Inflationary bibliometric values: The role of scientific collaboration and the need for relative indicators in evaluative studies

Olle Persson (), Wolfgang Glänzel () and Rickard Danell
Additional contact information
Olle Persson: Umeå University
Wolfgang Glänzel: Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Steunpunt O&O Statistieken
Rickard Danell: Umeå University

Scientometrics, 2004, vol. 60, issue 3, No 14, 432 pages

Abstract: Abstract Several research studies and reports on national and European science and technology indicators have recently presented figures reflecting intensifying scientific collaboration and increasing citation impact in practically all science areas and at all levels of aggregation. The main objective of this paper is twofold, namely first to analyse if the number or weight of actors in scientific communication has increased, if patterns of documented scientific communication and collaboration have changed in the last two decades and if these tendencies have inflationary features. The second question is concerned with the role of scientific collaboration in this context. In particular, the question will be answered to what extent co-authorship and publication activity, on one hand, and co-authorship and citation impact, on the other hand, do interact. The answers found to these questions have strong implication for the application of bibliometric indicators in research evaluation, moreover, the construction of indicators applied to trend analyses and studies based on medium-term or long-term observations have to be reconsidered to guarantee the validity of conclusions drawn from bibliometric results.

Date: 2004
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (104)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1023/B:SCIE.0000034384.35498.7d 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:60:y:2004:i:3:d:10.1023_b:scie.0000034384.35498.7d

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

DOI: 10.1023/B:SCIE.0000034384.35498.7d

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 ().