Proposals for evaluating the regularity of a scientist’s research output

Fiorenzo Franceschini () and Domenico Maisano
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Fiorenzo Franceschini: Politecnico Di Torino
Domenico Maisano: Politecnico Di Torino

Scientometrics, 2011, vol. 88, issue 1, No 18, 279-295

Abstract: Abstract Evaluating the career of individual scientists according to their scientific output is a common bibliometric problem. Two aspects are classically taken into account: overall productivity and overall diffusion/impact, which can be measured by a plethora of indicators that consider publications and/or citations separately or synthesise these two quantities into a single number (e.g. h-index). A secondary aspect, which is sometimes mentioned in the rules of competitive examinations for research position/promotion, is time regularity of one researcher’s scientific output. Despite the fact that it is sometimes invoked, a clear definition of regularity is still lacking. We define it as the ability of generating an active and stable research output over time, in terms of both publications/quantity and citations/diffusion. The goal of this paper is introducing three analysis tools to perform qualitative/quantitative evaluations on the regularity of one scientist’s output in a simple and organic way. These tools are respectively (1) the PY/CY diagram, (2) the publication/citation Ferrers diagram and (3) a simplified procedure for comparing the research output of several scientists according to their publication and citation temporal distributions (Borda’s ranking). Description of these tools is supported by several examples.

Keywords: Research evaluation; Individual scientist; Publication regularity; Citation regularity; Ferrers diagram; h-index; Citation/publication distribution; Borda’s method (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11192-011-0371-4

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