PUBLICATION PRODUCTIVITY AND CITATION ANALYSIS OF THE MEDICAL JOURNAL OF MALAYSIA: 2004 to 2008 SANNI, SHAMSUDEEN ADEMOLA DISSERTATION SUBMITTED AS A PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER IN LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE FACULTY OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSITY OF MALAYA KUALA LUMPUR JANUARY 2011. Abstract The very few studies that address the publication and citation practices among researchers in the medical fields in Malaysia motivated this study. This study adopted bibliometric methods to examine article productivity and citation analysis of the oldest medical journal in Malaysia, Medical Journal of Malaysia (MJM) from years 2004 to 2008 using data extracted from the Malaysian Abstracting and Indexing System (MyAis) database. A total of 580 papers were analyzed. The result indicates that MJM sustained consistent publication productivity with at least 100 to an average of 116 papers per year. A total of 2177 authors singly or jointly contributed articles and author‘s productivity pattern conforms slightly to Lokta’s law of author productivity. Most productive authors are senior medical researchers affiliated to higher institutions and foreign contribution was very small (6.20%), as most of the papers were contributed by Malaysians (88.96%). More than 90% of the papers were joint-authored with 3 authorship being the highest pattern of collaborative work. High degree of collaboration index of 0.9 was observed using Subramayam’s formula. Most collaboration were between institutions within Malaysia. Analysis of keywords indicated active contributions in topics such as diabetes, cancer, endoscopy, hypertension, and tuberculosis. Only 61 original research articles acknowledge funding, mainly from the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovations as well as universities own research funds. The average number of references used per year is 1391 citations, while the average number of citation per article is 12. Most cited references are from scholarly journals (87.67%). The age of citations used were mainly about 1 to 11 years old (63.87%) with publications of over 20 years, still being referenced suggesting the longevity of the usefulness of works published in the medical field. Through Bradford’s law, analysis of journals cited indicated the proportion of number of journals in the three productive zones is 43: 210: 1270, in the ratio 1: 5: 25. The core journals revealed 22 titles. Citation to MJM articles were obtained from Google Scholar which revealed that 76.8% of all the articles have been cited at least once both by main stream as well as Malaysian journals and the citing authors came from seventy six different countries. MJM recorded its highest Impact Factor (IF) in year 2007 (0.616) followed by 2006 (0.456), 2009 (0.378) and 2008 (0.367), while the result of a five years IF is 0.577. ii Acknowledgements All praises and thanks are due to Allah, The Owner of knowledge, Most Gracious, Most Merciful, who has guided me through the journey of life up to this moment. Worthy of thanks are my dear parents, who granted me this academic opportunity by sponsoring my masters program. I wish to categorically thank my father, Alhaj Ishaq Kunle Sanni for his financial support, patience, prayers, and love all along and my mother, Alhaja Rafiah Idowu Sanni, for her loving support, regular prayers, advice, songs and melodies. I am very grateful to my supervisor Professor Dr. Zainab Awang Ngah who never stopped believing in me from the first day. Her love, encouragement, guidance, assistance and goodwill have helped me a lot through my life as a student and research-assistance under her tutelage in Malaysia. To all my teachers and lecturers, Professor Dr. Zainab Awang Ngah who taught me how to organize information; Ass. Professor. Dr. Dhiljit Sing, who guided me through the methods of research; Ass. Professor Dr. Abrizah Abdullah, from whose class I fell in love with literatures and scholarly communications; Ass. Professor. Dr. Edzan Nasir, from whom I learnt the intricacies of reference materials, Mrs. Leuvelin Cacha, who taught me how to manage internet resources, to mention just a few; and to all characters that have transferred knowledge to me directly and indirectly. To all my family members, brothers and sisters, far and near, friends and other wonderful colleagues who have shown concern and support, I am forever indebted to you all. iii Table of Content Abstract ............................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................ iii List of Figures .................................................................................................................................. viii List of Tables ...................................................................................................................................... ix CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1. Introduction ...............................................................................................................................1 1.2. Background of the Study ...........................................................................................................4 1.2.1. Medical Journal of Malaysia ..............................................................................................6 1.2.2. Publication Practices of Medical Journal of Malaysia .......................................................9 1.2.3. Types of Papers MJM Currently Hold ............................................................................. 10 1.2.4. Publication Requirements ................................................................................................ 11 1.2.5. Health Research and Development (R&D) in Malaysia .................................................. 12 1.3. Statement of Problems ............................................................................................................ 13 1.4. Objectives of the Study .......................................................................................................... 15 1.5. Research Questions ................................................................................................................ 17 1.6. Significance of the Study ........................................................................................................ 17 1.7. Scope and Limitations of the Study ........................................................................................ 19 1.8. Summary of Contents ............................................................................................................. 20 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 21 2.2. Bibliometric Studies ............................................................................................................... 21 2.3. Bibliometric Measures ............................................................................................................ 23 2.4. Studies on Citation Analysis .................................................................................................. 26 2.5. Studies on Content Analysis and Publication productivity .................................................... 29 iv 2.6. Studies on International Research Collaborations .................................................................. 33 2.7. Studies on Countries Research Production ............................................................................. 36 2.8 Studies on Global Research Production .................................................................................. 40 CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 3.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 46 3.2. Research Method .................................................................................................................... 48 3.3. Sample of the Study ................................................................................................................ 50 3.4. Data Collection ....................................................................................................................... 50 3.4 .1. MyAis (Malaysian abstracting and indexing system http://Myais.fsktm.um.edu.my/) .... 53 3.5 Analysis of Data ...................................................................................................................... 55 3.6 Summary ................................................................................................................................. 58 CHAPTER 4 DATA ANALYSIS 4.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 59 4.2. Article Productivity of Medical Journal of Malaysia: 2004 - 2008 ..................................... 60 4.3. Number of Contributing Authors per Publication Year ......................................................... 61 4.4. Author‘s Productivity Pattern in Accordance with Lotka’s Law ............................................ 62 4.5. Core Authors .......................................................................................................................... 64 4.6. Co-Authorship Pattern ...........................................................................................................