Scientometrics杂志前100卷中值得记住的话

武夷山

匈牙利科学计量学家András Schubert（普赖斯奖得主）今年4月于Scientometrics杂志网站上在线优先发表了一篇文章，“Scientometrics杂志前100卷值得记住的话”。

他自己的导师说过，一本书里如果有一句话能记住，那这本书就很有价值了。仿此，他从《科学计量学》杂志迄今的100卷中，每卷里挑出一句（或一段）值得记住的话。

这100则引文中，只有两则是华裔学者的，一位是美国长岛大学的储荷婷教授，一位是台湾中兴大学的Chia-Lin Chang（音译：张嘉麟）。大陆学者无一人有“语录”入选，不过，连国际科学计量学与信息计量学学会现任会长鲁索教授也没有任何“语录”入选。入选的匈牙利学者明显较多。

下面是原文，有少数几则语录被我译成了中文。

Sentences to remember from the first 100 volumes of the journal Scientometrics

András Schubert¹  

(1)

Department of Science Policy and Scientometrics, Libraryand Information Center of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary

András Schubert

Email: schuba@iif.hu

Received: 6 March 2014Published online:3 April 2014

Without Abstract

I have learned from a late great master of mine (LászlóVekerdi, Head Librarian at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences) that if I find ina book one sentence to remember, then this book is of remarkable value. I oftentry to apply this wisdom to value other sources: theater plays, movies, or—whynot?—scientific journals.

In what follows, the reader may find the result of myattempt to select sentences to remember from each of the first 100 volumes ofthe journal Scientometrics. I have to admit that the selection was absolutelysubjective, and I apologize to all sentences and all authors having been leftout from this selection. In compensation, I encourage the readers to find othersentences to remember; it takes nothing more than to browse through the nearly4,000 papers so far published in the journal—of course, if you are lucky, youmay find yours in the very first page.

I tried to do my best not to corrupt the sentences whiledetaching them from their original context, and to apply only the minimalpossible changes (correcting typos, completing informations exposed elsewherein the paper, omitting references to other parts of the paper, etc.)—suchchanges are usually marked by square brackets.

Here you are.

Vol 1 p 8, Derek de Solla Price

It becomes apparent, even from our first few decades ofanalysis, that science and scientific activity is peculiarly measurable andpeculiarly regular in its behavior even compared with other modes ofscholarship.

即使从（科学计量学诞生后）最初几十年的分析来看，我们也日益发现，科学与科学活动的行为是特别可测度的，是特别有规律的，即便与其他学术形态相比较也是如此。

――普赖斯

Vol 2 p 3, A. I. Yablonsky

The number of publications dealing with Lotka’s, Zipf’sand Bradford’s laws is already so large that it is possible to compilebibliographies on this topic and even to verify Lotka’s law using thebibliographical material devoted to Lotka’s law.

Vol 3 p 21, Irina V. Marshakova

[An] important aspect of citation analysis is itsapplication for revealing the inner structure of a science field. Citationnetworks might serve as a useful tool in solving the problem.

Vol 4 p 191, S. D. Haitun

If, say, the distribution of people in their creativeabilities [were] Gaussian, there would be much less Einsteins and Edisons than[they were] in reality.

如果人们的创造能力分布是高斯分布，那么我们在现实中碰到的爱因斯坦和爱迪生就会少得多。

――S. D.海顿，苏联科技史专家、科学计量学家

Vol 5 p 65, András Schubert, Wolfgang Glänzel

Reliable comparisons based on citation rate perpublication can be performed only with an appropriate test of statisticalsignificance of the observed differences.

Vol 6 p 224, J. Davidson Frame

Anyone familiar with the problems of trying torationalize the management of scientific activity through quantificationrecognizes that scientific research efforts can be stubbornly resistant tomanagement by numbers.

Vol 7 p 143, Michael J. Moravcsik

What he [Derek de Solla Price] started and advocatedcontinues to grow, perhaps in directions and along dimensions sometimesdifferent from Derek’s own views and perceptions, and one of the aims of thismedal is to underscore this continuity and cumulation by honoring those whoplay a significant role in this ongoing development of scientometrics.

Vol 8 p 13, Attila T. Szabó

In his Histoire des sciences et des savants depuis deuxsciècles (1885), [Alphonse] De Candolle was the first to analyse mathematicallythe number, dynamics and national distribution of scientists in theirprofessional organisations, the specialization and professionalization ofscientists and characterized the scientific potential of different countrieswith the number of international science society members per inhabitant [forthe] period 1750–1884.

Vol 9 p 278 Dean K. Simonton

Time lapse between the first and last entry in a givenmultiple [discovery] can vary according to both historical time and discipline,a variation that is interpretable within a communication framework: Somedisciplines have more efficient vehicles for disseminating the latest findings,and that efficiency has also tended to increase over time.

Vol 10 p 92, Y. Guay

Data collected in this study show that […] publication inIndian journals was likely to have had a trifling impact on the internationalscientific community, indicating that Indian organic chemists had not reachedin 1926, the stage [of] “independant scientific tradition”. In fact, it is tobe questionned whether or not Indian organic chemistry has reached it to thisday.

Vol 11 p 320, Loet Leydesdorff

The Sciences Citation Index and the different levels atwhich we can study aggregates of citations should not be conceptualized as agarbage can with individual elements, but as highly structured networks withspecific hierarchical relations which can only be understood from a theoreticalpoint of view.

Vol 12 p 303, Vasily V. Nalimov

No, we are not acrobats, we do not stand on the shouldersof giants.

不，我们不是杂技运动员，我们无法站到巨人的肩膀上。

――苏联著名科学学家瓦西里 V. 纳利莫夫

Vol 13 p 257, Péter Vinkler

If appropriate standards are found, the performance of aresearch team can be evaluated in its own category, and, figuratively speakingit can be achieved that Formula-1 cars and touring-class cars race in differentcategories and they are rewarded independently, in their own category.

Vol 14 p 80, D. Lindsey

It has been argued that there is substantial agreement inthe manuscript review process, however, examining the published data used insupport of this contention within a proper statistical framework suggestssubstantial imprecision in the manuscript review process. The use of three ormore reviewers would substantially limit the tendency to capitalize on chanceagreement and should lead to greater overall precision.

Vol 15 p 445, Susan E. Cozzens

The act of citation itself may not be in essenceevaluative; there may be types of high-quality work that tend not to be cited;yet when we compare citations to two papers of the same type in the same field,we find it difficult to attribute the difference to anything other than anevaluative concept.

Vol 16 p 4, András Schubert, Wolfgang Glänzel, TiborBraun

The list of publications submitted to analysis issupposed to form, in a sense, a sufficiently large and statisticallyrepresentative sample: As a general rule of thumb, a sample size of 30–100 canbe suggested as a minimum and samples preselected just on the basis of thecharacteristics being analyzed are to be avoided.

Vol 17 p 330, P. S. Nagpaul, S.P. Gupta

The quality of leadership cannot be improved merelythrough management development programmes. It would also be essential anddesirable to improve the level of expertise of the leaders through a package ofincentives like sabbatical leave to enable them to work at centres ofexcellence within or outside the country and by inviting leading scientistsfrom such centres to work in the research institutions.

Vol 18 p 237, Hariolf Grupp

In addition to the conventional concentration indicesused in economics the entropy measure has an important feature: it assigndifferent values of depending on the size of the sample of institutions orsubfields of R&D included in the analysis; therefore, small and largesamples and, thus, small and large groups of institutions (for instance smalland large nations) differ in entropy all other things being equal.

Vol 19 p 415, Thomas Finkenstaedt

The Federal Republic of Germany is a developing countryas far as the measurement of research performance is concerned, and themajority of our colleagues—at least in the humanities—are happy and lucky thatthis is so.

Vol 20 p 67, Vasily V. Nalimov

In my opinion the negative phenomena that we areobserving now are explained not by the fact that people cannot satisfy theirneeds, but that the needs cease to satisfy people.

在我看来，我们观察到的负面现象之解释，不在于人们无法满足其需求，而在于需求不再能使人满足。

――纳利莫夫

Vol 21 p 245, Susan Bonzi, Herbert W. Snyder

In a time when estimates of scientific quality,productivity, and even tenure have come to be based on citation counts, thepractice of self citation, especially frequent self citation, is sometimes seenas suspect […]; however, there are many reasons why self citation may bedesirable or even necessary.

Vol 22 p 376, B. Balmer, Ben R. Martin

There is a possibility that major research initiativesmay not always give rise to an increase in the volume of research and publishedoutput, but may instead follow such an increase, recognizing a change in theresearch that has already taken place. If so, it raises doubts about theability of policy-makers to act in a pro-active manner, as many have beenattempting to do in recent years.

Vol 23 p 5, András Schubert, Tibor Braun

The formula for calculating the publication potential isfairly simple:

$$ {\text{T}} = {\text{N}}\left( { 1{-}{\text{f}}_{ 1} }\right)/\left( { 1{-} 2 {\text{f}}_{ 1} + {\text{f}}_{ 1} /{\text{x}}} \right),$$

where T is the publication potential; N is the number ofauthors; f₁ is the fraction of authors with exactly one publication;x is the average number of papers per author

Vol 24 p 298, Terttu Luukkonen

We may assume that the reward maximization model ofpublishing is a relatively accurate description of the publishing habits ofscientists in particular specialties, particular fields, or particular researchorganizations, but does not pervade the whole of the research world.

Vol 25 p 369, Hajnalka Maczelka, Sándor Zsindely

Newly founded, unprecedented journals are usually highlyspecialized and are published mainly by profit-oriented publishing houses. The“infant mortality” of these genuinely new journals is relatively high, becausethe publishing houses are willing to undertake a risk venture and, if theyfail, to close them down. It means, that commercial publishers are moreadaptable and move more quickly in this respect.

Vol 26 p 158, Aida Méndez, Isabel Gómez, Maria Bordons

Journal referees and editors become, without realizingit, bank cashiers.

Vol 27 p 16, Sven Hemlin

When explicitly prompted to give ratings of theimportance of characteristics of good research, scientists emphasized theinternal research relevance more than the external relevance; but when giventhe opportunity of expressing a free description of research quality, theyreversed the results.

Vol 28 p 388, Paula E. Stephan, Sharon G. Levin

Age is a measure not only of the amount of time that haselapsed in a career but also the amount of time remaining in the career.

Vol 29 p 11, Manfred Bonitz

Derek Price, who derived from his exponential law thewell-known aphorism that 80–90 percent of the scientists that have ever livedare living now, would certainly agree if a similar metaphor is applied to hisfriend Gene: most of the future users of the ideas and practical achievments ofEugene Garfield are not yet alive!

Vol 30 p 151, Francis Narin

If we define technology cycle time (TCT) as the medianage of the US patents referenced on the front pages of other US patents, thenelectronics, a relatively fast moving area, has cycle times of four to five yearsin the US patent system, whereas ship and boat building and some of the oldermechanical areas have cycle times that are more likely to be in the range of15–20 years.

Vol 31 p 40, J. Sylvan Katz

The frequency of research collaboration between domesticuniversities in the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia decreasesexponentially with the distance separating the research partners.

Vol 32 p 226, Zora J. Sampson

We predict that the number of authors [in high energyphysics] will continue to increase and disappear into the names of institutes,collaborations, or other groups [making] future studies more difficult and lessmeaningful.

Vol 33 p 188, B. M. Gupta, Lalita Sharma, C. R.Karisiddappa

The exponential growth of scientific knowledge can be interpretedas a “contagion” process in which early adopters influence later adopters,which in turn creates an exponential in growth of scientific knowledge can beinterpreted as a “contagion” process in the number of publications and thenumber of new authors entering the field.

Vol 34 p 169, Ronald N. Kostoff

A credible R[esearch] I[mpact] A[ssessment] of completedresearch would trace the dissemination of the research products through themany communication channels and would identify the multitude of near and longterm research impacts (impact on other research fields, impact on technology,impact on systems, impact on education, etc.).

Vol 35 p 172, Wolfgang Glänzel

Though it is impossible to avoid the uninformed use ofour results for journalistic purposes, the existence of standards may help thereader to distinguish between dilettantism and evaluations based on seriousresearch.

Vol 36 p 442, M. H. MacRoberts, Barbara R. MacRoberts

If one wants to know what influence has gone into aparticular bit of research, there is only one way to proceed: head for the labbench, stick close to the scientist as he works and interacts with colleagues,examine his lab notebooks, pay close attention to what he reads, and considercarefully his cultural milieu.

Vol 37 p 20–21, Juan M. Campanario

Science educators […] should educate students not only toobtain the right response and to observe the proper fact, but also to recognizethe importance of departures from expected results.

Vol 38 p 52, Paul Wouters

Scientometrics as a separate entity might very welldisappear.

Vol 39 p 170, Lucia Fonseca, Sancia Velloso, SusanaWofchuk, Leopoldo De Meis

In spite of the great sophistication of science in ourdays, scientists still give much more importance to human factors than tomaterial conditions as the main driving force for scientific productivity.

Vol 40 p 384, Abraham Bookstein, Benjamin Wright

Inherent in much of our soundest research methodologiesis an unstudied and unappreciated resistance to the faulty understanding withwhich we begin the study of any new field.

Vol 41 p 5, Grant Lewison

It is desirable that [the research evaluations] shouldcover many different aspects of research outputs and that the evaluees can playa part in helping to create appropriate methodology.

Vol 42 p 225, Judit Bar-Ilan

The WWW was released by CERN in 1991, […] the firstgraphic browser Mosaic was developed by Marc Andreessen and his team at NCSA,but the World Wide Web really started to take off only after the release ofNetscape 1.0 in 1994

Vol 43 p 75, Eugene Garfield

A citation-ranked list of scientists will identify50 % or more present and future members of the Academy; therefore, whilecitation frequency alone does not warrant election, the nominating group shouldat least consider as candidates all those who achieve a given threshold ofcitation frequency.

Vol 44 p 194, Diana Hicks

The social science literature is fragmented becausesocial scientists develop less consensus and adhere to more competing paradigmsthan do natural scientists.

Vol 45 p 134, Thomas J. Phelan

Bibliometrics is best suited for the examination ofentities with large numbers of citations […] there are too many random forcesoperating to be convinced that there is a real difference between, for example,a researcher who has received only a single citation and another who hasreceived two.

Vol 46 p 561, Marc Luwel

For the basic and applied sciences, the SCI seems tocover equally well the US and the EU research works and no “US-bias” wasobserved.

Vol 47 p 53, Thijs Pollmann

There is no evidence in the data currently known thatconfirms the feeling that in the last century, the last decades, the lastyears, etc. [the literature obsolescence] process is speeding up.

Vol 48 p 200, Anna Sandström, Ingrid Pettersson, AnnaNilsson

One-third of the companies that have been grantedbiotechnology-related patents in the US patent system also have published atleast one scientific publication in biotechnology-related science andone-fourth have co-authored an article with a public research organisation.

Vol 49 p 60, Peter Ingwersen

Due to the quite substantial international visibility ofthe research areas outlined above, and the relative increase of citation impactmonitored through the 90 s, one may conclude that the SSCI is increasinglyrelevant as a tool for international informetric analyses of non-US countries.

Vol 50 p 60, Anthony F. J. Van Raan

The scientific journal will not disappear; the electronicversion will simply be added to the paper version and will become rapidly moreimportant, mainly because of many additional facilities.

Vol 51 p 320, Patrick Thomas

A company whose technology-based valuation is higher thanits actual market valuation is regarded as undervalued: such a company offersan attractive investment opportunity.

Vol 52 p 367–368, Donald DeB. Beaver

The statistics of collaborative authorships follow aPoisson distribution, signifying a relatively rare event, gradually tending toa negative binomial distribution as collaboration became more frequent […]coauthorships in giant collaborations (teamwork) follow a power lawdistribution, different from the Poisson characteristic of “traditional” smallcollaborations.

Vol 53 p 18, András Schubert

The greatest challenge [of the 21th century] is theadvent of electronic publication and communication, in short, the Internet.Scientometrics, may I say, is multiply challenged, not only—similarly to allother areas of science and social science research—by getting somewhat confusedabout the most effective way of communicating its own results, but also bybeing compelled to properly describe, analyse and evaluate the new forms ofcommunication in other science and social science fields.

Vol 54 p 285, P. Pichappan, S. Sarasvady

The author self-citation is the result of the interactionbetween the past and present cognition of the author.

作者自引是其过去的认知与现在的认知相互作用的结果。

――P. Pichappan（印度学者）, S.Sarasvady

Vol 55 p 69. Alexandru T. Balaban, Douglas J. Klein

By analogy with the Erdős number devised bymathematicians for expressing closeness in co-authorship between one person andseveral other people, one can estimate quantitatively this closeness by[non-integer valued] resistance distances [influenced by] the whole structureof the graph (via all possible paths between two vertices).

Vol 56 p 244, Dag W. Aksnes

When removing self-citations from individual publicationsthis will undermine the possibility for producing certain types of indicators(e.g., comparisons with average field citation rates).

Vol 57 p 395, James Hartley, James W. Pennebaker, ClaireFox

It is a well-known fact that Abstracts are difficult towrite: dense and complex material has to be fitted within a tight word limitand, sometimes, authors fail to manage it.

Vol 58 p 75, Andrea Bonaccorsi, Cinzia Daraio

Our data suggest that the appropriate recruitment policyfor scientific institutions is based on a steady flow of job opportunities,that encourage the investment of human capital and reduce the time intervalbetween the graduate degree and a permanent position. If recruitment is basedon long periods of stasis and discrete waves of massive entry, the system ofincentives of young graduate students may be severely distorted.

Vol 59 p 373, Concepción S. Wilson, Valentina A.Markusova

The collapse of the USSR as a rival and as a militarythreat, the discrediting of the “communist experiment”, and the runaway successof the “new industrial revolution” in information technologies, have encouragedthe view that the optimum balance of funding for R&D in a society nowlies—in fact, some might say, has always lain—much further towards the marketthan is currently the case in the West.

Vol 60 p 315, Henry Small

Understanding the factors of novelty, utility,significance, and interest, and how they contribute to high citation rate,involves relating the content of the papers to the structure of the fields inwhich they are imbedded and to societal issues in and around the field ofstudy.

Vol 61 p 124, K. Brad Wray

Contrary to what Kuhn suggests, it seems that significantdiscoveries are less a consequence of unconstrained creative thinking, and morea consequence of scientists amassing resources, both intellectual and material,that enable them to take chances, and seek assistance in following through ontheir new ideas.

Vol 62 p 130, Peter Weingart

Bibliometric indicators are a research based socialtechnology, and because they convey knowledge that unlocks an otherwise hiddenprocess to policy makers and the media it is prone to being instrumentalizedfor all kinds of interests involved in science policy.

Vol 63 p 580, Jonathan Adams

Evidence of high impact based on initial citations counts[…] is likely to be soundly based and subsequently validated, whereas lack ofthat evidence should not condemn a field, a programme or a researcher toobscurity.

Vol 64 p 313, Manuel Cardona, Werner Marx

The indescribable agony of the victims of theNazi-terror, in particular the Jews, exceeds any imagination and cannot bequantified.

Vol 65 p 386, Quentin L. Burrell

Informetrics/scientometrics is not just a matter ofmathematical/statistical modelling (or analysis) but should always be directlyaddressed at a particular problem by taking full account of its context.

Vol 66 p 83, Anton J. Nederhof

Social sciences and humanities research is not onehomogeneous block (nor even two separate ones), but is heterogeneous in nature:some of the social sciences and humanities resemble natural and life sciencesin publication and citation behavior, while others share characteristics withthe traditional profile of humanities scholarship.

Vol 67 p 364, James K. Wetterer

I have found no study attempting to determine how oftenclaims in the scientific literature are based on anecdotal observations withoutany quantitative data, nor how often unsupported claims are cited uncritically.

Vol 68 p 109–110, Benoît Godin

In 1906, Cattell [James McKeen Cattell, Americanpsychologist, editor of Science from 1895 to 1944] launched the biographicaldirectory American Men of Science, published every five years [from which] heproduced statistics on the number of scientists and their geographicaldistribution, and ranked scientists according to performance.

Vol 69 p 215, Maria Pinto

The abstract of a research article is considered, atleast under particular information circumstances, to be the most important partof the article. It should contain, in a brief but concise form, the criticalcomponents of the scientific study being reported.

Vol 70 p 64, Rafael Aleixandre-Benavent, Juan CarlosValderrama Zurián, Alberto Miguel-Dasit, Adolfo Alonso Arroyo, MiguelCastellano Gómez

Authors should submit their research results andmanuscripts to journals that are easily available and are read by their peers(the most interested audience) and pay less attention to journal impactfactors.

Vol 71 p 156–157, Tibor Braun, Ildikó Dióspatonyi, ErikaZádor, Sándor Zsindely

Journal gatekeeping indicators are based on the fact thatfor the satisfactory operation of the international system of basic research inthe sciences, the screening activity of journal editorial boards, whichguarantee the professional standard of science journals, is of paramountimportance.

Vol 72 p 482, Iina Hellsten, Renaud Lambiotte, AndreaScharnhorst, Marcel Ausloos

Self-citations can be used as documentation of severalimportant aspects of scientists’ field mobility when combined with an analysisof the related keywords and co-authorships.

Vol 73 p 358, Helmut A. Abt

Single-authored papers will decrease in frequency incoming years, but will not disappear; there are some projects that do not requireteams and some authors who prefer to work individually.

Vol 74 p 186, Ulf Sandström, Martin Hällsten

The prestige of peer-review[…] is under threat ifconflicts of interest overshadow the procedures. Still, […] the system seems tobe riddled with factors external to science. Nepotism matters.

Vol 75 p 512, Luís M. A. Bettencourt, David I. Kaiser,Jasleen Kaur, Carlos Castillo-Chávez, David E. Wojick

Compared to most diseases, scientific ideas spreadslowly, taking years to become adopted by a significant number ofpractitioners; […] useful ideas may never be forgotten, leading to very longinfectious periods.

Vol 76 p 153, Dalibor Fiala, François Rousselot, Karel Ježek

Collaboration networks are also a valuable source ofinformation and their combination with citation graphs […] may lead to more“fair” rankings of authors; […] Rankings based on both the citation andco-authorship information tend to place the awarded [ACM SIGMOD Edgar F. CoddInnovations Award] authors higher than the standard PageRank ranking.

Vol 77 p 206, Sándor Zsindely

It is a fact that at least from 1991, human genealogy isnot merely an auxiliary science of history, still less a territory for familyresearcher hobbyists, but a discipline whose results are used by researchers ofvarious science fields, especially those of medicine and genetics.

Vol 78 p 42, Annamária Inzelt, András Schubert, MihálySchubert

The results of our study clearly suggest an answer “yes”to the question formulated in the title of the paper of Herbertz: “Does it payto cooperate?”, at least as the returns measurable in the number of citationsare concerned.

Vol 79 p 676, Rafael Ball

Formulating the titles of scientific publications asquestions is increasingly becoming a widespread phenomenon: […] in medicinetoday, one in twenty articles has a question-mark title.

Vol 80 p 728, Heting Chu, Chen Xu

Web 2.0 is a rapidly developing area with contributionsfrom not only the IT sector but also other disciplines such as medicine,sociology, and physics; […] Web 2.0 is of the user, by the user, and moreimportantly, for the user.

Vol 81 p 311, Leo Egghe

One disadvantage of the h-index (in fact of anyindicator) is that it is just one number, hereby reducing the evaluation of aresearcher r (or another source) to a one-dimensional scale.

Vol 82 p 454, Reinhilde Veugelers

When a Harvard physicist, whose most important work wasdone collaboratively with overseas scientists and engineers [was asked] “so youare helping them catch up with us”, the scientist replied: “no, they arehelping us keep ahead of them”.

Vol 83 p 822, Judit Bar-Ilan

The addition of proceedings papers as source items to thedatabase does not simply increase the quantity of the source items, but resultsin an increase in multiple expressions of the same work in the database; […]multiple expressions of a work not only have a positive effect on thepublication counts of the authors, but they also have a positive effect on thecitation counts of items referenced in the publications.

Vol 84 p 163, Gangan Prathap

Borrowing an example from cricket, [instead of the]batting average = C/P, where C is the total number of runs scored ina career of P innings played, […] if [the distribution] is Lotkaian orParetian, as is often the case, a [mock h-index] (C²/P)^1/3may be profitably used to rank [the] performers.

Vol 85 p 744, Jorge E. Hirsch

A useful bibliometric indicator should (i) reflectelements of reality that are useful for evaluation and meaningful in astatistical sense (there are always exceptions to any criterion) and ideallyhave predictive power, (ii) not lead to undesirable incentives that aredetrimental to the progress of science, (iii) not be too sensitive to smallvariations in citation records that could be due to random events, and (iv)last but not least be not too difficult to obtain from existing databases.

Vol 86 p 174, Lutz Bornmann

Since bibliometric indicators have obtained a generalacceptance in science policy and attained applied relevance in researchevaluation, feedback effects on scientists’ behaviour resulting from the use ofthese indicators for science funding decisions have been reported; these adaptationstrategies could be called mimicry in science.

Vol 87 p 18, Chia-Lin Chang, Michael McAleer, Les Oxley

Although there is a multitude of contradictory biblical,bibliographical, conceptual, Darwinian, definitional, evolutionary, genetic,grammatical, literary, logical, logistical, mathematical, paleontological,paradoxical, philosophical, processional, and theoretical possibilitiesassociated with the perennial question as to which came first, the chicken orthe egg, the same question may also be asked in the context of which camefirst, the great paper or the great journal in which the paper was published.

Vol 88 p 628, Juan Gorraiz, Christian Gumpenberger,Martin Wieland

Galton was one of the first scientists who made use of“mapping” methods: […] he developed a “beauty-map” of the British Isles, basedon how many pretty women he encountered, giving London the highest score andAberdeen the lowest.

Vol 89 p 273, Igor Kissin

Disproportional representation of Jewish scientists asauthors in top biomedical journals and among Nobel Prize laureates in Medicineis mostly due to their overrepresentation as research participants, not becauseof the increased chances for reward for a Jewish researcher per se.

Vol 90 p 478, Vincent Larivière

Even though we cannot assess the direction of therelationship, publishing papers during the doctorate is positively linked withPhD students’ degree completion and with postgraduation research productivity.

Vol 91 p 350, Isidro F. Aguillo

The use of Google Scholar for bibliometric or evaluationpurposes should be done with great care, especially regarding the items notoverlapping with those present in the Scopus or W[eb]o[f]K[nowledge] citationdatabases.

Vol 92 p 352, Peter Jacso

One of the reasons for the adulation of GS as the GreatDemocratizer—beyond its freeness—is that it reports higher number ofpublications and citations (and consequently higher h-index) for manyresearchers than what they deserve.

Vol 93 p 857, Pleun van Arensbergen, Inge van derWeijden, Peter van den Besselaar

The trend in developed societies, that women increasinglyoutperform men in all levels of education, is also becoming effective in thescience system.

Vol 94 p 32–33, Anne-Wil Harzing

As research projects are less easily reproducible,academics in the Social Sciences do not face the same urgency as in theSciences to “beat” other academics in publishing new research results: It isnot at all unusual to see five or even more years pass between data collectionand publication.

Vol 95 p 860, Cassidy R. Sugimoto, Blaise Cronin

Ego does not seem to intrude on the peer review process,at least as far as JASIS&T is concerned. Referencing the editor orreviewers does not statistically significantly influence editorial decisions orreviewer recommendations.

Vol 96 p 63, Amalia Más-Bleda, Isidro F. Aguillo

A researcher’s personal website is an excellent tool toprovide, in addition to his/her list of publications, other information that isoften difficult to find, such as experience and expertise, research projectsperformed, teaching commitment (materials for onsite or distance learning),conference presentations, events involvement, etc. So, a scientist’s personalwebsite can become one of the most complete channel for disseminating his/herwork and career and perhaps the preferred one given a stronger control theauthors themselves have on its contents.

Vol 97 p 127, Michael Bonitz, Andrea Scharnhorst

To make contact with the history of our own field bylooking into biographies of its early explorers is one way to understand andplace current debates and controversies.

Vol 98 p 24, Sándor Soós

A striking similarity between reference-based sciencemapping and evolutionary biosystematics is that both attempts to detect groupsof related actors based on common ancestors: In the case of science mapping,biological descendancy is to be replaced by citation links, or “intellectualdescendancy”: a reference can be viewed as an ancestor of the citing document.

Vol 99 p n/a, Martin Meyer, Kevin Grant, Piera Morlacchi,Dagmara Weckowska

Existing rational and mechanistic ways of measuring theT[riple] H[elix] may not be as appropriate in our current austerity period, aspolicy makers, owners of businesses and service providers look to the TH as away of climbing out of deep and even triple dip recession.

Vol 100 p n/a, András Schubert

A very simplistic word cloud of the selected sentencesfrom the first 99 volumes of the journal Scientometrics looks like this: