Thursday, 7 August 2014

Equality of Google Scholar with Web of Science Citations

Equality of Google Scholar with Web of Science Citations: Case of Malaysian Engineering Highly Cited Papers

Nader Ale Ebrahim

University
of Malaya (UM) - Department of Engineering Design and Manufacture,
Faculty of Engineering; University of Malaya (UM) - Research Support
Unit, Centre of Research Services, Institute of Research Management and
Monitoring (IPPP)

Hadi Salehi

Islamic Azad University, Najafabad Branch

Mohamed Amin Embi

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia - Faculty of Education

Mahmoud Danaee

Islamic Azad University (IAU) - Department of Agriculture

Marjan Mohammadjafari

University of Malaya (UM)

Azam Zavvari

National University of Malaysia

Masoud Shakiba

National University of Malaysia

Masoomeh Shahbazi-Moghadam

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM)

August 6, 2014

Modern Applied Science, vol. 8, no. 5, pp. 63-69

Abstract:

This study uses citation analysis from two citation
tracking databases, Google Scholar (GS) and ISI Web of Science, in order
to test the correlation between them and examine the effect of the
number of paper versions on citations. The data were retrieved from the
Essential Science Indicators and Google Scholar for 101 highly cited
papers from Malaysia in the field of engineering. An equation for
estimating the citation in ISI based on Google scholar is offered. The
results show a significant and positive relationship between both
citation in Google Scholar and ISI Web of Science with the number of
versions. This relationship is higher between versions and ISI citations
(r = 0.395, p<0.01) than between versions and Google Scholar
citations (r = 0.315, p<0.01). Free access to data provided by Google
Scholar and the correlation to get ISI citation which is costly, allow
more transparency in tenure reviews, funding agency and other science
policy, to count citations and analyze scholars’ performance more
precisely.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 7

Keywords:
Bibliometrics, Citation analysis, Evaluations, Equivalence, Google
Scholar, High cited, ISI Web of Science, Research tools, H-index

JEL Classification: L11, L1, L2, M11, M12, M1, M54, Q1, O1, O3, P42, P24, P29, Q31, Q32, L17

Accepted Paper Series

Equality of Google Scholar with Web of Science Citations: Case of Malaysian Engineering Highly Cited Papers by Nader Ale Ebrahim, Hadi Salehi, Mohamed Amin Embi, Kaveh Bakhtiyari, Mahmoud Danaee, Marjan Mohammadjafari, Azam Zavvari, Masoud Shakiba, Masoomeh Shahbazi-Moghadam :: SSRN

Tuesday, 5 August 2014

Visibility and Impact of Research Publications, Research World: Volume 10, Article S10.1 (2013)

Source: http://www1.ximb.ac.in/RW.nsf/pages/S10.1

Article S10.1

Visibility and Impact of Research Publications

Seminar Leader: D. P. Dash

Faculty of Business and Design

Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus, Malaysia

ddash[at]swinburne.edu.my

Published Online: April 24, 2013

Note. This is a reflective report on a seminar led by Professor D. P. Dash at Xavier Institute of Management on December 26, 2012.

The discussions started from bibliometric
measures of research impact and gradually moved towards visualising
alternative notions of impact, highlighting the need for research and
innovation in this domain. The need for assessing research quality and
impact arises in several institutional contexts, where decisions need to
be made on research funding, recruitment/tenure/promotion of research
staff, strategies for enhancing research quality, and so forth.
Traditionally, assessment by knowledgeable peers has been the common way
to evaluate either quality or impact of research. However, academic and
research institutions have a need for a more objective and transparent
way to assess research. This need has been served by the so-called
Journal Impact Factor (or simply Impact Factor, developed by The
Institute for Scientific Information, which is known as Thomson Reuters
now); it uses citation data from the journals listed in the Web of Science^SM database--the data are presented annually in the Journal Citation Reports®.
Impact Factors are calculated for every journal listed in the database,
by dividing the number of current year citations by the number of
peer-reviewed items published in that journal during the previous 2
years.

Over the years, some alternatives have
emerged to the citation-based impact factor computed by Thomson Reuters.
However, citation-based assessment of the quality and impact of
research publications has become a norm in academic and research
institutions. Journals with high impact factors are perceived as
high-quality journals and getting published in such journals is
considered a matter of prestige. However, a number of doubts have been
raised as to the validity and usefulness of this measure, especially if
this journal-level measure is applied at the author-level, such as in
recruitment or promotion decisions (for an overview of this issue, see
Dash & Ulrich, 2012, Section 4, “Formal Methods of Journal
Assessment” and Section 5, “Beyond Bibliometrics”).

First of all, the excessive importance given by academic institutions to the impact factor has led to the phenomenon of “impact factor engineering,”
a fact acknowledged by Thomson Reuters. This includes a variety of
legitimate and illegitimate methods of increasing citation counts, such
as adding more editorials, letters, and responses (and such other items
which attract citations but are not counted in the denominator of the
impact factor ratio), publishing more review articles (which tend to
receive more citations than other types of article), and other alarming
trends, such as encouraging “citation cartels,” and requiring authors to
cite specific articles, a phenomenon known as “coercive citation.”

Due to such drawbacks, one needs to be
careful while using impact factors. Assessing the quality and impact of a
research outcome--whether a peer-reviewed journal article or a curated
artefact, which is considered a legitimate research outcome in the art
and design field--need not be restricted to counting citations alone.
Relevance and impact of research can also be visualised in many other
ways, such as (a) relevance in research education and research practice,
(b) relevance in professional development and professional practice,
and (c) relevance in public policy and administration.

The goal of increasing visibility,
relevance, and impact of our research can be facilitated by developing
constructive engagement with potential users/beneficiaries of our
research from an early stage (rather than developing research outcomes
independently and hoping that these will be noticed and used by others,
although even this may not be ruled out). One way to do this will be to
involve knowledgeable peers (including peers from industry, professions,
and government) as reviewers of our work-in-progress. This or any other
form of peer-engagement can contribute to enhance our research.

Publishing our research in digital
repositories (such as open-access journals) is likely to increase both
visibility and use. Thanks to the initiative of Google Scholar
Citations, gradually more and more author-level citation data are
becoming available, as well as author-level quality indicators such as
h-index. In this environment, it is strategically important to ensure
that our research outcomes are visible/accessible through the Web.

Comments From the Audience

Concept Hierarchy.
Different research articles relate to different levels of
understanding. Some articles may relate to fundamental and root-level
concepts (e.g., articles contributing to the main conceptual categories
in a field of research), whereas some may relate to concepts at a
logically narrower level (e.g., subcategories). Citations to these
different groups of articles should not be counted at par.

Need to Verify Data and Assumptions.
Sometimes interesting and useful articles are found in average journals
(i.e., journals with no or low impact factor). The converse is also
true: Sometimes highly ranked journals publish articles of doubtful
merit. There is a need to verify the quality of the data and the
correctness of the assumptions underlying citation-based ranking of
journals (MacRoberts & MacRoberts, 1989). This could even be a topic
for doctoral research.

Direct Impact on Society.
Rather than counting the number of citations, can we think of research
articles as vehicles for direct impact on society and environment? Can
we create new criteria for measuring impact, relating the research
output to the direct impact on the ground? Thousands of journals are
publishing million-plus articles every year (see, e.g., Jinha, 2010;
Larsen & von Ins, 2010). How to measure the impact of this activity
on our lives? This could be a topic for doctoral research too.

Politics of Knowledge.
It is possible to interpret the topic from a postcolonial perspective.
What does the geographical origins of the high-impact-factor journals
tell us about the politics of knowledge? Can the impact factor be seen
as a force of imperialism that serves to keep the less-developed
countries from developing their scholarship? Can these countries come up
with alternative standards of research quality which are more aligned
with their specific needs at the current stage of their historical
evolution?

Impact Through Discussion Forums and Social Media.
While discussing research impact, we should not ignore the numerous
other ways researchers influence each other, for example, through
discussion forums, peer networks, and collaborative projects, nowadays
facilitated by social media. For research thinking and research results
to be conveyed more successfully, the language of research communication
has to be made more accessible to a wider range of interested persons.

Publishing in Highly-Ranked Journals.
The experience of publishing in highly-ranked journals is worth
discussing. On the one hand, it demands focused hard work and
perseverance, thus leading to the formation of important research
capabilities. However, it also requires institutions to enable their
research-oriented staff with time, resources, and incentives, which
requires high investment with uncertain returns.

Impact of Consulting.
When the results of consulting influence our thinking about a
discipline or its theories, we may recognise it as a form of research.
Of course, since consulting is paid work, giving it credit as research
too frequently could lead academics away from the non-commercial pursuit
of knowledge.

References

Dash, D. P., & Ulrich, W. (2012).
Introducing new editorial roles and measures: Making the Journal of
Research Practice relevant to researchers. Journal of Research Practice, 8(1), Article E1. Retrieved from http://jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp/article/view/314/249

Jinha, A. E. (2010). Article 50 million: An estimate of the number of scholarly articles in existence. Learned Publishing, 23(3), 258-263.

Larsen, P. O., & von Ins, M. (2010). The
rate of growth in scientific publication and the decline in coverage
provided by Science Citation Index. Scientometrics, 84(3), 575-603. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2909426/

MacRoberts, M. H., & MacRoberts, B. R. (1989). Problems of citation analysis: A critical review. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 40(5), 342-349.

This version is based on the original report
by Sandip Anand and D. P. Dash, with inputs from, Krishna Priya, Biresh
Sahoo, Banikanta Misha, C. Shambu Prasad, Satyendra C. Pandey, and
Mahendra K. Shukla; edited by D. P. Dash. [April 24, 2013]

Copyleft

The article may be used freely, for a noncommercial purpose, as long as the original source is properly acknowledged.

Xavier Institute of Management, Xavier Square, Bhubaneswar 751013, India

Research World (ISSN 0974-2379) http://www1.ximb.ac.in/RW.nsf/pages/Home

Research World: Volume 10, Article S10.1 (2013)

Sunday, 3 August 2014

SSRN Top Downloads For PSN: Education (Topic)

Effective Strategies for Increasing Citation Frequency

Nader Ale Ebrahim,

Hadi Salehi,

Mohamed Amin Embi,

Farid Habibi,

Hossein Gholizadeh,

Seyed Mohammad Motahar and

Ali Ordi

University of Malaya (UM) - Department of
Engineering Design and Manufacture, Faculty of EngineeringUniversity of
Malaya (UM) - Research Support Unit, Centre of Research Services,
Institute of Research Management and Monitoring (IPPP), Islamic Azad
University, Najafabad Branch, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia - Faculty
of Education, University of Economic Sciences, University of Malaya (UM)
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering,
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia - Faculty of Information Science and
Technology and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia - Advance Informatics
School (AIS)

Date posted to database: 25 Oct 2013

Last Revised: 25 Oct 2013

SSRN Top Downloads

Wednesday, 23 July 2014

How to Promote Your Article - E-LIS repository

How to Promote Your Article

Ale Ebrahim, Nader
How to Promote Your Article., 2014

[Newspaper/magazine article]

Text

How to promote article - UM Bulletin Vol 1 2014.pdf
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Official URL: http://um.edu.my/doc/research/Vol12014/#p=38 http:...

English abstract

Writing an
article for online distribution in a way that maximized the chances of
citation hits, is different from preparing one for print journals in
some small, but important, respects. To be cited, articles have to be
visible in an electronic environment. Therefore, publishing a high
quality paper in scientific journals will be a halfway of receiving
citation in the future. The rest of the way is advertising and
disseminating the publications by using the proper “Research Tools”.
Familiarity with the tools allows the researcher to increase his/her
h-index in the short time. This article provides a list of simple yet
effective ways to promote your publications

Item type:	Newspaper/magazine article
Keywords:	University ranking, Improve citation, Citation frequency, Research impact, Open access, h-index, Increase citations, Research tools
Subjects:	B. Information use and sociology of information. B. Information use and sociology of information. > BA. Use and impact of information. F. Management. F. Management. > FB. Marketing. J. Technical services in libraries, archives, museum. L. Information technology and library technology. > LS. Search engines.
Depositing user:	Dr. Nader Ale Ebrahim
Date deposited:	23 Jul 2014 11:47
Last modified:	23 Jul 2014 11:47
URI:	http://hdl.handle.net/10760/23373

Check full metadata for this record

References

"SEEK" links will first look for possible matches inside E-LIS and query Google Scholar if no results are found.

How to Promote Your Article - E-LIS repository

An overview of the institutional membership programs offered by Open A

Source: http://openscience.com/an-overview-of-the-institutional-membership-programs-offered-by-open-access-publishers/

An overview of the institutional membership programs offered by Open Access publishers

If you are a researcher, a librarian or an administrative worker in a
research facility, you may want to suggest for your institution to
enroll in one of the membership programs offered by Open Access
publishers. These programs are designed to decrease the cost of
publishing Open Access works and to diminish the administrative issues
related to paying them.

Open Access books and journals are generally funded via Processing Charges
(APC or BPC), which must be paid every time a new work is being
published. Usually, these are not paid by the authors themselves, but by
the institution supporting the author – his/her employer or research
funder. However, institutes that have already published a lot in this
model, or that simply would like to promote Open Access among their
authors, may facilitate this process (and save money) by signing an
agreement with one or more chosen publishers, instead of paying
separately for the publication of every single work.

At present, almost every Open Access publisher offers membership
programs. Some of them only apply to publishing in journals, while
others (including the ones from De Gruyter Open)
may also be adapted to Open Access book publishing. Although most
programs differ when it comes to the details, it is not difficult to
identify a few major models.

1) The first, and probably most popular, is the ‘partners fee model’,
which is offed by several publishers under different names. In this
model, research institutes pay a custom annual fee based on their number
of researchers, and they receive a discount (usually around 15%) on
each article/book processing charge. However, this model forces all
authors working for the institution to publish a given amount of
research every year. As a result, it is possible that the institute in
question may only save very little money – or no money at all.

2) The second most popular model is the ‘pre-paid institutional membership’,
whereby the institution deposits some funds on the publisher’s account.
In turn, this money is used to cover further article/book processing
charges for any of the researchers, including a discount ranging from 10
to 25% (depending on the publisher).

3) The ‘partners fee extra’ – which is offered by
Hindawi under the name of ‘annual membership’ – is a custom annual fee
that covers the costs of all works published by institution members in
the following year, regardless of how many articles they write. The
actual fee is based on the number of researchers affiliated with the
institute, as well as their research output level. In this model, the
obligation to publish a given amount of research with the contracted
publisher is even stronger.

4) Finally, the ‘post-paid institutional membership’
is a model in which the institution only pays once for all the articles
published by its authors in a given elapsed period of time. However,
this form of membership, which PLOS calls ‘direct billing’, does not
certify any discounts. It is simply a system of monthly billing for all
published articles.

5) On the other hand, the ‘post-paid institutional membership’ that was recently introduced by De Gruyter Open
also includes a 15% reduction of processing charges for all contracted
institutions (without any additional fees). As a result, the institute
pays for all the books and papers published by its authors at the
beginning of the following year, while also benefiting from a discount.

Therefore, if you work for an institution that supports its authors
by paying article/book processing charges, it may be a good idea to
approach your administration and discuss joining an institutional
membership program. If your research institute does not have sufficient
funds to cover the cost of Open Access publications, try to establish
it. Do not let your colleagues rely on aunt Agatha any more!

This entry was posted on July 23, 2014 by Witold Kieńć and tagged APCs, Funding, guide, Institutional membership.

An overview of the institutional membership programs offered by Open A

Thursday, 7 August 2014