Bibliometric Analysis Tutorial Jin Dayu

5 Sep 2012 http://servicesresearch.blogspot.sg

Definition The application of mathematical and statistical techniques to analyze the patterns that appear in publications and documents (Groos and Pritchard, 1969).

Rationale The collective action of contributors from the discipline ultimately determines its identity and direction (Banville and Landry, 1989).

Advantage - Quantifiable and objective. - Unveil research topics currently undetected by expert evaluations. - Examine the exchange of knowledge and scientific communication.

Bibliometric Analysis (1)

Techniques - Citation analysis - Co-citation analysis - Bibliographic coupling Unit of analysis Article (author/journal)

Application - Most often used in the field of library and information science. - Many research fields use bibliometric methods to explore the impact of their field, a set of researchers, or a particular journal.

Bibliometric Analysis (2)

1. Journal selection: choose representative journals in most relevant disciplines.

2. Sample preparation: decide keywords and timeframe. 3. Sample refinement: manually refine the article sample. 4. Coding and purification: eliminate inconsistencies. 5. Data analysis: conduct bibliometric analyses.

Analysis Procedure Overview

Objective To choose representative journals in the most relevant disciplines. Instructions (1) Select relevant disciplines. (2) Refer to journal ranking articles in each discipline, e.g., innovation management (Linton and Thongpapanl, 2004), marketing (Baumgartner and Pieters, 2003). (3) Select representative journals. Tips - Notice the change of journal title. - Same journal may be included more than once.

Analysis Procedure (1) Journal Selection

Objective To use effective keywords to retrieve relevant articles within a specific time period. Instructions^ (1) Decide search keywords and timeframe. (2) Run search in the online database, such as WoS and Scopus. (3) Save results into plain text. (4) Process *.txt file with Bibexcel (steps) and generate *.doc file. (5) Compile the full *.doc file from *.doc files of different databases. Tips - Tutorials of WoS search can be found here. - Bibexcel can be downloaded here and its manual can be found here. - One database may not have the full coverage of a journal. Search priority: WoS > Scopus > Publisher’s own website.

Analysis Procedure (2) Sample Preparation

Objective To manually exclude irrelevant articles. Instructions^ (1) Use Bibexcel to export *.doc file to an Excel table file (steps). (2) Review article title and abstract to determine its relevance. (3) Mark relevant articles and irrelevant ones. (4) Remove irrelevant articles in the original *.doc file. Tips - Engage independent researchers who do not participate in the project. - Solve disagreement through discussions and review of the whole article.

Analysis Procedure (3) Sample Refinement

Objective To supplement missing contents and to eliminate inconsistencies. Instructions (1) Supplement *.doc file with missing contents so that each article has key fields: authors, title, abstract, keywords, year of publication, journal name, and a list of cited references. (2) Correct mistakes in *.doc file, such as wrong names and publication years. (3) The updated *.doc file is ready for data analysis. Tips - Common mistakes of cited references in journal style: wrong or missing volume and page numbers and inconsistent journal name abbreviations. - Common mistakes of cited references in book style: multiple editions and inconsistent title abbreviations.

Analysis Procedure (4) Coding and Purification

Definition A procedure to examine the exchange of knowledge (Garfield, 1979). Rationale Authors cite papers which they consider to be important to the development of their research. Advantage It is amenable for providing insights into the influences of research that prevails within its own field and across other academic disciplines (Hoffman and Holbrook, 1993).

Analysis Procedure (5.1) Data Analysis – Citation Analysis

Instructions for basic citation analysis (1) Convert updated *.doc file to Excel table file with key fields: author, title, journal name, publication year. (2) Use Excel to conduct data analysis. Instructions for forward citation analysis^ (1) Convert updated *.doc file to *.out file in Bibexcel by extracting article title. (2) Use Excel to open *.out file and copy article titles. (3) Search in WoS for the whole set of articles. (4) Click and then (5) Save all records into plain text. (6) Convert *.txt file to Excel table file with essential fields. (7) Use Excel to conduct data analysis.

Analysis Procedure (5.1) Data Analysis – Citation Analysis

Definition A technique to cluster source articles that refer to similar references (Kessler, 1963). Rationale Studies from the same research stream are more likely to cite similar references than studies with different origins. Advantage It is of particular use for mapping the full coverage of the literature in one research field and providing a valid representation of the underlying structure (Persson, 1994).

Analysis Procedure (5.2) Data Analysis – Bibliographic Coupling

Instructions^ (1) Convert updated *.doc file to *.out file in Bibexcel by extracting cited references. (2) Select *.out file and indicate coupling strength in Bibexcel . (3) Click Analyze Shared units/coupling Shared units *.cou file. (4) Select *.cou file and click Analyze List units in pairs. (5) Click and highlight all items in “The List” box. (6) Select *.cou file and click Analyze Make a matrix for MDS ect *.ma2 file. (7) Use Excel to copy contents of *.ma2 to UCINET spreadsheet editor . (8) Remove all the value on the diagonal and save the file. (9) Click Tools Correlate columns across datasets. (10) Select the previous file and define the output file.

Analysis Procedure (5.2) Data Analysis – Bibliographic Coupling

Instructions^ (11) Copy the correlation table into SPSS. (12) Click Analyze Scale Multidimensional Scaling (PROXSCAL). (13) Use default setting in “Data Format” window and click Define. (14) Select all variables and move them into Proximities box. (15) Model setting: Lower-triangular matrix, Similarities, Ordinal (check untie option), dimensions 2x2. (16) Options setting: Torgerson. (17) Click OK and save common space coordinates. (18) Plot MDS map. * See also here.

Analysis Procedure (5.2) Data Analysis – Bibliographic Coupling

Definition A method to reveal the knowledge structure in a field according to the frequency with which two references are cited together (Small, 1973). Rationale References represent concept surrogates and a group of closely cited references comprises the consensual structure of concepts in a field. Advantages Able to objectively reflect change in a field, despite scholars’ subjective views of a semi-permanent disciplinary structure (White and McCain, 1998).

Analysis Procedure (5.3) Data Analysis – Co-citation Analysis

Instructions^ (1) Convert updated *.doc file to *.out file in Bibexcel by extracting cited references. (2) Select “whole string” under . (3) Select *.out file and click *.cit file. (4) Click and highlight the items in “The List” box whose co-citation counts are above pre-defined threshold. (5) Click Analyze Co-occurrence Select units via listbox. (6) Select *.out file and click Analyze Co-occurrence Make pairs via listbox *.coc file. (7) Click and highlight the pairs in “The List” box whose co-citation count is above 2. (8) Select *.coc file and click Analyze List units in pairs *.ccc file.

Analysis Procedure (5.3) Data Analysis – Co-citation Analysis

Instructions^ (9) Highlight all items in “The List” box. (10) Select *.coc file and click Analyze Make a matrix for MDS ect *.ma2 file. (11) Use Excel to copy contents of *.ma2 to SPSS. (12) Remove all the value on the diagonal and make sure there is no column with all zeros. (13) Click Analyze Data Reduction Factor… (14) Select all variables and move them into Variables box. (15) Rotation setting: Varimax. (16) Options setting: check “replace with mean”, “sorted by size”, and “suppress absolute values less than 0.x”. (17) Use excel to analyze results. * See also here.

Analysis Procedure (5.3) Data Analysis – Co-citation Analysis