Citation Use and Abuse

Malibu Rohwani

"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."

Albert Einstein

Overview

Context - research /research evalution

The power of citation tracking for your research Use and Abuse

What are we counting?

Number of papers per individual Total number of citations, and cites per

paper

World University rankings

Citations: use

Individual assessment (promotion and tenure)

UCD: Selection criteria, senior lecturer post ◦ PhD completed in the area of Quantitative Finance or a

cognate area. ◦ Strong, demonstrable, commitment to research

and publication in their chosen field ◦ Strong, demonstrable, commitment to teaching ◦ Ability to communicate both technical and non-technical

material effectively in the classroom. ◦ Good international research network ◦ A number of publications in ranking journals ◦ Excellent administrative skills

Citations: use

Individual assessment, promotion etc Senior Lecturer (DCU) ◦ Refereed publications ◦ Impact of publication on the discipline (citation indexes)

Associate Professor (DCU) Excellence in Research & Scholarship ◦ Substantial number of articles in leading refereed journals and international journals

Grant Funding

SFI Starting Investigator Research Grant The applicant must demonstrate a proven

record of internationally recognised independent research accomplishments. The applicant must be senior author (first, last or corresponding) on at least 3 articles in international peer-reviewed publications AND be a named author on an average of at least 1 international peer-reviewed publication per year since the award of the PhD (or equivalent).

Citations

Use with caution! Do have shortcomings which will be

highlighted throughout this presentation …..

Citation Tracking / Searching

Citation tracking allows you to: Find out how many times a paper

has been cited Search backwards and forwards

in time to see how ideas develop Find the most highly cited papers

in your field Identify key researchers and

institutions by their citation counts

Citation Tracking / Searching

Collating this info is difficult and not all databases or websites do it

Web of Science Scopus Google Scholar / Publish or

Perish

Research impact of individuals

Using Web of Science you can find out an individual’s: - top cited work - what journals they have published in - who is citing them - their H-index

H-Index Developed by Hirsh in 2005: "An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output,"

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 102(46):16569-16572, November 15, 2005 www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/102/46/16569

Means to evaluate research output Based on number or publications and

the number of citations per publication For example, an h-index of 10 means

that there are 10 published papers that have 10 citations or more

Research impact of individuals: Example

Charles K Kao, Nobel Laureate for Physics, 2009 ◦ "Father of Fiber Optic Communications"

Lets search Web of Science for Kao CK What are his key works? Where has he published? What fields have been citing him? What’s his H-Index?

H-Index Some high ranking physicists: Martin Cohen, Berkeley 94 Philip Anderson, Princeton 91 Edward Witten, Princeton

110 (world’s highest) But… Charles K Kao (Nobel laureate, physics, 2009) 6 Why? Mainly published in EE conferences,

monographs and patents.

H-Index

Mohamed El Naschie has an impressive H-Index of 33.

But why? Check his citations in Web of Science Search for El Naschie M*

Further info: Schiermeier, Q. 2008. Self-publishing editor set to retire. Nature. 456 (7221), pp432.

Use and Abuse

Potential for manipulation ◦ Self-citations ◦ Strategy to improve one’s citations and H-index

H-Index

A scientist may artificially increase his/her H-index by

(1) Self citation (2) Double Publications (3) Conference papers (4) Citation club (5) Coercive citation

Self citations

Thomson Reuters considers self-citation beyond 20% as suspect of abuse

Famous people: El-Naschie: 50% Nelson Tansu: 55%

Self citations

19 self citations Out of 24 references

Duplicate Publications

SPIE Conferences

World highest? 40 self citations Out of 49 references

SPIE Conferences

SPIE Conferences

Novel approaches for high-efficiency InGaN quantum wells light-emitting diodes: Device physics and epitaxy engineering Tansu, N., Zhao, H., Zhang, J., Liu, G., Li, X.-H., Ee, Y.-K., Song, R., Huang, G.S. 2011 Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering 7954, art. no. 795418

This paper has 40 self references to Tansu

Zhang, J., Zhao, H., Tansu, N. 2011 Gain characteristics of deep UV AlGaN quantum wells lasers Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering 7953, art. no. 79530H This paper has 27 self references to Tansu

Enhancement of light extraction efficiency of InGaN quantum wells light-emitting diodes using TiO2 microsphere arrays Li, X.-H.,

Ee, Y.-K., Song, R., Tansu, N. 2011 Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering 7954, art. no. 79540U This paper has 27 self references to Tansu

Thermoelectric properties of MOCVD-grown AlInN alloys with various compositions Zhang, J.,Tong, H., Liu, G., Herbsommer, J.A., Huang, G.S., Tansu, N. 2011 Proceedings of SPIE - TheInternational Society for Optical Engineering 7939, art. no. 79390O

This paper has 27 self references to Tansu

Cathodoluminescence characteristics of linearly shaped staggered InGaN quantum wells light-emitting diodes Zhao, H., Zhang, J., Liu, G., Toma, T., Poplawsky, J.D., Dierolf, V., Tansu, N.2011 Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering 7939, art. no.793905

This paper has 27 self references to Tansu

Analysis of thermoelectric properties of AlInN semiconductor alloys Zhang, J., Tong, H.,Herbsommer, J.A., Tansu, N. 2011 Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for OpticalEngineering 7933, art. no. 79330X

This paper has 28 self references to Tansu

176 self citations from 6 papers in a single SPIE Conference

Citation Club

Of the 31 papers not written by El Naschie in a issue of Chaos, Solitons and Fractals, at least 11 are related to his theories and include 58 citations of his work in the journal.

Ji-Huan He, the journal's regional editor for China, also cites El Naschie's work frequently.

An issue of the journal has one paper by He that cites himself 14 times and El Naschie twice.

He is also editor of the International Journal of Nonlinear Sciences and Numerical Simulation, which in a 2005 editorial said: "Men of genius like Einstein and Elnaschie very often ask some straightforward and seemingly innocent questions, which may turn out to have undreamed of answers."

Coercive Citations

Becoming editor or guest editor of a journal

“you cite my article only once in your 40 references. Consequently, I kindly ask you to add references of my articles to your present article”.

Guest Editor

IEEE OSA Journal of Display Technology Special Issue Volume 9, Issue 4 (April

2013). Recent advances in solid state lighting Guest Editor: Nelson Tansu

Some papers

Effects of H2 in GaN barrier spacer layer of InGaN/GaN multiple quantum-well light-emitting diodes. Lai, W.-C., Yang, Y.-Y. 2013

10 citations to Tansu Investigating the effect of piezoelectric polarization on GaN-based

LEDs with different quantum barrier thickness. Wang, C.K., Chiang, T.H., Chen, K.Y., Chiou, Y.Z., Lin, T.K., Chang, S.P., Chang, S.J.

9 citations to Tansu Lateral current spreading effect on the efficiency droop in GaN

based light-emitting diodes. Huang, S., Fan, B., Chen, Z., Zheng, Z., Luo, H., Wu, Z., Wang, G., Jiang, H.

8 citations to Tansu Effect of polarization-matched n-type AlGaInN electron-blocking

layer on the optoelectronic properties of blue InGaN light-emitting diodes. Li, Y., Gao, Y., He, M., Zhou, J., Lei, Y., Zhang, L., Zhu, K., Chen, Y.

11 citations to Tansu

Special Issue

All 17 papers have 6-10 citations to Tansu, and all papers are from China, Taiwan and Singapore

A single special issue = 160 citations to Tansu

Conclusions

No single ‘perfect’ JIF Objective tools have a role and can

contribute to the evaluation of research quality when used appropriately – must be aware of their limitations!

Abuse through self citations

Ongoing debate….

SOCIAL MEDIA

Share your findings… And get cited