Bibliometrics in Social Work

Gary Holden, Gary Rosenberg, Kathleen Barker

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780789030702
• eBook ISBN: 9781136442070
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Health Care Delivery

Bibliometrics in Social Work examiness the cross-disciplinary field of bibliometrics, including the multiple techniques and applications that have been described in the scholarly literature. Moving beyond this general overview, the authors examine applications of bibliometrics in social work. Subsequent chapters detail how the technique can be used to demonstrate the eventual impact on the field of publications in selected journals. These analyses are conducted using the bibliometric technique referred to as citation analysis. The authors then move on to present what will be a controversial proposal to some in the field: using bibliometrics techniques in making academic personnel decisions. The authors propose that hiring, retention, tenure and promotion decisions could be made more uniform and fair by using citation analysis. A series of experts in bibliometric analyses then critically respond to these initial chapters. The authors conclude by weaving their responses to these commentators with new scholarship on bibliometrics that has recently appeared.

This unique book is a valuable aid for social work scholars. Drawing on broad interdisciplinary streams of scholarship from around the world, the collection illuminates a field that is not well known to social workers. While cautiously advocating for a number of applications of the technique, the authors balance this position by presenting a comprehensive summary of the criticisms of the technique and by the inclusion of a series of critical commentaries by the leading experts on these issues in the field of social work. Bibliometrics in Social Work both summarizes what we know and pushes the field to think about how social work professionals can use this approach to improve our scholarship and the evaluation of scholars.

Bibliometrics in Social Work addreses:

• theoretical and methodological issuess
  
• pros and cons from the view of numerous bibliometric scholars
  
• bibliometrics outside of social work
  
• applications within social work previously reported in the literature
  
• estimates that have been reported in the literature of how much social workers publish and how much impact those publications have had
  
• how citation analysis can be used to analyzed a selection of publications in a single journal and their subsequent impact
  
• how citation analysis might be used to improve academic employment decisions
  
• concerns regarding self-citation and multiple authorship
  
• measurement issues in bibliometrics (e.g., age adjustments; concentration citedness, and uncitedness; the Price Index; lag times; persistence; synchronous and diachronous self-citations; the Multiple Author Qualifier)

Bibliometrics in Social Work critically examines these methods and their applications in social work. The book will be an enlightening read for social work scholars and those academic administrators involved in the evaluation of social work scholars, as well as academic librarians that support social work programs.

Index

Page numbers followed by the letter “t” designate tables. See also cross-references designate related topics.

Academic freedom, 85–86

Academics, quality of venue and, 57

Academic vs. practice fields, 22

Accuracy, of reference lists, 134–135

Adjusted total articles, 84

Advantages and disadvantages, 4, 5–6t

Age of articles, 41

computation of, 76–77

Social Work in Health Care, 50, 51–54t, 55

American Society of Pediatric Neurosurgeons, 124

Applications

of citation analysis, 3, 7–8, 114

library, 133

Appropriate vs. inappropriate self-citation, 42

Associate/assistant professors, frequency of citation, 71

Audit culture, 85

Authors

Australian, 134

impact of, 24

number of, 43, 44t, 56, 78–79. See also Multiple authorship

Best available information principle, 117–121

Bias, 6t

in self-citation, 6t

Bibliometrics. See also Citation analysis

advantages, 4, 5–6t

applications, 3, 114

basic research, 142

in decision-making, 67–102

definitions, 70–72

disadvantages, 4, 4t

future in social work, 141–144

journals related to, 3

lack of standards, 113–114, 141

library, application, 142

meaning, 119, 138–139. See also Critiques

new research, 135–144

personal memoir (I. Epstein), 93–101

research evaluation, 142

scientific information, 142

shortcomings, 79–86, 117–121. See also Critiques

single-journal analyses, 132–133

in social work specifically, 7–8

theo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• About the Editors
• Tracing Thought Through Time and Space: A Selective Review of Bibliometrics in Social Work
• What Happens to Our Ideas? A Bibliometric Analysis of Articles in Social Work in Health Care in the 1990s
• Bibliometrics: A Potential Decision Making Aid in Hiring, Reappointment, Tenure and Promotion Decisions
• Following in the Footnotes of Giants: Citation Analysis and Its Discontents
• The Paradox of Faculty Publications in Professional Journals
• Politics of Personnel and Landscapes of Knowledge
• Bibliometrics: The Best Available Information?
• Bibliometrics and Social Work: A Two-Edged Sword Can Still Be a Blunt Instrument
• Shallow Science or Meta-Cognitive Insights: A Few Thoughts on Reflection via Bibliometrics
• Index