Publishing for impact
Elements for a publication strategy
Wouter Gerritsma, Wageningen UR Library
Social science publications at Wageningen UR
Full screen image with title
How are we able to compare numbers?
 Scientist Z. Math has a publication from 2001 with 17 citations
 Scientist M. Biology has a publication from 2007 with 32 citations
Baselines for Mathematics
Baselines for Molecular Biology
A quantitative example
 Bouma, J, Bulte, EH, & DP van Soest (2008) Trust,
Trustworthiness and Cooperation: Social Capital and
Community Resource Management. J. Env. Ec. & Mngmt
56(2)155-166.
● Cited 12 times
 Journal of Environmental Economics and Management
from journals menu in ESI:
● Economics & Business
 Baseline data for Economics & Business (from ESI)
● Article from 2008: Average: 3.62 Citations; Top
10%: 9 citations; Top 1% 27 citations
 RI = 12 / 3.62 = 3.31
Baseline data to normalize citation data?
Citations data source
Baselines
Web of Science
ESI or InCites
Scopus
SciVal Strata
Google Scholar
none
Propriatary A&I database
none
H-index
 Balance between productivity
and citedness
 To rule out the effect of one
or two highly cited papers
 Applicable to authors,
journals, research groups,
compounds, subjects etc…
 But there are some serious
doubts about robustness
Waltman, L. & N. J. van Eck (2011). The inconsistency of
the h-index. Journal of the American Society for
Information Science and Technology 63(2):406-415
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/asi.21678
In practice
After excellent research,
where should you publish?
Where to publish?
 A valued journal?
● Quality
● Editorial board
● Acceptance rate
● Time to publication
● Journal circulation
● Visibility
50% of articles generate 90% of all cites
Seglen, P. O. (1997). Why the impact factor of journals should not be used for evaluating research. BMJ
314(7079): 497-502. http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/314/7079/497
Look at the IF in a different way
Journal quality and impact global universities
Highlighting Dutch Universities
But where is Tilburg?
Journal quality and article impact 20032009, for Wageningen UR
Journal
Quartile
Pubs
RI
T10(%T10)
T1(%T1)
Q1
7170
2.26
2444(34%)
505(7%)
Q2
2919
1.26
578 (20%)
61 (2%)
Q3
1303
0.93
143 (11%)
10 (1%)
Q4
587
0.66
Aggregate
11917
1.79
30
(5%)
3195(27%)
6 (1%)
582(5%)
Source: Wageningen Yield, Feb. 2012
Document type and article impact 20032009, for Wageningen UR
Document
type
Pubs
RI
T10(%T10)
T1(%T1)
Article
11212
1.62
2777(25%)
437( 4%)
Review
705
4.45
418 (59%)
145(21%)
11917
1.79
3195(27%)
582(5%)
Aggregate
Source: Wageningen Yield, Feb. 2012
The impact factor Matthew effect
The journal in which papers are published have a strong
influence on their citation rates, as duplicate papers
published in high-impact journals obtain, on average,
twice as many citations as their identical counterparts
published in journals with lower impact factors..
Larivière, V. and Y. Gingras (2010). The impact factor's Matthew Effect: A
natural experiment in bibliometrics. Journal of the American Society for
Information Science and Technology 61(2): 424-427.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/asi.21232
Final word on journal quality
It is better to publish one paper in a quality journal than
multiple papers in lesser journals. [...]. Try to publish in
journals that have high impact factors; chances are your
paper will have high impact, too, if accepted.
Bourne, P. E. (2005). Ten Simple Rules for Getting
Published. PLoS Computational Biology 1(5): e57.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.0010057
Networking
International cooperation
University
EUR
RUG
RUN
TUD
TUE
UL
UM
UT
UU
UvA
No Cooperation
% output
Impact
16
1.13
23
1.07
20
0.94
33
1.24
29
1.50
20
0.90
16
0.90
33
1.33
21
1.54
20
1.15
International Cooperation
% output
Impact
40
2.00
39
1.43
39
1.46
43
1.52
41
1.52
46
1.38
42
1.48
37
1.36
39
1.61
43
1.64
UvT
25
1.15
42
1.21
VUA
WUR
18
21
1.15
1.12
43
49
1.68
1.27
Aggregate
25
1.15
44
1.53
NOWT (2008). Wetenschaps- en Technologie- Indicatoren 2008. Maastricht,
Nederlands Observatorium van Wetenschap en Technologie (NOWT).
Cooperation is effective
WTI2 report 2011
Cooperation...
Teams increasingly dominate solo authors in the
production of knowledge. Research is increasingly done in
teams across nearly all fields.
Teams typically produce more frequently cited research
than individuals do, and this advantage has been
increasing over time.
Teams now also produce the exceptionally high-impact
research, even where that distinction was once the domain
of solo authors.
Wuchty, S., B. F. Jones, et al. (2007). The increasing dominance of
teams in production of knowledge. Science 316(5827): 1036-1039.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1136099
Networking is important
 Start early, make use of Social Networking tools
● Facebook
● LinkedIn
● Social networks for scientists
● SSRN, Academics.edu, Researchgate
On social networking
On using social media
McKenzie and Özler (2011) The impact of economics blogs
Consider the Wikipedia
 For better or worse, people are guided to Wikipedia
when searching the Web for biomedical information. So
there is an increasing need for the scientific community
to engage with Wikipedia to ensure that the information
it contains is accurate and current.
Logan, D.W., M. Sandal, P.P. Gardner, M. Manske & A. Bateman
(2010). Ten Simple Rules for Editing Wikipedia. PLoS Comput Biol,
6(9): e1000941 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000941
Self citations and more
Self citations
The model [...] implies that external citations are
enhanced by self-citations, so that we have the
“chain reaction:” Larger size leads to more selfcitations, which lead to more external citations.
van Raan, A. F. J. (2008). Self-citation as an impact-reinforcing mechanism in the
science system. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and
Technology 59(10): 1631-1643.
11/28
More on references
Articles that cite more references are in turn
cited more themselves
Webster, G. D., P. K. Jonason, et al. (2009). Hot Topics and Popular Papers in Evolutionary
Psychology: Analyses of Title Words and Citation Counts in Evolution and Human Behavior, 1979
– 2008. Evolutionary Psychology 7(3): 348-362.
http://www.epjournal.net/filestore/ep07348362.pdf
To be the best, cite the best
Borrowed from: Corbyn, Z. (2010). "To be the best, cite the best." Nature News, 13 October
2010, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/news.2010.539 Reporting on the publication of Bornmann, L., F.
de Moya Anegón, et al. (2010). Do Scientific Advancements Lean on the Shoulders of Giants? A
Bibliometric Investigation of the Ortega Hypothesis. PLoS ONE 5(10): e13327 DOI:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0013327.
More articles per research project?
 Publishing more articles results in higher citation counts
if the articles provide sufficient substantive content to
other researchers.
● Beware of the ethical standards
● Bornmann looked at total citations, not to relative
impact
Bornmann, L. & H.-D. Daniel (2007). Multiple publication on a single research study:
Does it pay? The influence of number of research articles on total citation counts in
biomedicine. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and
Technology, 58(8): 1100-1107 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/asi.20531
Journal selection and referencing with
multidisciplinary research
 Higher citations are linked to the citation-intensive
disciplines.
● But Larivière et al. looked at absolute citations rather that relative to the field
 Articles citing citation-intensive disciplines are more
likely to be cited by those disciplines and, hence, obtain
higher citation scores than would articles citing noncitation-intensive disciplines.
Larivière, V. & Y. Gingras (2010). On the relationship between interdisciplinarity and scientific
impact. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 61(1): 126-131
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/asi.21226
Consider Open Access publishing
 Be aware of your copyrights when publishing
 Golden Road
● PloS Journals, BMC, etc.
 Green Road
● Self archived copies (final author’s version)
● TU Repository, RePec, SSRN etc.
 Open Choice
● Hybrid system, author pays and library pays
● Sage model (only 10% of standard fees)
Is there a citation advantage for OA?
 Evidence is mounting
● There is certainly no dis-advantange
● Van Raan has started to self archive his preprints
● Publishers allow self archiving of the final peer
reviewed authors version
● Open Citation Project
 OA is important for developing countries
Evans, J.A., Reimer, J., 2009. Open access and global participation in
science. Science. 323, 1025. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1154562
Publish your data!
 Henneken et al. (2011) "articles with links to data result
in higher citation rates than articles without such links"
http://arxiv.org/abs/1111.3618
 Piwowar et al. (2007) "Sharing detailed research data is
associated with increased citation rate
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0000308
 Also relevant in the view of the latest developments
(KNAW)

Library assists in curating datasets
What is in a name?
Who is the author of this thesis?
On the inside
On her own publication list
Final word of warning!
 Publishing strategies are meant to improve the impact of
good quality research. Using these techniques to
upgrade CVs or boosting research performance ratings of
research groups is a dangerous tactic.
Tijssen, R.J.W. (2003). Scoreboards of research excellence. Research
Evaluation, 12(2): 91-104; p.16 is especially relevant for Tilburg University
Thank you!
http://tinyurl.com/7r67fmm
On the Web:
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