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Citer analysis as a measure of research impact: library and information science as a case study

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Abstract

The investigators studied author research impact using the number of citers per publication an author’s research has been able to attract, as opposed to the more traditional measure of citations. A focus on citers provides a complementary measure of an author’s reach or influence in a field, whereas citations, although possibly numerous, may not reflect this reach, particularly if many citations are received from a small number of citers. In this exploratory study, Web of Science was used to tally citer and citation-based counts for 25 highly cited researchers in information studies in the United States and 26 highly cited researchers from the United Kingdom. Outcomes of the tallies based on several measures, including an introduced ch-index, were used to determine whether differences arise in author rankings when using citer-based versus citation-based counts. The findings indicate a strong correlation between some citation and citer-based measures, but not with others. The findings of the study have implications for the way authors’ research impact may be assessed.

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Notes

  1. We would have liked to have used c-index, but this appears to have been previously proposed in a different context (Wang et al. 2008).

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Acknowledgement

We would like to thank Nicole Johnson for providing research assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Information and Media Studies, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, N6A 5B7, Canada

    Isola Ajiferuke

  2. School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, P.O. Box 413, Milwaukee, WI, 53201, USA

    Dietmar Wolfram

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  1. Isola Ajiferuke
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  2. Dietmar Wolfram
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Correspondence to Dietmar Wolfram.

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Ajiferuke, I., Wolfram, D. Citer analysis as a measure of research impact: library and information science as a case study. Scientometrics 83, 623–638 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-009-0127-6

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