Notes adapted from Unesco Course on understanding open access :
In an open access (OA) world, much importance has been given to using open source tools, open access resources and open solutions to engage authors and researchers in collaborative research, peer-to-peer sharing of scholarly information and collaborative evaluation of scholars’ works. On the other hand, exponential growth of scientific literature also has led to rapid disappearance of nascent literature before it actually gets noticed by the scientific communities. No single database can capture this over-growing scientific literature. Several data mining tools are probably required to keep abreast with quantum of emerging literature. In this Unit, various tools and techniques have been discussed in details to help the library and information professionals in strengthening their efforts in enhancing scientific productivity, visibility, reputation, and impact of research works of their affiliated scientific researchers. This Unit briefly discusses various conventional citation-based indicators available for assessing scientific productivity of authors, journals and institutions. This Unit also identifies emerging indicators such as h-index, i10-index, Eigenfactor score, article influence score and source normalized impact per paper. The social webs, available to the researchers’ communities in addition to any other groups of citizens, help the researchers in disseminating their produced or contributed knowledge to global communities. Much you are active in social media, more you have chances to get noticed by fellow researchers and possible research collaborators. Many personalized web-based services are now increasingly made available targeting global researchers’ communities, helping them to enhance their social media presence and visibility. These factors influence the development of new metrics called article level metrics or altmetrics. Finally, this Unit also briefly discusses the emergence of the open citation databases for text mining and data mining of open access literature.
Commonly Used Terms for Assessing Research Impacts:
1.Bibliometrics is a set of methods to quantitatively analyse academic literature and scholarly communications.
2.Informetrics is the study of quantitative aspects of information. This includes the production, dissemination, and use of all forms of information, regardless of its form or origin.
3.Scientometrics is the study of quantitative features and characteristics of science, scientific research and scholarly communications.
4.Webometrics is the study of quantitative features, characteristics, structure and usage patterns of the worldwide web, its hyperlinks and internet resources.
5.Cybermetrics is an alternative term for Webometrics to measure the World Wide Web, cyber media, web resources and hyperlinks.
6.Librametrics is a set of methods to quantitatively analyse availability of documents in libraries, their usage and impact of library services to its user community.
6.Patentometrics is a set of methods to quantitatively analyse patent databases, patent citations and their usage patterns.
7.Altmetrics is a new metrics proposed as an alternative to the widely used journal impact factor and personal citation indices like the h-index. The term altmetrics was proposed in 2010, as a generalization of article level metrics, and has its roots in the twitter #altmetrics hashtag. Article Level Metrics (ALM) Article level metrics is an alternative term for Altmetrics.
Applications of Scientometrics and Bibliometrics in Research Assessment :
In the last sixty years, evaluation of public funded research has been carried out globally on a regular basis for performance measurement of different actors of scientific research. Most of the citation databases and citation analysis tools available in today’s world have functionalities to instantly generate reports and scientometric profile of a scientist, an institution, a collaborative research group, a country, or a journal. Some of the popular applications of scientometrics and bibliometrics listed below can use report generator tools available with citation-based products and services.
For Institution/ Collaborative Research Group: mapping of collaborations, top collaborating institutions, top collaborating countries, collaborating with public vs. private institutions, highly cited papers, highly cited authors, top contributing scientists, top publishing journals, scientists with top h-index, top subject categories or research domains, percentage of cited vs. uncited papers, percentage of self-citations, publishing in OA vs. subscription-based journals, comparative study of two or more institutions in a region/ country.
For a scientist: mapping of collaborations, collaborating institutions, collaborating countries, mapping of co-authors, highly cited papers, top publishing journals, percentage of cited vs. uncited papers, percentage of self-citations, author-level indicators such as h-index, i10-index, etc.
For a country: top contributing institutions, top contributing cities, top contributing states, top funding agencies supporting research, top affiliating apex bodies, mapping of collaborations, top collaborating countries, top collaborating institutions, top contributing scientists, top publishing journals, top subject categories or research domains, percentage of cited vs. uncited papers, percentage of self-citations, highly cited papers, highly cited authors, top scientists with h-index, publishing by public vs. private institutions, publishing in OA vs. subscription-based journals, comparative study of two or more countries in a region or globally.
For a journal: highly cited papers, highly cited authors, percentage of cited vs. uncited papers, percentage of self-citations, top research domains, cited half-life vs. citing half-life, top contributing institutions, top contributing cities, top contributing countries, most downloaded papers, most shared papers, and highly ranked journals based on citation-based indicators.
To read more on the indicators and understanding them better please follow the http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002319/231920E.pdf
Course of openaccess by Unesco chapter Introduction to open access @http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/resources/news-and-in-focus-articles/all-news/news/unescos_open_access_oa_curriculum_is_now_online.