51 posts · 46,160 views
Bar-Ilan University graduate student.
Information Culture
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- May 2, 2013
- 05:30 PM
- 53 views
Elite journals: to hell in a handbasket?
by Hadas Shema in Information Culture
Once upon a time, journals were made of paper and ink. However, we left the dark ages of dead woods behind us and moved forward to an age in which authors don’t need to publish in journals (but still want to). There’s an increasing decoupling between the individual article and its publishing journal, created by [...]
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Vincent Lariviere, George A. Lozano, & Yves Gingras. (2013) Are elite journals declining?. ArXiv. arXiv: 1304.6460v1
George A. Lozano, Vincent Lariviere, & Yves Gingras. (2012) The weakening relationship between the Impact Factor and papers' citations in the digital age. ArXiv. arXiv: 1205.4328v1
- April 22, 2013
- 03:26 PM
- 65 views
The Leiden University Ranking
by Hadas Shema in Information Culture
The new Leiden Ranking (LR) has just been published, and I would like to talk a bit about its indicators, what it represents and equally important – what it doesn’t represent. The LR is a purely bibliometrical ranking, based on data from Thomson-Reuters’ Web of Science database (there’s another bibliometrical ranking, Scimago, but it’s based [...]
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Ludo Waltman, Clara Calero-Medina, Joost Kosten, Ed C. M. Noyons, Robert J. W. Tijssen, Nees Jan van Eck, Thed N. van Leeuwen, Anthony F. J. van Raan, Martijn S. Visser, & Paul Wouters. (2012) The Leiden Ranking 2011/2012: Data collection, indicators, and interpretation. ArXiv. arXiv: 1202.3941v1
- April 11, 2013
- 08:54 AM
- 76 views
May the odds be ever in your favor: academic tenure
by Hadas Shema in Information Culture
“Excuse me; the whole tenure system is ridiculous. A guaranteed job for life only encourages the faculty to become complacent. If we really want science to advance, people should have chips implanted in their skulls that explode when they say something stupid.” Sheldon Cooper, The Big Bang Theory Between the recent ACUMEN (academic careers understood [...]
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Abbott, A., Cyranoski, D., Jones, N., Maher, B., Schiermeier, Q., & Van Noorden, R. (2010) Metrics: Do metrics matter?. Nature, 465(7300), 860-862. DOI: 10.1038/465860a
Clawson, D. (2009) Tenure and the Future of the University. Science, 324(5931), 1147-1148. DOI: 10.1126/science.1172995
- February 12, 2013
- 10:45 AM
- 102 views
Your theory is rubbish (but I won’t say it out loud)
by Hadas Shema in Information Culture
Science seems to be full of controversies and conflicts; famous scientists willing to kill and be killed for their pet theories, former students challenging the views of their academic “parents” and so on. My favorite biology professor used to tell about the time when his post-doc advisor, after a lecture given by his former post-doc [...]
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Brooks, T. A. (1986) Evidence of Complex Citer Motivations. JASIS. info:/
Hyland, K. (1999) Academic attribution: citation and the construction of disciplinary knowledge. Applied Linguistics, 20(3), 341-367. DOI: 10.1093/applin/20.3.341
MacRoberts, M., & MacRoberts, B. (1984) The Negational Reference: or the Art of Dissembling. Social Studies of Science, 14(1), 91-94. DOI: 10.1177/030631284014001006
- January 1, 2013
- 05:28 AM
- 194 views
What’s wrong with citation analysis?
by Hadas Shema in Information Culture
What’s wrong with citation analysis? Other than your papers not being cited enough, what’s wrong with measuring scientific influence based on citation count? Citation analysis-based decisions concerning grants, promotions, etc. have become popular because, among other things, they’re considered “unbiased.” After all, such analysis gives numbers even non-professionals can understand, helping them make the best [...]
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MacRoberts, M., & MacRoberts, B. (1996) Problems of citation analysis. Scientometrics, 36(3), 435-444. DOI: 10.1007/BF02129604
MacRoberts, M., & MacRoberts, B. (2010) Problems of citation analysis: A study of uncited and seldom-cited influences. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 61(1), 1-12. DOI: 10.1002/asi.21228
Priem, J., Taraborelli, D., Groth, P., & Neylon, C. (2010) altmetrics: a manifesto. http://altmetrics.org/manifesto/. info:/
- September 21, 2012
- 03:11 PM
- 261 views
On Authorship, Part I
by Hadas Shema in Information Culture
Most articles today are results of teamwork, whether it’s only two authors working together or thousands, (think CERN). As science keeps getting bigger, authorship no longer equals actual writing, but one way or another of contribution to team effort. Authorship of massive scale, or “Hyperauthorship” (Cronin, 2001) is very common in high-energy physics and certain [...]
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Costas, R., & Bordons, M. (2011) Do age and professional rank influence the order of authorship in scientific publications? Some evidence a micro-level perspective. Scientometrics, 145-161. info:/
Cronin, B. (2001) Hyperauthorship: A postmodern perversion or evidence of a structural shift in scholarly communication practices? . JASIST, 52(7), 558-569. DOI: 10.1002/asi.1097
Wren, J.D., & et al. (2007) The write position. A survey of perceived contributions to papers based on byline position and number of authors. EMBO Rep, 8(11), 988-991. DOI: 10.1038/sj.embor.7401095
Solomon J. (2009) Programmers, professors, and parasites: credit and co-authorship in computer science. Science and engineering ethics, 15(4), 467-89. PMID: 19247811
Wuchty S, Jones BF, & Uzzi B. (2007) The increasing dominance of teams in production of knowledge. Science (New York, N.Y.), 316(5827), 1036-9. PMID: 17431139
- July 28, 2012
- 09:56 PM
- 275 views
Self-citing bloggers: my research is the coolest thing ever (let me tell you all about it!)
by Hadas Shema in Information Culture
Every enthusiastic scientist knows that once you reach a certain level of specialization, there are very few people in your immediate surroundings that actually understand what you say. Eyes of family and friends get a bit glassy when you tell them about the SIR2 homologs, and nobody wants to look at your C. elegans’ baby [...]
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Shema, H., Bar-Ilan, J., & Thelwall, M. (2012) Self- Citation of Bloggers in the Science Blogosphere. To be presented at COSCI12, Dusseldorf, August 1-5. info:/
Shema H, Bar-Ilan J, & Thelwall M. (2012) Research blogs and the discussion of scholarly information. PloS one, 7(5). PMID: 22606239
- July 24, 2012
- 04:27 PM
- 280 views
On Self-Citation
by Hadas Shema in Information Culture
Self-citing is often frowned upon, being considered (and sometimes is) vanity, egotism or an attempt in self-advertising. However, everyone self-cite because sooner or later, everyone builds upon previous findings “Given the cumulative nature of the production of new knowledge, self-citations constitute a natural part of the communication process.” (Costas et al., 2010). The argument whether [...]
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Costas, R., van Leeuwen, T.N., & Bordons, M. (2010) Self-citations at the meso and individual levels: effects of different calculation methods. Scientometrics, 517-537. DOI: 10.1007/s11192-010-0187-7
Aksnes, D. W. (2003) A macro study of self-citation. Scientometrics, 56(2), 235-246. info:/
Fowler, J. H., & Aksnes, D. W. (2007) Does self-citation pay? . Scientometrics, 72(3), 427-437. DOI: 10.1007/s11192-007-1777-2
- June 24, 2012
- 07:57 PM
- 314 views
Understanding the Journal Impact Factor – Part Two
by Hadas Shema in Information Culture
Despite its many faults (see part I), the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is considered an influential index to a journal’s quality, and publishing in high-impact journals is essential to a researcher’s academic career. Reminder: to calculate, for example, the 2010 JIF for a journal - JIF= (2010 citations to 2009+2008 articles)/(no. of “citable” articles published in [...]
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Amin, M, & Mabe, M. (2007) Impact factors: use and abuse. Perspectives in Publishing. info:/
Archambault, E., & Lariviere, V. (2009) History of the journal impact factor: Contingencies and consequences . Scientometrics, 635-649. DOI: 10.1007/s11192-007-2036-x
Seglen, P. O. (1997) Why the impact factor of journals should not be used for evaluating research. BMJ. DOI: 10.1136/bmj.314.7079.497
Kostoff, R. N. (2007) The difference between highly and poorly cited medical articles in the journal Lancet. Scientometrics, 513-520. DOI: 10.1007/s11192-007-1573-7
Campanario, J. M. (2011) Empirical study of journal impact factors obtained using the classical two-year citation window versus a five-year citation window. Scientometrics. DOI: 10.1007/s11192-010-0334-1
Vanclay, J.K. (2012) Impact factor: outdated artefact or stepping-stone to journal certification?. Scientometrics. DOI: 10.1007/s11192-011-0561-0
- May 21, 2012
- 08:37 PM
- 278 views
Discussion of scholarly information in research blogs
by Hadas Shema in Information Culture
Discussion of scholarly information in research blogs As some of you know, Mike Thelwall, Judit Bar-Ilan (both are my dissertation advisors) and myself published an article called “Research Blogs and the Discussion of Scholarly Information” in PLoS One. Many people showed interest in the article, and I thought I’d write a “director’s commentary” post. Naturally, [...]
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Shema H, Bar-Ilan J, & Thelwall M. (2012) Research Blogs and the Discussion of Scholarly Information. PloS one, 7(5). PMID: 22606239
Groth, P., & Gurney, T. (2010) Studying Scientific Discourse on the Web Using Bibliometrics: A Chemistry Blogging Case Study. Proceedings of the WEbSci10: Extending the Frontiers of Society On-Line. info:/
- May 7, 2012
- 11:31 AM
- 440 views
Understanding the Journal Impact Factor – Part One
by Hadas Shema in Information Culture
The journals in which scientists publish can make or break their career. A scientist must publish in “leading” journals, with high Journal Impact Factor (JIF), (you can see it presented proudly on high-impact journals’ websites). The JIF has gone popular partly because it gives an “objective” measure of a journal’s quality and partly because it’s [...]
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Bar-Ilan, J. (2012) Journal report card. Scientometrics. DOI: 10.1007/s11192-012-0671-3
- April 24, 2012
- 07:42 PM
- 655 views
The post-journal era
by Hadas Shema in Information Culture
Most of the scholarly publication today goes more or less like this: a scientist writes a manuscript about research funded by her university and/or the grant fairy (usually a government agency) then submits it to a commercial peer-review journal. An editor (either working for free or for "honorarium") reads her manuscript and sends it to appropriate peer reviewers (payment? what payment?). Then, if her manuscript is accepted, her institute's library gets the privilege of buying access to the pub........ Read more »
Priem, J., & Hemminger, B. (2012) Decoupling the scholarly journal. Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience. DOI: 10.3389/fncom.2012.00019
Smith, J. (1999) The deconstructed journal – a new model for academic publishing. Learned Publishing, 12(2), 79-91. DOI: 10.1087/09531519950145896
Smith, J. W. T. (2003) The deconstructed journal revisited: a review of developments. ICCC/IFIP Conference on Electronic Publishing-ElPub03: From information to knowledge. (Minho, Portugal). info:/
- March 30, 2012
- 10:46 PM
- 641 views
When prince charming kissed Mendel: delayed recognition in science.
by Hadas Shema in Information Culture
Monk Gregor Mendel hadn't lived to see his peas become famous; his paper has been asleep, waiting for prince charming to cite it awake. Of course, not all "delay recognition" papers sleep as long as Mendel's, but "sleeping beauty" or "Mendel's syndrome" papers do exist in science. A "sleeping beauty" paper can go uncited for years, until suddenly it's awakened. Costas, van Leeuwen and van Raan (2010) classify published scientific papers according to three general types: Normal-type: these ha........ Read more »
Costas, van Leeuwen, & van Raan. (2011) The ‘‘Mendel syndrome’’ in science: durability of scientific literature and its effects on bibliometric analysis of individual scientists. Scientometrics, 177-205. info:/
van Raan, A. (2004) Sleeping Beauties in science. Scientometrics, 59(3), 467-472. DOI: 10.1023/B:SCIE.0000018543.82441.f1
Rodrigo Costas, Thed N. van Leeuwen, & Anthony F. J. van Raan. (2009) Is scientific literature subject to a sell-by-date? A general methodology to analyze the durability of scientific documents. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. arXiv: 0907.1455v1
Wang, Chen, & Rao. (2012) Why and how can "sleeping beauties" be awakened?. The Electronic Library, 30(1), 5-18. info:/http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/02640471211204033
- December 31, 2011
- 02:54 AM
- 884 views
Correlation between reference managers and the WoS
by Hadas Shema in Information Culture
Even though web citations have been a part of our lives for several years now, the correlation between "traditional" citations and web resources like Mendeley, CiteULike, blog networks, etc. hasn't been thoroughly studied yet, and any new research in the field is very interesting (to me, anyway). The new paper was published at Scientometrics by Li, Thelwall (still one of my dissertation advisors) and Giustini. They focused on the correlation between user count - the number of users who save a pa........ Read more »
Li, X., Thelwall, M., & Giustini, D. (2011) Validating online reference managers for scholarly impact measurement. Scientometrics. DOI: 10.1007/s11192-011-0580-x
- December 14, 2011
- 09:08 PM
- 3,277 views
Reinventing Discovery, Part II
by Hadas Shema in Information Culture
This is the second part of my review of Michael Nielsen's book "Reinventing Discovery - The New Era of Networked Science" (first part is here). Last time we talked about Galaxy Zoo, the Polymath Project, and why scientists don't (usually) do Wikis. This time I'd like to focus on the book parts which talk about ArXiv. First of all, I have to say I've been using ArXiv extensively lately as part of the ACUMEN project, trying to figure out who and what can be found there. The place is a bit of a m........ Read more »
Nielsen, Michael. (2011) Reinventing Discovery. Princeton University Press. info:other/9780691148908
- December 7, 2011
- 06:25 PM
- 955 views
Reinventing Discovery: Book Review, Part I
by Hadas Shema in Information Culture
In Arthur C. Clarke's story "Into the Comet" he describes a spaceship with a computer malfunction that dooms all abroad to eventual death by starvation/oxygen deprivation, whichever comes first. The solution is a device older than the computer: the abacus. The entire crew run calculations on acabi, and they make their way out of the comet's nucleus successfully. That is an extreme example of citizen science (or oh-my-God-we're-all-going-to-die science) but it shows the principle, that collaborat........ Read more »
Nielsen, Michael. (2011) Reinventing Discovery. Princeton University Press. info:other/9780691148908
- August 19, 2011
- 10:00 PM
- 1,340 views
Generic drug trials: more transparency needed
by Hadas Shema in Information Culture
The New York Times reported a couple of days ago that "Federal regulators and the generic drug industry are putting the final touches on an agreement that would help speed the approval of generic drugs in this country and increase inspections at foreign plants that export generic drugs and drug ingredients to the United States." The generic drug manufactures will pay an annual fee of 299$ million dollars, so that the FDA will be able to hire more reviewers and speed up approval of applications ........ Read more »
van der Meersch, A., Dechartres, A., & Ravaud, P. (2011) Quality of Reporting of Bioequivalence Trials Comparing Generic to Brand Name Drugs: A Methodological Systematic Review. PLoS One. info:/10.1371/journal.pone.0023611
- August 14, 2011
- 05:50 PM
- 930 views
The Wikipedia Gender Gap, Part III
by Hadas Shema in Information Culture
In part I and part II, we discussed several of the gender gaps in Wikipedia. In this part, we'll talk about reverted edits, blocking, and their association with female and male editors. .
Blocking The hypothesis here was that "Female editors are less likely to be blocked." However, there wasn't a statistically significant difference in the percentage of females blocked (4.39%) and males blocked (4.52%). Surprisingly, females were significantly more likely to be blocked indefinitely (3.85% and 3........ Read more »
Lam, S., Uduwage, A., Dong, Z., Sen, S., Musicant, D. R., Terveen, L., & Terveen, J. (2011) WP:Clubhouse? An Exploration of Wikipedia’s Gender Imbalance. WikiSym’11, October 3–5, Mountain View, California. info:/
- August 10, 2011
- 03:17 AM
- 940 views
The Wikipedia Gender Gap, Part II
by Hadas Shema in Information Culture
In part I we talked about the small percentage of female editors in Wikipedia and their shorter editing life span. In this part we'll talk about content areas female and male editor focus on, coverage of female and male-related topics and involvement in editing controversial entries.
Content areas The authors divided the data from the January 2008 data dump into 8 main areas: Arts, Geography, Health, History, Science, People, Philosophy and Religion. Then, they checked the focus areas of each ed........ Read more »
Lam, S., Uduwage, A., Dong, Z., Sen, S., Musicant, D. R., Terveen, L., & Terveen, J. (2011) WP:Clubhouse? An Exploration of Wikipedia’s Gender Imbalance. WikiSym’11, October 3–5, Mountain View, California. info:/
- August 7, 2011
- 11:25 PM
- 1,280 views
The Wikipedia Gender Gap, Part I
by Hadas Shema in Information Culture
Wikipedia editing is a men's club. We already talked here about the lack of Wikipedia female editors (barely 13% of the editors are women). However, that survey was self-selecting and most of the participants (75%) used Wikipedia in non-English languages. Now, Lam et al. (2011) present their analysis of the gender imbalance in English Wikipedia. They took most of their data out of the January 2011 data dump, as well as from the Wikipedia API and the January 2008 and 2010 data dumps.In Wikipedia,........ Read more »
Lam, S., Uduwage, A., Dong, Z., Sen, S., Musicant, D. R., Terveen, L., & Terveen, J. (2011) WP:Clubhouse? An Exploration of Wikipedia’s Gender Imbalance. WikiSym’11, October 3–5, Mountain View, California. info:/
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