Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Exploring knowledge patterns of library and information science journals within the field: a citation analysis from 2009 to 2016

  • Published:
Scientometrics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

A substantial number of studies have examined the journal quality and ranked them using academic survey, scientometric indicator, or citation analysis. This study aims to investigate library and information science (LIS) journal impact from a different perspective: the knowledge contribution to peer journals in the LIS field. The data are selected from the SSCI and SCI databases by Thomson Reuters from 2009 to 2016. Based on the criterion that the journal has at least 6 years of citation data, a total of 26 LIS-related journals were selected for this study. These journals are divided into four quadrants according to their knowledge impact on peer journals. This study not only uses social network analysis to investigate the citation patterns among the journals and rank the journals based on different structural characteristics in the network but also examines the formation of subfields through clustering analysis. The findings suggest research avenues for LIS scholars and journal editors, such as identifying research subgroups and formulating strategies for LIS journal development.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Abbasi, A., Hossain, L., & Leydesdorff, L. (2012). Betweenness centrality as a driver of preferential attachment in the evolution of research collaboration networks. Journal of Informetrics, 6(3), 403–412.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Allan, K. (2012). Contemporary social and sociological theory: Visualizing social worlds. Beverley Hills: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barabási, A. L., & Albert, R. (1999). Emergence of scaling in random networks. Science, 286, 509–512.

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Barnes, S. J. (2005). Assessing the value of IS journals. Communications of ACM, 48(1), 110–112.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Bavelas, A. (1948). A mathematical model for group structures. Human Organization, 7, 16–30.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Benbasat, I., & Zmud, R. W. (2003). The identity crisis within the IS discipline: Defining and communicating the discipline’s core properties. MIS Quarterly, 27(2), 183–194.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Braun, T., Glänzel, W., & Schubert, A. (2006). A Hirsch-type index for journals. Scientometrics, 69(1), 169–173.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burkhardt, M. E., & Brass, D. J. (1990). Changing patterns or patterns of change? The effects of a change in technology on social network structure and power. Administrative Science Quarterly, 35(1), 104–127.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burt, R. S. (2004). Structural holes and good ideas. American Journal of Sociology, 110(2), 349–399.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chi, L., Holsapple, C. W., & Srinivasan, C. (2007). Competitive dynamics in electronic networks: A model and the case of interorganizational systems. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 11(3), 7–49.

  • Clark, J. G., Au, Y. A., Walz, D. B., & Warren, J. (2011). Assessing researcher publication productivity in the leading information systems journals: A 2005–2009 update. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 29(26), 459–504.

    Google Scholar 

  • Culnan, M. J. (1987). Mapping the intellectual structure of MIS, 1980–1985: A co-citation analysis. MIS Quarterly, 34, 1–353.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eom, Y. H., & Fortunato, S. (2011). Characterizing and modeling citation dynamics. PLoS ONE, 6(9), e24926.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Freeman, L. C. (1979). Centrality in social networks: Conceptual clarifications. Social Network, 1(3), 215–239.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Glänzel, W., Thijs, B., Schubert, A., & Debackere, K. (2008). Subfield-specific normalized relative indicators and a new generation of relational charts: Methodological foundations illustrated on the assessment of institutional research performance. Scientometrics, 78(1), 165–188.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hamilton, S., & Ives, B. (1980). Communications of MIS research: An analysis of journal stratifications. In The first international conference on information systems (pp. 220–232), Philadelphia, PA.

  • Hanneman, R. A., & Riddle, M. (2005). Introduction to social network methods. Oakland: University of California.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hassan, N. R., & Loebbecke, C. (2017). Engaging scientometrics in information systems. Journal of Information Technology, 32(1), 85–109.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hirsch, J. E. (2005). An index to quantify an individual’s scientific output. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 102, 16569–16572.

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Holsapple, C. W., Johnson, L., Manakyan, H., & Tanner, J. (1994). Business computing research journals: An normalized citation analysis. Journal of Management Information Systems, 11(1), 131–140.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hu, C. P., Hu, J. M., Deng, S. L., & Liu, Y. (2013). A co-word analysis of library and information science in China. Scientometrics, 97(2), 369–382.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Katerattanakul, P., Han, B., & Hong, S. (2003). Objective quality ranking of computing journals. Communications of ACM, 46(10), 111–114.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Konkiel, S. (2013). Altmetrics: A 21st century solution to determining research quality. Online Searcher, 37(4), 11–15.

    Google Scholar 

  • Larsen, K. (2007). Knowledge network hubs and measures of research impact, science structure, and publication output in nanostructured solar cell research. Scientometrics, 74(1), 123–142.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, B. R., Templeton, G. F., & Luo, X. (2005). A scientometric investigation into the validity of IS journal quality measures. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 8(12), 619–633.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leydesdorff, L. (2006). Can scientific journals be classified in terms of aggregated journal–journal citation relations using the Journal Citation Reports? Journal of the American Society of Information Science and Technology, 57(5), 601–613.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leydesdorff, L., & Opthof, T. (2010). Scopus’s source normalized impact per paper (SNIP) versus a journal impact factor based on fractional counting of citations. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 61(11), 2365–2369.

    Google Scholar 

  • Li, E. Y. (2009). Journal self-citation III: Exploring the self-citation patterns in MIS journals. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 25(3), 21–32.

    Google Scholar 

  • Li, E. Y., & Parker, M. (2012). Citation patterns in organization and management journals: Margins and centres. Organization, 20(2), 299–322.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liebowitz, J. (2005). Linking social network analysis with the analytic hierarchy process for knowledge mapping in organizations. Journal of Knowledge Management, 9(1), 76–86.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liu, Z. (2005). Mapping interdisciplinarity in demography: A journal network analysis. Journal of Information Science, 31(4), 308–316.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liu, X., Bollen, J., Nelson, M. L., & Van de Sompel, H. (2005). Co-authorship networks in the digital library research community. Information Processing and Management, 41(6), 1462–1480.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lowry, P. B., Romans, D., & Curtis, A. (2004). Global journal prestige and supporting disciplines: A scientometric study of Information Systems journals. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 5(2), 29–80.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lu, H., & Feng, Y. (2009). A measure of authors’ centrality in co-authorship networks based on the distribution of collaborative relationships. Scientometrics, 81(2), 499–511.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Majchrzak, A., Faraj, S., Kane, G. C., & Azad, B. (2013). The contradictory influence of social media affordances on online communal knowledge sharing. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 19, 38–55.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Merton, R. K. (1973). The sociology of science: Theoretical and empirical investigations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mingers, J., & Leydesdorff, L. (2014). Identifying research fields within business and management: A journal cross-citation analysis. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 66, 1370–1384.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moed, H. F. (2010). Measuring contextual citation impact of scientific journals. Journal of Informetrics, 4(3), 265–277.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mylonopoulos, N. A., & Theoharakis, V. (2001). Global perceptions of IS journals. Communications of ACM, 44(9), 29–33.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nederhof, A. J. (2011). A bibliometric study of productivity and impact of modern language and literature research. Research Evaluation, 20(2), 117–129.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nederhof, A. J., Meijer, R. F., Moed, H. F., & van Raan, A. F. (1993). Research performance indicators for university departments: A study of an agricultural university. Scientometrics, 27(2), 157–178.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Newman, M. E. J. (2003). The structure and function of complex networks. SLAM Review, 45(2), 167–256.

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Nisonger, T. E. (1999). JASIS and library and information science journal rankings: A review and analysis of the last half-century. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 50(11), 1004–1019.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Otte, E., & Rousseau, R. (2002). Social network analysis: A powerful strategy, also for the information sciences. Journal of Information Science, 28(6), 441–453.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Peffers, K., & Ya, T. (2003). Identifying and evaluating the universe of outlets for information systems research: Ranking the journals. Journal of Information Technology theory and application, 5(1), 63–84.

    Google Scholar 

  • Polites, G. L., & Watson, R. T. (2009). Using social network analysis to analyze relationships among IS journals. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 10(8), 595–636.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Priem, J., Taraborelli, D., Groth, P., & Neylon, C. (2010). Altmetrics: A manifesto, October 26, 2010. Retrieved from http://altmetrics.org/manifesto. Accessed 28 Sept 2018.

  • Rainer, R. K., Jr., & Miller, M. D. (2005). Examining differences across journal rankings. Communications of ACM, 48(2), 91–94.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Straub, D. (2006). The value of scientometric studies: An introduction to a debate on IS as a reference discipline. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 7(5), 241–245.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sugimoto, C. R., Pratt, J. A., & Hauser, K. (2008). Using field co-citation analysis to assess reciprocal and shared impact of LIS/MIS fields. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 59(9), 1441–1453.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Troshani, T., & Doolin, B. (2007). Innovation diffusion: A stakeholder and social network view. European Journal of Innovation Management, 10(2), 176–200.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Truex, D., Cuellar, M., Takeda, H., & Vidgen, R. (2011). The scholarly influence of Heinz Klein: Ideational and social measures of his impact on IS research and IS scholars. European Journal of Information Systems, 20(4), 422–429.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • van Raan, A. F. J. (1996). Advanced bibliometric methods as quantitative core of peer review based evaluation and foresight exercises. Scientometrics, 36(3), 397–420.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Van Raan, A. F. J. (1998). The impact of international collaboration on the impact of research results. Scientometrics, 42(3), 423–428.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wasserman, S., & Faust, K. (1994). Social network analysis: Methods and applications. Chicago: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Whitman, M., Hendrickson, A., & Townsend, A. (1999). Research commentary: Academic rewards for teaching, research and service: Data and discourse. Information Systems Research, 10(2), 99–109.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Xu, J., Marshall, B., Kaza, S., & Chen, H. (2004). Analyzing and visualizing criminal network dynamics: A case study. In International conference on intelligence and security informatics (pp. 359–377).

  • Zitt, M., & Small, H. (2008). Modifying the journal impact factor by fractional citation weighting: The audience factor. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 59(11), 1856–1860.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This study was sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan (MOST107-2410-H-025-011, MOST107-2634-F-025-001, MOST-106-2410-H-030-018-MY3, MOST106-2634-F-025-001).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Fu Jen Catholic University, New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC

    Chien Hsiang Liao

  2. National Taichung University of Science and Technology, Taichung, Taiwan, ROC

    Mu-Yen Chen

Authors
  1. Chien Hsiang Liao
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Mu-Yen Chen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mu-Yen Chen.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Liao, C.H., Chen, MY. Exploring knowledge patterns of library and information science journals within the field: a citation analysis from 2009 to 2016. Scientometrics 117, 1991–2008 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2925-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2925-1

Keywords

Search

Navigation