An Empirical Approach to Compare the Performance of Heterogeneous Academic Fields

Cinzia Daraio () and Giancarlo Ruocco ()
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Giancarlo Ruocco: Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering, Universita' degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza"

No 2012-03, DIAG Technical Reports from Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering, Universita' degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza"

Abstract: In this paper we propose a ìscaling-basedî empirical approach to assess the scientific performance of heterogeneous academic disciplines. It relies on the idea that if we take into account for their two main sources of heterogeneity, the bibliometric distributions of different academic fields can be superimposed and collapse to a unique master curve by a single scaling parameter. By using data on the scientific production of around 2,500 scholars of the university of Rome ìLa Sapienzaî from the Web of Science (WoS) over 2004ñ2008 we i) demonstrate the existence of a master curve; ii) determine the scaling factors which are the cornerstone to compare different academic fields; and iii) show that the master bibliometric distribution follows a Log-normal law.

Keywords: Research assessment; Normalization; Scaling; Universality; Italian Universities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2012-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-eff and nep-sog
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