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Journal article
Measuring researchers' potential scholarly impact with structural variations: Four types of researchers in information science (1979-2018)
PloS one, v 15(6), pp e0234347-e0234347
22 Jun 2020
PMID: 32569295
Abstract
We propose a method to measure the potential scholarly impact of researchers based on network structural variations they introduced to the underlying author co-citation network of their field. We applied the method to the information science field based on 91,978 papers published between 1979 and 2018 from the Web of Science. We divided the entire period into eight consecutive intervals and measured structural variation change rates (Delta M) of individual authors in corresponding author co-citation networks. Four types of researchers are identified in terms of temporal dynamics of their potential scholarly impact-1) Increasing, 2) Decreasing, 3) Sustained, and 4) Transient. The study contributes to the understanding of how researchers' scholarly impact might evolve in a broad context of the corresponding research community. Specifically, this study illustrated a crucial role played by structural variation metrics in measuring and explaining the potential scholarly impact of a researcher. This method based on the structural variation analysis offers a theoretical framework and a practical platform to analyze the potential scholarly impact of researchers and their specific contributions.
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Details
- Title
- Measuring researchers' potential scholarly impact with structural variations: Four types of researchers in information science (1979-2018)
- Creators
- Jianhua Hou - Sun Yat-sen UniversityXiucai Yang - College of Economics and Management, Dalian University, Dalian Economic Technological Development Zone, Dalian, China.Chaomei Chen - Drexel University
- Publication Details
- PloS one, v 15(6), pp e0234347-e0234347
- Publisher
- Public Library Science
- Number of pages
- 26
- Grant note
- 1633286 / SciSIP Program of the National Science Foundation 17BGL031 / National Social Science Foundation of China
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Information Science
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000543547900048
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85086907358
- Other Identifier
- 991019168662804721
InCites Highlights
Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:
- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- International collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Information Science & Library Science