BIBLIOMETRICS

Intro to Bibliometrics

Biblio­met­rics is an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary research and appli­ca­tion field concerned with the measur­a­bil­i­ty and quanti­ta­tive analy­sis of scien­tif­ic publi­ca­tion and citation data. The basis for this is data describ­ing scien­tif­ic articles, such as author names, titles, journal or series titles, year of publi­ca­tion, affil­i­a­tions (=organ­i­sa­tion­al address­es) of the authors, one or more subject class­es for the disci­pli­nary classi­fi­ca­tion of the publi­ca­tion, and infor­ma­tion on the research funding from which the publi­ca­tion origi­nat­ed. In addition, there are citation counts (and partly further contex­tu­al data on citations), which can be used to examine the recep­tion of publi­ca­tions. This data is gener­at­ed as meta and, so to speak, process data in the publi­ca­tion system and is primar­i­ly processed for infor­ma­tion retrieval purpos­es in databas­es such as Web of Science, Scopus and, more recent­ly, OpenAlex.

A central premise of biblio­met­rics is that infor­ma­tion on scien­tif­ic publications—as key outputs of research—and their citations can, beyond their individ­ual content, yield insights into the struc­tures and dynam­ics of the publi­ca­tion and science system when analyzed in aggre­gat­ed form. One of the histor­i­cal roots of biblio­met­rics lies in the search for empir­i­cal laws, such as Bradford’s Law, origi­nal­ly devel­oped in a library science context. In a relat­ed field, patents are often used to analyze knowl­edge trans­fer process­es towards commer­cial application.

A core area of classi­cal, evalu­a­tive biblio­met­rics is the devel­op­ment, assess­ment, and use of indica­tors to measure charac­ter­is­tics of publi­ca­tion corpo­ra. These indica­tors are used for the evalu­a­tion of insti­tu­tions, sectors, countries, or individ­ual researchers and research groups. Due to differ­ences in disci­pli­nary cultures, indica­tors should be field-normalised or other­wise not used for inter­dis­ci­pli­nary compar­isons. Field-normalised citation rates (FNCR), the field-normalised propor­tion of highly cited publi­ca­tions or collab­o­ra­tion indica­tors are used, for example. In contrast, the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) or the H‑index are often criti­cal­ly discussed in the field.

Due to the specif­ic nature of the data, which, as explained above, was not primar­i­ly creat­ed for this purpose, techniques for data cleans­ing, disam­bigua­tion of entities (especial­ly authors, organ­i­sa­tions and research funders) and match­ing differ­ent data sources, as well as methods such as cluster­ing based on co-citations or bibli­o­graph­ic coupling for science mapping, for example.

These techniques, methods, and indica­tors are also applied in explorato­ry research settings and contribute to quanti­ta­tive science and innova­tion studies—for example, in analyz­ing the impact of funding programs, gender dispar­i­ties, the identi­fi­ca­tion of innova­tions and emerg­ing research fields, or studies on scien­tif­ic misconduct.

While such questions are typical­ly addressed using statis­ti­cal analy­sis, biblio­met­rics has increas­ing­ly devel­oped method­olog­i­cal inter­faces with other fields, such as network analy­sis and infor­ma­tion retrieval. It can also be combined with quali­ta­tive approach­es. Moreover, growing access to full texts and advances in natur­al language process­ing (NLP) and large language models (LLMs) are addition­al­ly enabling the increased consid­er­a­tion of the seman­tic level in the analy­sis of publi­ca­tion corpora.

Further infor­ma­tion can be found in the Biblio­met­rics Quick Notes by Dr. Stephan Gauch, which were devel­oped in the context of the KB and funded by the Feder­al Ministry of Research, Technol­o­gy and Space.

The Open Access Monitor Germany

The Open Access Monitor Germany is a tool that monitors the publi­ca­tion output of German scien­tif­ic insti­tu­tions in scien­tif­ic journals. Data from exist­ing source systems, such as the database of the KB, are first collect­ed and aggre­gat­ed. These data are then made acces­si­ble and usable in a freely avail­able appli­ca­tion and, in a further step, used to inform research published in scien­tif­ic publi­ca­tions. In this way, these findings are made avail­able again to the scien­tif­ic commu­ni­ty and the inter­est­ed public, offer­ing libraries, funders and researchers a freely avail­able tool to analyse publi­ca­tions, the citations they contain, and the associ­at­ed publish­ing costs.

Further­more, the Open Access Monitor monitors and enables support for the change in the publi­ca­tion system towards Open Access via contin­u­ous analy­sis of funds spent on journal subscrip­tions and publish­ing fees. The frequent deliv­ery – up to weekly – of data from exist­ing data sources means that users are always provid­ed with up-to-date data. The abili­ty to filter search queries in the user inter­face supports differ­ent usage scenar­ios. The Feder­al Ministry of Educa­tion and Research (BMBF) funds the ongoing devel­op­ment and opera­tion of the Open Access Monitor Germany through the central library of the Research Centre Jülich in the project “OAM — Open Access Monitor­ing” (FKZ 16OAMO001).

• Open Access Monitor Germany

The open access monitor records the publi­ca­tion output of German acade­m­ic insti­tu­tions in scien­tif­ic journals. The transi­tion to an open access system can be observed on the basis of analy­ses of subscrip­tion fees and publi­ca­tion fees.

Distri­b­u­tion of journal business models

The graph shows the current distri­b­u­tion of journals (33,150) across journal business models; based on the Cross­ref title list, and the journal lists used in the OAM (DOAJ, DOAG, trans­for­ma­tive agreements).

Distri­b­u­tion of journal articles in Germany

The graph shows the open/closed access ratio of journal articles (764,825) in Germany for the last five years (2018–2022) based on Dimen­sions, Unpay­wall, and the journal lists (DOAJ, DOAG) used in the OAM.

Digital Biblio­met­ric Window

Documen­ta­tion and analy­sis of biblio­met­ric indicators

The Pact for Research and Innova­tion (PFI) is an agree­ment between the German feder­al and state govern­ments and five science and research organ­i­sa­tions. In the PFI, the science and research organi­za­tions receive finan­cial planning securi­ty through agreed annual increas­es in insti­tu­tion­al grants. In return, the pact partners have commit­ted themselves to common research policy goals. For the current fourth phase, the pact partners have agreed on five central research policy goals. These are: 1. Promote dynam­ic devel­op­ment, 2. Strength­en trans­fer in business and society, 3. Deepen network­ing, 4. Attract and keep the best minds, and 5. Strength­en infra­struc­tures for research.

The objec­tive of the project is to write a report for the four non-univer­si­ty research organi­za­tions based on analy­ses of biblio­met­ric indica­tors in each of the years 2022 to 2026, while also record­ing the entire German science system and its devel­op­ment as well as trends and dynam­ics and classi­fy­ing them both nation­al­ly and inter­na­tion­al­ly. Only biblio­met­ric indica­tors are used in this monitor­ing report. This report is intend­ed to provide biblio­met­ric indica­tors for all non-univer­si­ty research organi­za­tions in Germany using standard­ized methods, which provide the organi­za­tions themselves, the GWK and an inter­est­ed public with empir­i­cal facts for their own assessment.

• Pact for Research and Innova­tion (PFI)