Productivity of Indian Telescopes: Impact Analysis through Scientometric methods By Meera B.M. & Manjunath M. Raman Research Institute, Bangalore, India Abstract: This paper aims to study the productivity of modern Indian telescopes installed after India attained Data representation and analysis independence from colonial rule. However, there is one telescope which was built during colonial rule and still Collective productivity data from all telescopes is represented below functional. Productivity measure is the number of papers published from 14 telescopes under study. Astronomical data A comprehensive table (1) represents data from 14 telescopes of India which are under study. observed through these telescopes gets transformed into research papers. Such papers further get used by their peers and Telescope Name Telescope type Year Year of Total No. Total Average H-Index Total No. of get cited. This is the actual impact of the telescopes in terms of scholarship. This aspect will be analyzed in this paper established publicat of papers No. of citations Number Authors Total Productivity of Total Refereed using scientometric indicators. ion of published citations per of with 14 Indian Telescopes Metrics first received paper authors Foreign Number of papers 1,643 1,144 Indian Astronomical studies dates back to 1500 B C. Astronomy was article affiliation Introduction: (%) Total reads 326,351 310,594 considered as “Auxiliary discipline” with the study of Veda (Knowledge base originated in Kodaikanal Solar Observatory, Solar Observatory 1899 1904 361 689 1.9 15 395 165 (41%) Kodaikanal Average reads 198.6 271.5 ancient India comprising of large body of text). Original application of astronomy was Ooty Radio Telescope, Ooty Radio Telescope 1970 1971 114 792 6.9 16 132 30 (23%) Number of citations 13,599 13,083 religious and later this had Greek influence during 4th century. “Aryabhata” is one of the Sampurnanand Telescope, Optical Telescope 1972 2010 6 47 7.8 5 42 23 (55%) ARIES, Nainital Average citations 8.3 11.4 th earliest astronomers in 6 century who popularized this as science in Ancient India. There has Mauritius Radio Telescope Radio Telescope 1972 1994 20 40 2.0 3 30 18 (60%) h-index 46 46 Udaipur Solar Observatory, Solar Observatory 1975 1993 170 1284 7.6 18 194 97 (50% been number of records to substantiate that “Astronomy” was studied during early period. Udaipur Table - 2 Early studies do not indicate the usage of any instruments and naked eye observations were the Raman Research Institute Radio Telescope 1975 1991 23 92 4.0 6 15 3 (20%) earliest to record events. Man observing his own shadow to know time was the first application Gauribidanur Radio Observatory Radio Telescope 1976 1975 82 405 4.9 12 87 21 (24%) Gauribidanur Figure - 2 Figure - 3 Vainu Bappu Observatory, Optical observatory 1986 1986 84 395 4.7 12 241 117 (49%) of astronomy. Early reference to Indian astronomical instruments in literature is given about Kavalur Analysis of Table 2: a) The armillary sphere b) Clypsydra (water clock) c) Gnomon ( a vertical stick). These Mount Abu Observatory, Infrared telescope 1990 1991 95 865 9.1 16 178 91 (51%) Mount Abu All the 14 private libraries that were built to each of the Indian telescopes under study were instruments were used to estimate the rising and setting of sun, moon and stars, to identify Giant Meterwave Radio Radio Telescope 1995 1999 436 6923 15.9 39 1184 958 (81%) merged. This was called "All telescopes". Data from this private library of all telescopes is Telescope, Pune phases of moon, lunar and solar eclipse Himalayan Chandra Telescope, Optical Infrared 2001 2000 185 1891 10.2 24 1079 938 (87%) elicited in table 2. There is 1643 papers published using Indian telescope facility since Hanley telescope Ancient Astronomical Observations in India were done through: HAGAR Telescope, High Energy 2001 2001 20 126 6.3 6 91 6 (6%) 1899, the first paper being published in 1904 by Kodaikanal observatory in their bulletin. The Hanley Gamma ray first international publication from India was in "Monthly Notices of Royal Astronomical Telescope IUCAA Girawali Observatory, Optical Telescope 2006 1999 76 291 3.9 9 330 200 (60%) Society' in 1906. Pune 130cm Devastal telescope, Optical Telescope 2007 2010 14 43 3.1 5 88 57 (64%) On an average these papers have got 8.3 citations. H-index for collective productivity of all ARIES, Nainital telescopes publications is 46. We are unable to assess this number as we do not have data from Table - 1 another country for comparison. There are few studies reporting productivity of individual Naked Eye Armillary Sphere Clepsydra Gnomon Note: There are few preliminary reports about telescopes in the form of research papers which have appeared even telescopes. However, there are few comparative studies of selected telescopes. Authors did not before the actual year of telescope establishment Invention of telescope by Galileo in the early part of 17th century had its influence on Indian find any studies reported by any other country reporting total productivity of telescopes of a astronomers as European traveler’s gifted telescopes to Mughal emperors. However, there has Graphical representation of the Table – 1 with respect to No. of publications, Total No. of nation. H-index 46 seems to be a good quality measure with respect to impact of the telescope been a written reference to Sawai Jai Singh II, the remarkable Monarch of Jaipur, a Citations received and H-Index of 14 telescopes is given below in Figure - 1 productivity. mathematician, an astronomer, and a town planner, par excellence setting up the famous Year-wise (10 years coupled) distribution of papers published from 1904-2013 observatories, known as Jantar Mantars during 18th century. There are documentary evidences 7000 6000 for his telescopic observations. It was with East India Company’s political entry to India, nine Years Number of papers h-Index h-Index th 5000 observatories were established during 19 century, the first being Madras observatory which 1904-1913 40 2 4000 45 1914-1923 26 1 40 had its existence from 1792-1900. However, it is the Solar Observatory at Kodaikanal which 35 3000 1924-1933 0 0 30 was started in 1901 is still functional. Rest of them have ceased their operations. No. of papers published 1934-1943 4 0 25 2000 20 No. of citations received 1944-1953 3 0 15 h-Index 10 1000 h-index 1954-1963 3 1 Astronomical Observatories established during Moghul rule followed by East 5 0 0 1964-1973 13 5 India Company 1974-1983 66 8 1984-1993 157 14 1. Madras Observatory(1792–1900) 1994-2003 419 28 Figure - 5 2. The Royal Observatory at Lucknow (1835–1849) 2004-2013 895 41 3. Raja of Travancore Observatory at Trivandrum (1842–1865) Table - 3 Figure - 4 4. Capt.W.S.Jacob’s Observatory at Poona (1842–1862) Figure - 1 5. St.Xavier College Observatory at Calcutta (1875–ca.1918) Analysis of Table 3: 6. Maharaja Takhtasinghji Observatory at Poona (1882–1912) Analysis of Table 1 First two decades from 1904 have got 40 and 26 publications respectively. After that there 7. Hennessy Observatory at DehraDun (1884–1898) From table- 1, one can observe that there are 14 major telescopes being productive. India has 2 has been a sudden decline in the next four decades. Steady growth in publications is 8. Solar Observatory at Kodaikanal (1901–todate) solar telescopes (532 papers) ; 5 radio telescopes (675 papers); 3 optical telescopes (104 papers); observed in the last five decades ranging from 1974 – 2013. This is justifiable as the 9. Nizamiah Observatory at Hyderabad (1901–1954) 2 optical infrared telescopes (258 papers); 1 infrared telescope (95 papers) and 1 high energy telescopes were built and installed one after the other since 1970. H-index for the year-wise With this prologue the present study aims to identify the different telescopes that are installed gamma ray telescope (20 papers). The table has been listed in the ascending order of year of distribution is also commensurate with the publication pattern. in India in the Modern astronomy context. India is the seventh largest country in the establishment. The most productive telescope is Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope (GMRT) and Conclusion: This study has aimed to address the productivity of telescopes of a nation. world, with a total area of 3,166,414 square kilometers. In this vast land as of now there are this was established in the year 1999. So, year has no correlation with the productivity. All put Productivity is nothing but the papers published using telescope facility for astronomical about 14 major telescopes. together 1643 papers are published using Indian telescopes. Highest citations are received by the studies. Collective productivity is a list of all the publications generated by all the telescopes GMRT papers, followed by Himalayan Chandra Telescope (HCT) and the third position is taken Methodology: in the nation. Therefore, a study of this kind can be the first step to generate 'Telescope by Udaipur Solar telescope. H-indexes of these telescopes are also commensurate with number bibliography' of a nation. When we say productivity, we mean number of papers published using respective telescope of publications and number of citations. This paper also studies another aspect to know the usage Telescopes bear huge investments to a country. Number of papers published using these facility. This data was collected for most of the telescopes from the observatories web sites or by Indian authors Vs authors of foreign origin. Telescope facility of HCT is used highly (87%) from their institutional repositories. For the other telescopes, we had to depend on NASA ADS telescopes is a quantitative measure of the outcome as compared to the investment made for data base, by giving the exact telescope name as search term in the key word search box.