Bibliometric Analysis Asia-Pacific Research Area ... - JuSER

Central Library
3. Citation Analysis
3.1 Citation Rates for the Countries Studied over the Entire Period
The perception of scientific publications can be measured using citations by other scientists in
the form of the average number of citations per article (citation rate). In the sciences, the
Science Citation Index (SCI) is used most often as the data source for this purpose. SCI
consists predominantly of internationally respected journal articles and simultaneously records
their citations in the journals evaluated. The citation rate is an indicator that is independent of
the size of an institution or country but not of the size of the individual discipline. This means
that the citation rate is not suitable for interdisciplinary comparisons.
Figures 57 to 60 show the average citation rate (entire period) for each country studied in each
of the disciplines presented. The perception of different countries can be compared within a
discipline. To provide a better overview, the disciplines are split into two groups and presented
in two charts, as are the countries. This results in four spider charts. We can see, for example,
that China is ranked quite poorly in almost all of the disciplines investigated despite a high
number of publications. It is also obvious that Australia’s perception is as high as Germany’s in
many disciplines despite the fact that its publication output is significantly lower.
Average citation rates of countries according to discipline 1998-2007
Agricultural science
16
14
12
10
Physics
8
Biology and biotechnology
6
4
2
0
Germany
Japan
New Zealand
Australia
Singapore
Thailand
Vietnam
Medicine
Chemistry
Geosciences
Figure 57: Average citation rates for Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Thailand and
Vietnam in agricultural science, biology and biotechnology, chemistry, geosciences, medicine and physics
99