Cell Press and Elsevier > Article of the Future

Cell Press and Elsevier have launched a project called Article of the Future that is an ongoing collaboration with the scientific community to redefine how the scientific article is presented online. The project's goal is to take full advantage of online capabilities, allowing readers individualized entry points and routes through the content, while using the latest advances in visualization techniques. We have developed prototypes for two articles from Cell to demonstrate initial concepts and get feedback from the scientific community.


KEY FEATURES OF THE PROTOTYPES

• A hierarchical presentation of text and figures so that readers can elect to drill down through the layers of content based on their level of expertise and interest. This organizational structure is a significant departure from the linear-based organization of a traditional print-based article in incorporating the core text and supplemental material within a single unified structure.


• A graphical abstract allows readers to quickly gain an understanding of the main take-home message of the paper. The graphical abstract is intended to encourage browsing, promote interdisciplinary scholarship and help readers identify more quickly which papers are most relevant to their research interests.


• Research highlights provide a bulleted list of the key results of the article.


• Author-Affiliation highlighting makes it easy to see an author’s affiliations and all authors from the same affiliation.


• A figure that contains clickable areas so that it can be used as a navigation mechanism to directly access specific sub-sections of the results and figures.


• Integrated audio and video let authors present the context of their article via an interview or video presentation and allow animations to be displayed more effectively.


• The Experimental Procedures section contains alternate views allowing readers to see a summary or the full details necessary to replicate the experiment.


• A new approach to displaying figures allows the reader to identify quickly which figures they are interested in and then drill down through related supplemental figures. All supplemental figures are displayed individually and directly linked to the main figure to which they are related.


• Real-time reference analyses provide a rich environment to explore the content of the article via the list of citations.

Article Prototype #1 / Article Prototype #2

Source

[http://beta.cell.com/]

Press Release

[http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authored_newsitem.cws_home/companynews05_01279]

A Comparative Study of Scientific Journal Databases in the Social Sciences and the Humanities

JournalBase *- *A Comparative International Study of Scientific Journal Databases in the Social Sciences and the Humanities (SSH)

Michèle Dassa et Christine Kosmopoulos / Cybergeo, The Electronic European Journal of Geography / Dossier publié le 25 juin 2009 / Document published on 25 June 2009 / Last updated : 17 July 2009.

Presented here for the first time in a comparative table are the contents of the databases that inventory the journals in the Social Sciences and the Humanities (SSH), of the Web of Science (published by Thomson Reuters) and of Scopus (published by Elsevier), as well as of the lists European Reference Index for Humanities (ERIH) (published by the European Science Foundation and of the French Agence pour l'Evaluation de la Recherche et de l'Enseignement Supérieur (AERES).

With some 20,000 entries, this is an almost exhaustive overview of the wealth of publications in the Social Sciences and the Humanities, at last made available in this table, adopting the same nomenclature for classing the journals according to their disciplines as the one used in 27 workstations of the European Science Foundation.

The multiple assignments reveal the multidisciplinarity of the journals, which is quite frequent in SSH, but also sometimes the incoherence of databases that have not been corrected.The research was carried out in 2008 with the financial support of the TGE Adonis of the CNRS.

An updated version will soon be presented online.The final objective of this project, which concerns the entire international community of the Social Sciences and the Humanities, is to put online, in a bilingual English/French version, the database of JournalBase in interactive mode on a collaborative platform, as well as the final report of the study, so that the decision-makers, the scientists, the experts in scientific information have access to up-to-date information, and so that they may contribute to forward movement in the reflection on these questions, through the exchange of experiences and of good working practices.

JournalBase has been updated on the 17 July 2009. It includes the information on open access journals indexed in the DOAJ.

Source

[http://www.cybergeo.eu/index22492.html]

Full Text

[http://www.cybergeo.eu/pdf/22492]

Twitter Journals = Journals That Tweet

[http://tinyurl.com/l5njar]

Google Doc Compilation Of Journals That Have A Twitter Feed

[07-14-9]

Thanks To

Garrett Eastman / Librarian

Rowland Institute at Harvard

Harvard University

SEE ALSO

[http://scholarship20.blogspot.com/2009/04/twitter-science-publication-conferences.html]

[http://mobile-libraries.blogspot.com/2009/05/scitechmed-journalspublications-on.html]

Twitter Biomedical Journals

[http://mobile-libraries.blogspot.com/2009/08/twitter-biomedical-journals.html]

A Principal Component Analysis of 39 Scientific Impact Measures

A Principal Component Analysis of 39 Scientific Impact Measures

Bollen J, Van de Sompel H, Hagberg A, Chute R, 2009 A Principal Component Analysis of 39 Scientific Impact Measures. PLoS ONE 4(6): e6022. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0006022

Background

The impact of scientific publications has traditionally been expressed in terms of citation counts. However, scientific activity has moved online over the past decade. To better capture scientific impact in the digital era, a variety of new impact measures has been proposed on the basis of social network analysis and usage log data. Here we investigate how these new measures relate to each other, and how accurately and completely they express scientific impact.

Methodology

We performed a principal component analysis of the rankings produced by 39 existing and proposed measures of scholarly impact that were calculated on the basis of both citation and usage log data.

Conclusions

Our results indicate that the notion of scientific impact is a multi-dimensional construct that can not be adequately measured by any single indicator, although some measures are more suitable than others. The commonly used citation Impact Factor is not positioned at the core of this construct, but at its periphery, and should thus be used with caution.

Received: May 14, 2009; Accepted: May 26, 2009; Published: June 29, 2009

Excerpts

[snip]

A variety of impact measures can be derived from raw citation data. It is however highly common to assess scientific impact in terms of average journal citation rates. In particular, the Thomson Scientific Journal Impact Factor (JIF) [1] which is published yearly as part of the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) is based on this very principle; ... .

The JIF has achieved a dominant position among measures of scientific impact for two reasons. First, it is published as part of a well-known, commonly available citation database (Thomson Scientific's JCR). Second, it has a simple and intuitive definition. The JIF is now commonly used to measure the impact of journals and by extension the impact of the articles they have published, and by even further extension the authors of these articles, their departments, their universities and even entire countries. However, the JIF has a number of undesirable properties which have been extensively discussed in the literature [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]. This had led to a situation in which most experts agree that the JIF is a far from perfect measure of scientific impact but it is still generally used because of the lack of accepted alternatives.

The shortcomings of the JIF as a simple citation statistic have led to the introduction of other measures of scientific impact. Modifications of the JIF have been proposed to cover longer periods of time [7] and shorter periods of times (JCR's Citation Immediacy Index). Different distribution statistics have been proposed, e.g. Rousseau (2005) [8] and the JCR Citation Half-life (http://scientific.thomson.com/free/essay​s/citationanalysis/citationrates/ ). The H-index [9] was originally proposed to rank authors according to their rank-ordered citation distributions, but was extended to journals by Braun (2005) [10]. Randar (2007) [11] and Egghe (2006) [12] propose the g-index as a modification of the H-index.

[snip]

Since scientific literature is now mostly published and accessed online, a number of initiatives have attempted to measure scientific impact from usage log data. The web portals of scientific publishers, aggregator services and institutional library services now consistently record usage at a scale that exceeds the total number of citations in existence. In fact, Elsevier announced 1 billion fulltext downloads in 2006, compared to approximately 600 million citations in the entire Web of Science database. The resulting usage data allows scientific activity to be observed immediately upon publication, rather than to wait for citations to emerge in the published literature and to be included in citation databases such as the JCR; a process that with average publication delays can easily take several years. Shepherd (2007) [19] and Bollen (2008) [20] propose a Usage Impact Factor which consists of average usage rates for the articles published in a journal, similar to the citation-based JIF. Several authors have proposed similar measures based on usage statistics [21]. Parallel to the development of social network measures applied to citation networks, Bollen (2005, 2008) [22], [23] demonstrate the feasibility of a variety of social network measures calculated on the basis of usage networks extracted from the clickstream information contained in usage log data.

These developments have led to a plethora of new measures of scientific impact that can be derived from citation or usage log data, and/or rely on distribution statistics or more sophisticated social network analysis. However, which of these measures is most suitable for the measurement of scientific impact?

This question is difficult to answer for two reasons. First, impact measures can be calculated for various citation and usage data sets, and it is thus difficult to distinguish the true characteristics of a measure from the peculiarities of the data set from which it was calculated. Second, we do not have a universally accepted, golden standard of impact to calibrate any new measures to. In fact, we do not even have a workable definition of the notion of “scientific impact” itself, unless we revert to the tautology of defining it as the number of citations received by a publication. As most abstract concepts “scientific impact” may be understood and measured in many different ways. The issue thus becomes which impact measures best express its various aspects and interpretations.

Here we report on a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) [24] of the rankings produced by a total of 39 different, yet plausible measures of scholarly impact. 19 measures were calculated from the 2007 JCR citation data and 16 from the MESUR project's log usage data collection (http://www.mesur.org/). We included 4 measures of impact published by the Scimago (http://www.scimagojr.com/) group that were calculated from Scopus citation data. The resulting PCA shows the major dimensions along which the abstract notion of scientific impact can be understood and how clusters of measures correspond to similar aspects of scientific impact.

[snip]

PDF Available at

[http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObjectAttachment.action?uri=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0006022&representation=PDF]

Source

[http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0006022]

See Also

MESUR For Measure: MEtrics from Scholarly Usage of Resources

[http://scholarship20.blogspot.com/2008/12/mesur-for-measure-metrics-from.html]

Article-Level Metrics (At PLoS And Beyond)

"Article-Level Metrics at PLoS" takes the view that readers need some way to measure, or at least indicate, the 'worth' (or ‘impact’ etc) of a journal article.

With over a million articles published per year it’s impossible to read everything & so filtering tools are needed. Some journals have been experimenting with providing data on online usage, but PLoS is going further than this.

We are at the start of a program to provide citations, usage data, social bookmarking activity, media & blog coverage, commenting activity, 'star' ratings etc on all articles we publish.

Source ; Slides / Slide Notes / Audio / PDF Available At

[http://www.myplick.com/view/cf8qFak4Ymv/Article-Level-Metrics-at-PLoS-and-beyond]

Related / See Also

[http://everyone.plos.org/2009/05/27/article-level-metrics-at-plos/]

ELPUB 2009 Abstract / Presentation / Paper [06-11-09] (07-01-09)

PLoS One: background, future development, and article-level metrics / Peter Binfield

[http://conferences.aepic.it/index.php/elpub/elpub2009/paper/view/114]

"On Article-Level Metrics And Other Animals"

[http://network.nature.com/people/rpg/blog/2009/06/22/on-article-level-metrics-and-other-animals]

Article-Level Metrics At PLoS > Addition Of Usage Data

[http://scholarship20.blogspot.com/2009/09/article-level-metrics-at-plos-addition.html]

See Also

Article-Level Metrics And The Evolution Of Scientific Impact

[http://scholarship20.blogspot.com/2009/11/article-level-metrics-and-evolution-of.html]

Introduction to Webometrics: Quantitative Web Research for the Social Sciences

Introduction to Webometrics: Quantitative Web Research for the Social Sciences / Michael Thelwall‌ / Morgan & Claypool Publishers / 2009 / 116 pp. / doi:10.2200/S00176ED1V01Y200903ICR004 / ISBN-10: 159829993X ; ISBN-13: 978-1598299939

Abstract

Webometrics is concerned with measuring aspects of the web: web sites, web pages, parts of web pages, words in web pages, hyperlinks, web search engine results. The importance of the web itself as a communication medium and for hosting an increasingly wide array of documents, from journal articles to holiday brochures, needs no introduction. Given this huge and easily accessible source of information, there are limitless possibilities for measuring or counting on a huge scale (e.g., the number of web sites, the number of web pages, the number of blogs) or on a smaller scale (e.g., the number of web sites in Ireland, the number of web pages in the CNN web site, the number of blogs mentioning Barack Obama before the 2008 presidential campaign).

This book argues that it can be useful for social scientists to measure aspects of the web and explains how this can be achieved on both a small and large scale. The book is intended for social scientists with research topics that are wholly or partly online (e.g., social networks, news, political communication) and social scientists with offline research topics with an online reflection, even if this is not a core component (e.g., diaspora communities, consumer culture, linguistic change).

The book is also intended for library and information science students in the belief that the knowledge and techniques described will be useful for them to guide and aid other social scientists in their research. In addition, the techniques and issues are all directly relevant to library and information science research problems.

General Of Table of Contents

Introduction / Web Impact Assessment / Link Analysis / Blog Searching / Automatic Search Engine Searches: LexiURL Searcher / Web Crawling: SocSciBot / Search Engines and Data Reliability / Tracking User Actions Online / Advanced Techniques / Summary and Future Directions

Detailed Table Of Contents

1. Introduction
1.1 New Problems: Web-Based Phenomena
1.2 Old Problems: Offline Phenomena Reflected Online
1.3 History and Definition
1.4 Book Overview

2. Web Impact Assessment
2.1 Web Impact Assessment Via Web Mentions
2.2 Bespoke Web Citation Indexes
2.3 Content Analysis
2.3.1 Category Choices
2.3.2 Sampling Methods
2.3.3 Example
2.3.4 Validity
2.4 URL Analysis of the Spread of Results
2.5 Web Impact Reports
2.6 Web Citation Analysis—An Information Science Application
2.7 Advanced Web Impact Studies
2.8 Summary

3. Link Analysis
3.1 Background: Link Counts as a Type of Information
3.2 Types of Webometric Link Analysis
3.3 Link Impact Assessments
3.3.1 Interpreting the Results
3.3.2 Alternative Link Counting Methods
3.3.3 Case Study: Links to ZigZagMag.com
3.4 Content Analysis of Links
3.6 Colink Relationship Mapping
3.7 Link Impact Reports
3.8 Large-Scale Link Analysis with Multiple Site Groups
3.9 Link Differences Between Sectors—An Information Science Application
3.10 Summary

4. Blog Searching
4.1 Blog Search Engines
4.2 Date-Specific Searches
4.3 Trend Detection
4.4 Checking Trend Detection Results
4.5 Limitations of Blog Data
4.6 Advanced Blog Analysis Techniques
4.7 Summary

5. Automatic Search Engine Searches: LexiURL Searcher
5.1 Introduction to LexiURL Searcher
5.2 LexiURL Searcher Web Impact Reports
5.2.1 Web Impact Reports—Classic Interface Example
5.3 LexiURL Searcher Link Impact Reports
5.3.1 Link Impact Reports—Classic Interface Example
5.4 LexiURL Searcher for Network Diagrams
5.4.1 Rearranging, Saving, and Printing Network Diagrams
5.4.2 Network Diagram—Classic Interface Example
5.4.3 Colink Network Diagrams
5.5 LexiURL Searcher Additional Features

6. Web Crawling: SocSciBot
6.1 Web Crawlers
6.2 Overview of SocSciBot
6.3 Network Diagrams of Sets of Web Sites with SocSciBot
6.4 Other Uses for Web Crawls

7. Search Engines and Data Reliability
7.1 Search Engine Architecture
7.1.1 Duplicate and Near-Duplicate Elimination
7.2 Comparing Different Search Engines
7.3 Research Into Search Engine Results
7.4 Modeling the Web’s Link Structure

8. Tracking User Actions Online
8.1 Single-Site Web Analytics and Log File Analysis
8.2 Multiple-Site Web Analytics
8.3 Search Engine Log File Analysis

9. Advanced Techniques
9.1 Query Splitting
9.2 Virtual Memetics
9.3 Web Issue Analysis
9.4 Data Mining Social Network Sites
9.5 Social Network Analysis and Small Worlds
9.6 Folksonomy Tagging
9.7 API Programming and Mashup

10. Summary and Future Directions

Glossary /References / Author / Biography

Publication Web Page

[http://www.morganclaypool.com/doi/abs/10.2200/S00176ED1V01Y200903ICR004]

Access For Subscribers / Pay-Per-View For Non-Subscribers

Open Access No Longer Available [05-30-09]

Also Available In Paper

[http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Webometrics-Quantitative-Synthesis-Information/dp/159829993X]

Bibliometrics and Citation Analysis: From the Science Citation Index to Cybermetrics

Bibliometrics and Citation Analysis: From the Science Citation Index to Cybermetrics / Nicola De Bellis / Scarecrow Press / March 2009 / 450 pp. / ISBN: 0-8108-6713-3 ; ISBN-13: 978-0-8108-6713-0 / $ 55 / Paper

DESCRIPTION

Can the methods of science be directed toward science itself? How did it happen that scientists, scientific documents, and their bibliographic links came to be regarded as mathematical variables in abstract models of scientific communication? What is the role of quantitative analyses of scientific and technical documentation in current science policy and management? Bibliometrics and Citation Analysis: From the Science Citation Index to Cybermetrics answers these questions through a comprehensive overview of theories, techniques, concepts, and applications in the interdisciplinary and steadily growing field of bibliometrics.

Since citation indexes came into the limelight during the mid-1960s, citation networks have become increasingly important for many different research fields. The book begins by investigating the empirical, philosophical, and mathematical foundations of bibliometrics, including its beginnings with the Science Citation Index, the theoretical framework behind it, and its mathematical underpinnings. It then examines the application of bibliometrics and citation analysis in the sciences and science studies, especially the sociology of science and science policy. Finally it provides a view of the future of bibliometrics, exploring in detail the ongoing extension of bibliometric methods to the structure and dynamics of the World Wide Web.

This book gives newcomers to the field of bibliometrics an accessible entry point to an entire research tradition otherwise scattered through a vast amount of journal literature. At the same time, it brings to the forefront the cross-disciplinary linkages between the various fields (sociology, philosophy, mathematics, politics) that intersect at the crossroads of citation analysis. Because of its discursive and interdisciplinary approach, the book is useful to those in every area of scholarship involved in the quantitative analysis of information exchanges, but also to science historians and general readers who simply wish to familiarize themselves with an important, albeit increasingly complex area of information science.

TABLE OF CONTENTS [World Cat]

Biblio/sciento/infor-metrics : terminological issues and early historical developments -- The empirical foundations of bibliometrics : the Science citation index -- The philosophical foundations of bibliometrics : Bernal, Merton, Price, Garfield, and Small -- The mathematical foundations of bibliometrics -- Maps and paradigms : bibliographic citations at the service of the history and sociology of science -- Impact factor and the evaluation of scientists : bibliographic citations at the service of science policy and management -- On the shoulders of dwarfs : citation as rhetorical device and the criticisms to the normative model -- Measuring scientific communication in the twentieth century : from bibliometrics to cybermetrics.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nicola De Bellis is a medical librarian at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia [Italy]

Source

[http://www.scarecrowpress.com/Catalog/SingleBook.shtml?command=Search&db=%5EDB/CATALOG.db&eqSKUdata=0810867133]

Flyer/Order Form

[http://www.scarecrowpress.com/Catalog/Flyer2.shtml?SKU=0810867133]