English

A Review of Theory and Practice in Scientometrics

Digital Libraries 2016-04-25 v3

Abstract

Scientometrics is the study of the quantitative aspects of the process of science as a communication system. It is centrally, but not only, concerned with the analysis of citations in the academic literature. In recent years it has come to play a major role in the measurement and evaluation of research performance. In this review we consider: the historical development of scientometrics, sources of citation data, citation metrics and the "laws" of scientometrics, normalisation, journal impact factors and other journal metrics, visualising and mapping science, evaluation and policy, and future developments.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1501.05462,
  title  = {A Review of Theory and Practice in Scientometrics},
  author = {John Mingers and Loet Leydesdorff},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1501.05462},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

accepted for publication in the European Journal of Operational Research