Informetric studies using databases: Opportunities and challenges

William W. Hood () and Concepción S. Wilson
Additional contact information
William W. Hood: The University of New South Wales
Concepción S. Wilson: The University of New South Wales

Scientometrics, 2003, vol. 58, issue 3, No 8, 587-608

Abstract: Abstract Since their arrival in the 1960s, electronic databases have been an invaluable tool for informetricians. Databases and their delivery mechanism have provided both the source of raw data, as well as the analytical tools for many informetric studies. In particular, the citation databases produced by the Institute for Scientific Information have been the key source of data for a whole range of citation-based research. However, there are also many problems and challenges associated with the use of online databases. Most of the problems arise because databases are designed primarily for information retrieval purposes, and informetric studies represent only a secondary use of the systems. The sorts of problems encountered by informetricians include: errors or inconsistency in the data itself; problems with the coverage, overlap and changeability of the databases; as well as problems and limitations in the tools provided by the database hosts such as DIALOG. For some informetric studies, the only viable solution to these problems is to download the data and perform offline correction and data analysis.

Date: 2003
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1023/B:SCIE.0000006882.47115.c6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:scient:v:58:y:2003:i:3:d:10.1023_b:scie.0000006882.47115.c6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11192

DOI: 10.1023/B:SCIE.0000006882.47115.c6

Access Statistics for this article

Scientometrics is currently edited by Wolfgang Glänzel

More articles in Scientometrics from Springer, Akadémiai Kiadó
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().