Using Bibliometric Data for Translational Research Evaluation
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Using Bibliometric Data for Translational Research Evaluation (an introduction) Kristi Holmes, PhD Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (NUCATS) Galter Health Sciences Library AEA TRE call 17 August 2016 Supported, in part, by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) of the NIH research grant UL1TR001422. Why use publication data? • Publication data is the ultimate proxy indicator in research (whether it should be thought so is an entirely different conversation!) • Feeds research forward - Demonstrates return on investment (ROI) for previous and current awards - Demonstrates the qualifications of the investigator and team • Team science • Reputation • Domain • Local uses - Tenure/Promotion - Institutional reporting & benchmarking - Used for rankings, assessment exercises and so on Some sample metrics where publication data may be useful… Publication data can shed light on PROCESS Metrics many key areas of interest… Time from IRB submission to approval Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Time from grant award to start of study Sciences (NUCATS) Institute Volume of investigators who use Mission: Speeding transformative research discoveries to patients and the community services, take training, and other activities OUTPUT Metrics Time to Publication or other output Number of technology transfer products ROI of pilot awards ROI of TL1, T32, KL2 scholars Time from publication to research synthesis IMPACT Metrics Influence of a research output Researcher and institutional http://nucats.northwestern.edu/ collaborations Career development and path/trajectory Citation Caveats • No single resource is available for locating all citations to a publication and citations from a particular resource reflect only those publications that are indexed by the resource— potentially a small pool of journal literature • Citations for books/book chapters, conference abstracts, and gray literature is rudimentary • Multiple versions of the same publication may affect citation counts • High citation counts do not equate quality of research or greater research impact • Citations often cannot reveal evidence of research impact such as implementation of clinical guidelines or new diagnostic criteria • Scholarly activities are discipline-specific, so be wary of comparisons of citation numbers across disciplines • Context is everything: a negative citation still counts as a citation A citation is a reference to a specific scholarly work. The inherent assumption is that significant publications will demonstrate a high “cited-by” count. C. Sarli – Becker Library Citations are just the tip of the iceberg What are some examples of metadata related to a publication that might be helpful in telling a story about this work? Metadata Examples PubMed For the article(s) of interest and their downstream citing articles Scopus - Scopus Units of Analysis What do you want to measure? document, person, source, group, organization, state/country/region How do you pick a bibliometric indicator? Complexity Scientometrics (2014) 101:125–158 Relationship between the analyzed indicators and the publication activities they purport to measure http://static-curis.ku.dk/portal/files/124047055/5._Deliverable_5_4c.pdf Categories of bibliometric indicators • Output or production is countable works, published or unpublished dependent on the unit of evaluation. • Outcome is the extent a researcher’s work is used in the scientific community and thus contributes to the advancement of scientific knowledge. Usage is measured as citation count. • Quality is understood as an indication of the level and performance of research conducted by the researcher within normalized standards for the field (Alonso, Cabreriazo, Herrera-Viedma, & Herra, 2009). • Research infrastructure is a reflection of the scientist’s collaboration; people, organizations and countries, and to which extent, these are citing the scientist’s work. • Impact uses a combination of output and outcome indicators to formally suggest the visibility of the researcher’s work in the field in which he/she is active. • Innovation and social benefits is the contribution of research to the social, economic and cultural capital of society. An indication of the innovation and social benefits of a researcher’s work is gained in an evaluation of interaction between stakeholders, how it stimulates new approaches to social issues, and its influence on informing public debate and policy making (Bornmann, 2012; Directorate-General for Research, 2008). • Sustainability is the extent a researcher’s output continues to be used or the decline in use. ACUMEN D5.8 page 5 (2013) Output examples • Number of Publications • Publication Types • Research vs. review • Animal vs. human • Peer-reviewed vs. other • Author Ranking • Number of Authors • Institutions Represented by Co-Authors • Disciplines Represented by Co-Authors • Countries Represented by Co-Authors • Subject Foci Represented by Publications • Grant Acknowledgements Represented by Publications http://beckerguides.wustl.edu/impactofpublications Impact examples • Number of Citations • Number of Citations vs. Self-Citations • Average Citation Rate • Percent of Publications Cited • Citation Rankings for Fields • Number of Citations that are Reviews • Non-affiliated Institutions Represented by Citations • Languages Represented by Citations • Countries Represented by Citations • Number of Second Generation Citations • Grant Acknowledgements Represented by Citations http://beckerguides.wustl.edu/impactofpublications How do you choose metrics? • Determine your level of assessment (article, person, group, etc.) Some common indicators • Number of publications used as an • Identify what you wish to examine indirect measure of knowledge production (productivity, impact, collaboration, • The extent to which the publications subject area, etc.) have been cited in the subsequent scientific literature used as an indicator • scientific impact and international Consider your overall purpose visibility • Co-authorship used as an indicator of • Consider your available data and your collaboration, e.g. the extent of audience international collaborations Dag W. Aksnes - Nordic Institute for Studies in • Do your homework Innovation, Research and Education Some commonly used example metrics 1. h index 2. m index 3. Journal Citation Reports Impact Factor (JIF) Score h index An author with a h index of 18 has 18 papers which have been cited at least 18 times each How Calculated: Number of papers (h) that have received at least h citations. • Combines publication and citation counts into a single metric. • Can be used on individuals or groups of papers • Useful metric for established authors but not for young authors C. Sarli – Becker Library PNAS 2005 102 (46) 16569-16572 doi:10.1073/pnas.0507655102 Col - complexity of data collection Cal - complexity of data calculation Scientometrics (2014) 101:125–158 h index caveats • Difficult to compare authors with different seniority or discipline/area of research • Does not factor the “context” or source of citations – why are others citing your work? – what is the source of the citations? • Does not account for the number of authors of a paper or author ranking • Can be manipulated through self-citations • Review articles are more highly cited than research articles • Disregards age of the publication and “sleeping beauties.” Sarli & Holmes. Understanding Evaluation and Research Impact. 2014 MLA Meeting m index How Calculated: • m index = correction of the h m index = h index (h)/ index for number of years since number of years since first first paper. paper(n). An author with a m index of • Useful metric for younger authors. .67 has an h index of 2 and three years since first paper. Bornmann, L., Mutz, R., and Daniel, H.D. (2008) “Are there better indices for evaluation purposes than the h index? A comparison of nine different variants of the h index using data from biomedicine”, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Vol. 59, No. 5, pp. 830–837. C. Sarli – Becker Library Sarli & Holmes. Understanding Evaluation and Research Impact. 2014 MLA Meeting Journal Citation Reports Journal Impact Factor (IF) Score • Impact factor scores for journals (IF) introduced by Eugene Garfield. • Journal Citation Reports (JCR) launched in 1975: - Selection of journals to index in a database called Science Citation Index (now Web of Knowledge). - Library acquisition decision-making. Sarli & Holmes. Understanding Evaluation and Research Impact. 2014 MLA Meeting Journal Impact Factor Score • The journal IF is the average number of times articles from the journal published in the past two years have been cited in the JCR year. • The citing works may be articles published in the same journal. However, most citing works are from different journals, proceedings, or books indexed by Web of Science. An Impact Factor of 2.5 means that, on average, the articles published one or two year ago have been cited two and a half times. http://admin-apps.webofknowledge.com/JCR/help/h_impfact.htm JCR IF “It is one thing to use impact factors to compare journals and quite another to use them to • Only metric for many years compare authors.” • “Easy-to-find” number Eugene Garfield, 2005 • However, it does not provide “Do not use journal based metrics, such as metrics about a specific paper or Journal Impact Factors, as a surrogate a specific author, nor