Science-wide Author Databases Of Standardized Citation Indicators

The science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators is a multidimensional ranking of the world's scientists produced since 2015 by a team of researchers led by John P. A. Ioannidis at Stanford.Ioannidis, J. P. A., Klavans, R., & Boyack, K. W. (2016). Multiple Citation Indicators and Their Composite across Scientific Disciplines. PLOS Biology, 14(7), e1002501.Ioannidis, J. P. A., Baas, J., Klavans, R., & Boyack, K. W. (2019). A standardized citation metrics author database annotated for scientific field. PLOS Biology, 17(8), e3000384.

Reception

The papers introducing the ranking have been quoted extensively by authors working in Bibliometrics and scientometrics. For example, reference describing an update to the methodology of this index number receives about 200 citations in Google Scholar from authors publishing in journals such as SAGE's Research on Social Work Practice, Elsevier's Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation, Springer's Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology, Oxford Academic's The Journals of Gerontology: Series A, and Springer's Scientometrics (journal).

The older methodological paper Ioannidis, John P. A., Jeroen Baas, Richard Klavans, and Kevin W. Boyack. 2019. ‘A Standardized Citation Metrics Author Database Annotated for Scientific Field’. PLOS Biology 17 (8): e3000384. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000384. is quoted even more, from journal such as MIT Press's Quantitative Science Studies,Baas, Jeroen, Michiel Schotten, Andrew Plume, Grégoire Côté, and Reza Karimi. 2020. ‘Scopus as a Curated, High-Quality Bibliometric Data Source for Academic Research in Quantitative Science Studies’. Quantitative Science Studies 1 (1): 377–86. https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00019. Springer's Scientometrics (journal)Szomszor, Martin, David A. Pendlebury, and Jonathan Adams. 2020. ‘How Much Is Too Much? The Difference between Research Influence and Self-Citation Excess’. Scientometrics 123 (2): 1119–47. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03417-5. and many others.

These articles variously point to the methodological papers and associated measure to discuss social aspects of the publication activity, such as unequal access to publishing of different social or national groups, including gender bias or the properties of the underlying Scopus' abstract and citation database.

Main

Based on data from Scopus, this indicators explore about 8 million records of scientists’ citations in order to rank a subset of 200,000 most-cited authors across all scientific fields. This is commonly referred to as Stanford ranking of the 2% best scientists.Ioannidis, J. P. A., Boyack, K. W., & Baas, J. (2020). Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators. PLOS Biology, 18(10), e3000918.

The ranking is achieved via a composite indicator built on six citation metrics

* Total citations;
* Hirsch h-index;
* Coauthorship-adjusted Schreiber hm-index;
* The number of citations to papers as a single author;
* The number of citations to papers as single or first author;
* The number of citations to papers as single, first, or last author.

Data

Data (about 200,000 records) are freely downloadable from Elsevier through the International Center for the Study of Research (ICSR) Lab.Ioannidis, J. P. A. (2022, October 10). September 2022 data-update for Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators. Retrieved November 17, 2022, from https://elsevier.digitalcommonsdata.com/.

Output

The index classifies researchers into 22 scientific fields and 174 sub-fields. Different rankings are produced: career-long and most recent year, with and without self-citations. This results in four different configurations. The difference between this ranking and the pure h-index is that it is sensitive to details of co-authorship and author positions: configurations such as single, first, and last author are given more emphasis. Many authors point to the importance of the index created by Ioannidis in the context of accurate, cheap and simple descriptions of research systems,Petersen, K., Ali, N.B. An analysis of top author citations in software engineering and a comparison with other fields. Scientometrics 126, 9147–9183 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-021-04144-1
Being listed in Stanford's Rank is treated as prestigious and translates into increased visibility of scientists, which may translate into increased networking potential and for obtaining research funding.Perneger, T. Authorship and citation patterns of highly cited biomedical researchers: a cross-sectional study. Res Integr Peer Rev 8, 13 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41073-023-00137-1 Moreover, The rank offers an opportunity to researchers in a field to compare the citation behavior of their field with others.

See also

* Composite indicators
* Bibliometrics
* Scientometrics

References

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Citation metrics
Academic publishing
Index numbers