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Wuhan University, Wuhan (China)
Abstract
Bibliometrics, scientometrics, and informetrics (also called the three metrics) differ in subject background but
are the same in theories, methods, technologies, and applications. Analyzing their current situation and
relationships can help comprehensively understand the three fields. In this study, we collect the data of the three
metrics through keyword search in 2007–2016. We also compare and visualize the three metrics in terms of the
distribution of publications and cooperation (recognition level), the main research topics (intellectual structure),
and the reference situation (knowledge communication). Results show that the three metrics differ in the degrees
of utilization and recognition but are similar in the general direction. We recommend the addition of
bibliometrics in the title of the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics.
Keywords
Bibliometrics; Scientometrics; Informetrics; Knowledge Domain Visualization; CiteSpace
Conference Topic
The relationship and development of five metric science concepts: Bibliometrics, Informetrics, Scientometrics,
Webometrics, and Knowledgometrics.
Introduction
Bibliometrics, scientometrics, and informetrics (also called the three metrics) are three related
terms in metrology. These terms are used to describe similar and overlapping methodologies;
however, their well-documented historical origins differ, and they are not necessarily
synonymous (Hood & Wilson, 2001). The rapid progress and development of science and
technology have improved the research objects, goals, and methods of the three metrics. New
branches such as webmetrics and altmetrics (Egghe, 2005), and new indexes and evaluation
measures including Citescore and the H index, have also appeared (Hirsch, 2005). Although
these terms differ in disciplinary background and emergence time (Qiu et al., 2017), they are
used in accordance with their own cognition and position, thereby causing significant
confusion. There are many journals with “scientometrics” or “informetrics” in their titles exist,
but few journals with “bibliometrics” in their titles exist. The International Society for
Scientometrics and Informetrics (ISSI) is the most significant conference in the three metrics.
ISSI contains scientometrics and informetrics in its title but has no bibliometrics. Given that
confusion can harm the development and application of the three metrics (Hood & Wilson,
2001), the development of the three terms and their relationships should be examined. This
study explores the current situation and relationships of the three metrics from the following
three aspects: the number of published papers and cooperation (recognition level), the main
research topics (intellectual structure), and the reference situation (knowledge
communication).
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Background
Definitions of bibliometrics
Bibliometrics methods have been applied in various forms for more than a century (Hood &
Wilson, 2001). The term “bibliometrics” was first introduced by Pritchard (1969), who
defined it as “the application of mathematical and statistical methods to books and other
media of communication.” Fairthorne (1969) expanded the definition scope of bibliometrics
by defining it as the quantitative treatment of the properties of recorded discourse and
behavior appertaining to it. Then, Broadus (1987) defined bibliometrics as the quantitative
study of physically published units, or of bibliographic units, or of alternatives of either.
Definitions of scientometrics
Nalimov and Mulchenko (1971) coined the Russian equivalent of the term “scientometrics” in
1969, and defined it as the quantitative study of various kinds of intelligence process in the
development of science. The term has obtained broad acceptance from the journal
Scientometrics, which was built in 1978. Scientometrics is a discipline that uses mathematical
methods to quantify the scientific research personnel and achievements to reveal the process
of scientific development, and can provide scientific basis for scientific decision making and
management (Qiu et al., 2017). Scientometrics uses citation analysis and other quantitative
methods to evaluate scientific research activities and thus guide the policy of science (Egghe,
2005).
Definitions of informetrics
Nacke first proposed the German term “informetrie.” By the early 1990s, the term
“informetrics” obtained wide recognition. Nacke believed that informetrics is a study applied
in mathematical methods for information science objects (Qiu et al., 2017). This definition is
slightly one sided because it limits the scope of informetrics in information science. Tague-
Sutcliffe extended informetrics to the quantitative study of any form of information; thus,
informetrics is not simply a bibliographic record or any social group, or not limited to
scientists (Fairthorne, 1969). This definition enlarges the research scope and content of
informetrics. Qiu et al. (2017) divided informetrics into two aspects of broad and narrow
senses. The broad sense of informetrics research is very broad, whereas the narrow sense of
informetrics mainly uses mathematical, statistical, and other quantitative methods to study the
characteristics and laws of information quantitatively.
emphasized that the authors’ use of “bibliometrics” synonymously for the three metrics has
resulted in chaos. Hood and Wilson (2001) analyzed the differences among the three metrics
by investigating the history of the three terms through analyzing the number of papers and
journals between 1968 and 2000. Wen and Qiu (2006) suggested that the three metrics belong
to different superordinate disciplines; however, they have the same research objects,
indicators, and methods. Some believed that the three metrics present a crossing and partial
overlapping relationship, but others argued that the three metrics exhibit an inclusive
relationship; for example, informetrics has many meanings and includes bibliometrics and
scientometrics (Qiu et al., 2017)
Method
The current situation and relationships of the three metrics include various aspects. In this
study, we analyze only three major areas: 1) the usage and distribution of the three terms on
the basis of the number of publications and cooperation; 2) the research contents and
intellectual structure on the basis of field topics; and 3) the knowledge communication and
flow on the basis of the citation and reference. We use EXCEL and CiteSpace for data
statistics and network development .
Data
We downloaded data sets comprising articles, reviews, and papers from SCI-Expanded, SSCI,
and A&HCI between 2007 and 2016. Following Hood and Wilson (2001), we retrieve the
literature of the three metrics using “TS = (bibliometric* or bibliometry or bibliometrical* or
bibliometrician* or “statistical bibliography” or bibliometrie),” “TS = (scientometric* or
scientometry or scientometrical* or scientometrician*),” and “TS = (informetric* or
informetry or informetrician* or informetrie).” Finally, we combine the three search strategies
to investigate the overlapping situation of the three metrics.
Result
Overall situation
The retrieval results show that bibliometrics has the largest number of publications, which is
approximately four times of that of scientometrics and 20 times of that of informetrics. A
large difference is found in the number of literature among the three fields in 2007–2016,
possibly because of the difference in their history and degree of social recognition. In the past
10 years, the annual volume of publications on bibliometrics is higher than that on
scientometrics and informetrics, the number of publications on bibliometrics has the largest
increase among the three fields, the increase for scientometrics is at an intermediate level and
informetrics presents the smallest increase .
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Cooperation network
Author cooperation network
Figure 2 shows that seven large groups are present in the author cooperation network of
bibliometrics in 2007–2016. Notably, the size of the nodes represents the number of
publications of authors. D’Angelo, Abrano, Bornmann, and Ho, and other high-yield authors,
have their own fixed partners and present close cooperation within the group. Some authors
publish few articles but present many partnerships. For example, Waltman is in Ho’s
collaboration group and has a small number of articles but has six cooperative partners in the
threshold range. Moreover, Kostoff publishes few articles but collaborates with every member
TYPE:Full Paper
of the group. The said authors are inclined to conduct scientific research through cooperation.
In general, many cooperative groups exist in bibliometrics. The internal cooperative
relationship is close, collaborations between only two authors are few, and the degree of
cooperation is high.
In general, under the same parameter setting, the degree of cooperation among the institutions
of bibliometrics is the highest, and the cooperative relationship of bibliometrics is close and
of the largest scale among the three metrics. Meanwhile, the cooperative relationship of
scientometrics and informetrics is dispersed. Only one to three large groups exist in
scientometrics and informetrics; thus, the scale of other groups is very small. However, the
scale of institutional cooperation is also affected by the total amount of literature and the habit
of specific authors (Yang et al., 2017).
Subject structure
We choose the co-words analysis to explore the subject structure of the three fields.
Considering the color confusion after clustering, we provide a screenshot of categories
depending on the color of each node prior to labeling the category name. The latter analysis is
based on the cluster name provided by Citespace. The clustering results are shown in Figs. 5,
6, and 7.
Figure 5 shows five main subjects in bibliometrics: 1) research on the general development
trend and influence of bibliometric analysis; 2) research based on bibliometric indicators of
the scientific research output, the ranking of universities, and the evaluation on individual
academic; 3) application of bibliometrics in scientific research management; 4) research on
cooperation network and model, application of text mining, and other new technologies in
other disciplines; 5) the use of the H index and other indicators to analyze the citation of
papers or other publications from various databases and thus evaluate the academic capability
and scientific research achievements.
As shown in the document co-citation network and the specific literature list of scientometrics,
#1–4 scientometric approach and #5 scientometric are peculiar knowledge components of
scientometrics. #1–4 scientometric approach is the basis of two research directions. King
measured (2004) the status and influence of national scientific research with scientometrics
methods, and Moed (2005) explored the application of citation analysis in scientific
evaluation. The two documents provided an empirical basis for the application of
scientometrics methods in the scientific evaluation. Konur applied scientometrics methods to
the quantitative research in biochemistry, and this document provided the knowledge base for
the application of scientometrics methods to different fields. #5 scientometric mainly contains
the scientific basis of visualization technology and social network analysis in scientometrics.
Chen (2006, 2010) developed CiteSpace, which is an important visualization tool for studies
on subject topics and trends, and its functions are constantly optimized and improved to date.
As shown in the document co-citation network and the specific literature list of informetrics,
#0 ranking, #2 pagerank, and #4 Lotkas law are peculiar knowledge components of
informetrics. #0 ranking is mainly based on the articles of Hirsch (2005) and Braun et al.
(2006), who studied the assessment and ranking of academic impact on individuals and
journals using the H index, thereby establishing the foundation for the innovation and
application of indicators in ranking and evaluation of scientific research. #2 pagerank is the
part wherein Ding (2009) studied factors that affect the ranking of the PageRank algorithm,
and proposed the weighted PageRank algorithm. The study provided experience for the
further application of the PageRank algorithm in informetrics. #4 Lotkas law is the part
wherein the basic knowledge theory is comprehensively explored and the mathematical model
is applied to the theoretical hypothesis.
three terms, so we think that the term "bibliometrics" can be used as a general term for
“scientometrics” and “informetrics” in order to avoid confusion in terms.
2) Cooperation. Universities are the main institutions in the three metrics. The scale of the
cooperative group of bibliometrics is larger than that of scientometrics and informetrics, and
the group relationships of bibliometrics are tight. Many two-author cooperative groups with
scattered scale exist in scientometrics. The author cooperative network of informetrics is the
sparsest and has the smallest scale among the three metrics. Bibliometrics has the highest
degree of institutional cooperation and the largest scale of institutional cooperation network.
On the contrary, the cooperative relationships of scientometrics and informetrics are dispersed,
and the size of the group is small.
3) Subject structure. Bibliometrics attaches great importance to the development of the three
metrics and the application of bibliometric methods in scientific research management. Other
disciplines use scientometrics when applying metrological methods, such as citation analysis.
Scientometrics emphasizes the quality of scientific research output and focuses on research on
scientometrics development trends. In the network environment, researchers prefer to use
informetrics when researching information systems and the combination of mathematical
models and informetrics methods.
4) Knowledge base. A significant difference is found in the knowledge base of the three
metrics. The H index is the common knowledge base of the three fields in focusing on
innovating and improving indicators. The peculiar knowledge bases of bibliometrics include
review on the history of each specific research direction, data coverage and search capabilities
of emerging data search tools, and application of bibliometrics in the medical field. The
peculiar knowledge bases of scientometrics include the application of scientometrics methods
in scientific evaluation and other disciplines, such as visualization techniques and social
network analysis. The peculiar knowledge bases of informetrics include comprehensive
exploration of the basic theory of and research on the PageRank algorithm.
This study presents a few limitations. The overall situation of the three metrics can be
accurately compared using long data period. However, this study uses only the data from
2007 to 2016. Although we carefully refine some terms and construct a document retrieval
formula, the data collection is still incomplete and thus cannot fully represent the data for the
three metrics. The current situation and relationships of the three metrics include various
aspects, but this study focuses on only three major areas. Therefore, the comparative analysis
is insufficient. Future research can conduct interview with experts, extend the data period,
perform in-depth content analysis, and use other methods in comparing the relationships
among the three metrics.
Acknowledgments
This research is funded by the National Social Science Fund Key Project of PR China (17ATQ009).
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