Classifications of science and their effects on bibliometric evaluations
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Classifications of science and their effects on bibliometric evaluations Fei Shu1,2 · Yue Ma1 · Junping Qiu1 · Vincent Larivière2,3 Received: 4 June 2020 © Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary 2020
Abstract Disciplinary classification of science is essential to bibliometric analyses. Given the conceptual and technical difficulties in classifying individual papers into disciplines and specialties, most classifications systems are implemented at the journal level, which affects the classification of papers published in multidisciplinary journals. In order to investigate the effect of the different classification systems on bibliometric evaluations, this study compares the rankings of the most productive institutions and most productive authors using the two types of classifications. Results show that the classification of papers has less influence on rankings at the institutional level than at the individual level. Implications for bibliometric evaluations are discussed. Keywords Classification of science · Chinese Library Classification · Research evaluation · Institution · Author
Introduction Classification systems of science play an important role in bibliometric analyses (De Bellis 2009; Glänzel and Schubert 2003). They assign scholarly documents to research areas, which allows to study the structure and historical development of disciplines (Young and Belanger 1983) and contribute to contextualising research evaluations (Melkers 1993). Classification systems of science are usually established at the level of journals (hereafter referred to as journal classification), with the well-known limitation that papers published in multidisciplinary journals are often not classified or improperly classified. However, recent advances in the field have led to the creation of paper level classifications, which do not have this limitation (hereafter referred to as paper classification) (Boyack * Junping Qiu [email protected] 1
Chinese Academy of Science and Education Evaluation (CASSE), Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of China
2
École de bibliothéconomie et des sciences de l’information, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
3
Observatoire des sciences et des technologies (OST), Centre interuniversitaire de recherche sur la science et la technologie (CIRST), Université du Québec à Montréal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
13
Vol.:(0123456789)
Scientometrics
and Klavans 2010; Boyack et al. 2011; Klavans and Boyack 2017; Waltman and Eck 2012). Shu et al. (2019b) compared the classification system of science between the journal-level and the paper-level, and revealed the extent of paper misclassifications in journal classifications. However, the impact of such misclassifications on bibliometric evaluation was not addressed. The purpose of this study is to contribute to the understanding of the effects of the two different classification systems on bibliometric evaluation, by comparing how groups of productive institutions and groups of productive authors score using each ty
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