidad
Austral de Chile and Universidad de Chile in that order
(columns 12 and 13, table 2). The h-Index, that measures
the quantity and quality of the scientic productivity, is
also higher for the top universities of our ranking, with va-
lues of 15 for Universidad de Concepción, 14 for Univer-
sidad Austral de Chile, 12 for Universidad de Chile and 9
for Ponticia Universidad Católica de Chile. The h-Index
calculated by WoS or Scopus are very similar (column 14
and 15, table 2). International collaboration is higher for
Universidad Austral de Chile, followed by Universidad de
Concepción and Universidad de Chile (column 16, table
2). Even when collaborative research is essential for scien-
tic progress and development because resource sharing
promotes the synergy required to reach the critical mass
of knowledge (Katz and Martin 1997), international co-
authorship is only a partial indicator because scientic co-
llaboration does not always result in co-authorship, as has
been shown by several authors, including Katz and Martin
(1997) and Laudel (2002).
Indexing. The 566 WoS-indexed publications for the pe-
riod studied are distributed between 224 scientic journals
(Appendix): 130 are edited in Europe, 50 in the United
States, three in Canada, 24 in Latin America—15 of those
in Chile—and 14 in Asia, Africa and Oceania. Figure 2 pre-
sents the 15 journals that concentrate the highest number of
WoS publications with 235 papers (41.5 % of the total pu-
blications for the period), where seven are edited in Chile.
The remaining 209 journals contain 331 publications with
a mean per journal below two articles, which reects the
wide spectrum of publication options as well as the scienti-
c sub-disciplines associated to forestry sciences.
Subjects. The main research subjects -following the cate-
gories of the journal indexed in WoS- in Universidad de
Concepción, Universidad Austral de Chile and Universi-
dad de Chile are Forestry and Biodiversity, and Conser-
vation and Ecology, with 49, 53 and 37 %, respectively
in the three universities. These two research subjects are
also present in Ponticia Universidad Católica de Chile
but only with 19 %. In this institution, the main subject
is Agriculture with 31 %. Other areas of interest are Bio-
technology and Applied Microbiology in Universidad de
Concepción; Materials Science at Universidad Austral de
Chile and Plant Sciences at Universidad de Chile and Pon-
ticia Universidad Católica de Chile (gure 3).
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
The Journal Impact Factor and Scimago Journal Rank
are indicators used to measure researcher’s productivity.
However, like self-citation, impact factors are criticized
since they can be inuenced and biased by many factors
(Kurmis 2003). Nonetheless, journal citation indexes are
still used in many important decisions, such as which
journals should be consulted (Duy and Vaughan 2006), to
which journals manuscripts should be sent (Cheung 2008),
which researchers can be nancially supported (Fuyuno
and Cyranoski 2006) or which institutions produce high
BOSQUE 34(2): 211-219, 2013
Productivity ranking of Chilean forestry institutions
217
Figure 2. Number of publications in the fteen most requested journals (dark bars indicate that they are edited in Chile).
Número de publicaciones en las quince revistas más requeridas (barras oscuras indican que son editadas en Chile).
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Diversity and Distributions
Biological Conservation
Interciencia
European Journal of Forest Research
Annals of Forest Science
Gayana - Botanica
Journal of the Chilean Chemical Society
Biological Invasions
Canadian Journal of Forest Research
Chilean Journal of Agricultural Research
Revista Chilena de Historia Natural
Maderas: Ciencia y Tecnologia
Ciencia e Investigacion Agraria
Forest Ecology and Management
Bosque
6
7
7
8
8
8
9
10
15
16
22
26
27
28
38
Number of publications
Figure 3. Main areas of research of the best ranked institutions: A) Universidad de Concepción, B) Universidad Austral de Chile, C)
Universidad de Chile and D) Ponticia Universidad Católica de Chile.
Áreas principales de investigación de las instituciones mejor clasicadas: a) Universidad de Concepción, b) Universidad Austral de Chile,
c) Universidad de Chile y d) Ponticia Universidad Católica de Chile.
Forestry
26%
Biodiversity
Conservation,
Ecology
23%
Agriculture
11%
Materials
Science
5%
Biotechnology,
Applied
Microbiology
12%
Chemistry
8%
Others
15% Forestry
30%
Biodiversity
Conservation,
Ecology
23%
Materials
Science
18%
Plant Sciences
3%
Water
Resources
8%
Meteorology,
Atmospheric
Sciences
3%
Others
15%
Forestry
19%
Biodiversity
Conservation,
Ecology
18%
Agriculture
8%
Materials
Science
8%
Plant Sciences
13%
Zoology
10%
Others
24%
Forestry
10% Biodiversity
Conservation,
Ecology
9%
Agriculture
31%
Plant
Sciences
8%
Environmental
Sciences
6%
Soil Science
5%
Others
31%
B
C D
A
BOSQUE 34(2): 211-219, 2013
Productivity ranking of Chilean forestry institutions
218
quality research (Davis and Royle 1996, Baeza 2010).
Another way of assessing inuence and relevance of re-
search productivity is Altmetrics (Adie and Roe 2013). By
means of this novel tool it is possible to reach a broader
audience, since it takes into account the number of time an
article has been downloaded, mentioned in twitter or blog
posts discussing its papers, etc. (Taylor 2013). But what Ta-
ylor (2013) has mentioned is still little robust, hence it can-
not make a signicant contribution to metric computing.
To evaluate research performance in academic insti-
tution, Vanclay and Bornmann (2012), using a derivation
of h-Index, built a ranking based on forestry journals pu-
blished around the world, for the period 2005-2010. In a
scale of zero to nine or more (where zero means the least
productivity), Universidad de Concepción and Universi-
dad Austral de Chile scored 4, Universidad de Chile and
Ponticia Universidad Católica de Chile scored 3 and Uni-
versidad de Talca scored 1. This outcome is in agreement
with the position of these universities in our ranking.
The preference for a certain journal depends on seve-
ral factors, including the journal’s prole as well as the
journal’s language (usually English). Language has been
an important obstacle to publication in English journals.
However, this barrier is being overcome by the increase
of English-speaking researchers, the increased importance
that universities now place on research, as well as some
measures adopted to facilitate the translation into English.
At present, almost all national journals in the forestry area
allow publishing papers in English, where some of the
journals even translate the submitted manuscripts. In addi-
tion, the two databases used in this study include a small
number of journals in languages other than English. Meho
and Yang (2007) reported that WoS and Scopus include
only 1.14 % and 0.70 %, respectively, of citation to publi-
cations in languages other than English. Accordingly, the
choice of one or another database depends mainly on the
purpose of the search.
Our results show that more than 35 % of the publica-
tions are in Latin-American journals which publish mainly
in language different from English. Furthermore, Chilean
researchers publish mainly in journals edited in Spanish
and in Chile. As Meho and Yang (2007) mention, publi-
cations in a language other than English are usually less
cited. In addition, older publications could be more cited
than a new one, because the last one has less time indexed
in a database (Slyder et al. 2011).
Regarding the two databases used, our ndings suggest
that to accurately evaluate and/or rank scientic produc-
tivity, one should employ both WoS and Scopus because
these databases largely complement, rather than replace,
each other.
One of the principal difculties encountered in this
study is the heterogeneity used by Chilean scientists to
identify their afliation and names. In many cases, the
name of the institution is translated to English: “Facultad
de Ciencias Forestales” is for example translated as Fa-
culty of Forestry, School of Forestry, College of Forestry,
Forestry Sciences Faculty or Faculty of Forest/try Scien-
ces. Additionally, the name of the author can vary between
publications, for example Donoso P.J. and Donoso P. or
Rios D.G. and Rios D. These situations cause distortions
when establishing any type of ranking and complicate the
maintenance of a reliable list of indexed publications from
public databases. Thus, author names should be consistent
in all the publications and hopefully the authors place their
afliation in Spanish (Universidad and Facultad, and when
necessary Departamento, Laboratorio or any other perti-
nent afliation allowed by the journal). The establishment
of a system to digitally identify the author, similar to digi-
tal object identier (DOI), could facilitate proper indexing.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We are most grateful to four anonymous reviewers for
helpful comments on the paper.
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Recibido: 12.11.12
Aceptado: 21.06.13
