Does Monetary Support Increase Citation Impact of

Scholarly Papers?

Yaşar TontaHacettepe University, Department of Information Management, Ankara (Turkey)

Müge AkbulutAnkara Yıldırım Beyazıt University, Department of Information Management,

Ankara (Turkey)

ISSI 2019, September 2-5, 2019, Sapienza University, Rome

Performance-based research funding systems (PRFSs)

• JIF-based PRFS (sometimes in combination with peer review)

• “side effects”

• Predatory journals, citation circles

Performance-based research funding systems (PRFSs)

• Subsidies would increase the # of papers and their citation impact

• Motivating form more papers with higher quality

• Not clear though if PRFSs increase productivity and impact

• PRFSs force researchers to choose between “cash or quality”

TÜBİTAK’s Support Program of International Scholarly Publications

• “cash-for-publication”

• Based on JIF and, more recently, AISs

• 7,500 Turkish Lira (circa 3,000USD in 2015) for TR-addressed papers

Data Sources

• TR-addressed papers published between 2006 and 2015 and indexed in WoS (225,923)

AD=(Turkey OR Turquie OR Türkei OR Türkiye OR Turquia)Timespan: 2006-2015. Indexes: SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI, A&HCI. PubType: Article

• JIF, AIS and JCR quartiles

Method• 226K TR-addressed papers

• 101K TR-addressed supported papers

• Macro 1: Creating a sample using the stratified probability sampling technique (4,521 records)

• Makro 2: Match up journal data

• Macro 3: match the list of papers supported by TÜBİTAK with all papers

Descriptive Statistics

Notes: N: Number of papers; # of cit.: Number of citations; Mdn: Median; M: Mean; SD: Standard Deviation; t: t-test; p: p value; r: effect size; cit.: citation; JIF: Journal Impact Factor; AIS: Article Influence Score; *: statistically significant at alpha level .05.

# of citations per paper for supported and not supported TR-addressed papers

JIFs and AISs of journals publishing supported and not supported TR-

addressed papers

Journal Impact Factor Article Influence Score

Percentage of papers by JIF and distribution of papers by Quartiles

• Support system seems to have failed to be more selective

Distribution of papers by JCR quartiles

Conclusion

• The support program do not seem to have played much role in improving the citation impact of papers.

• The support system seems to have rewarded the authors of papers who published in mediocre or low impact journals relatively more often.

• The support program of TÜBİTAK should be reconsidered.

Does Monetary Support Increase Citation Impact of

Scholarly Papers?

Yaşar TontaHacettepe University, Department of Information Management, Ankara (Turkey)

Müge AkbulutAnkara Yıldırım Beyazıt University, Department of Information Management,

Ankara (Turkey)

ISSI 2019, September 2-5, 2019, Sapienza University, Rome