Citation Tracking in Academic Libraries

An Overview

Judith Mavodza

• Publisher: Chandos Publishing
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780081017593
• eBook ISBN: 9780081017623
• Topic: Lingue e linguistica
• Subtopic: Scienze dell'informazione e biblioteconomia

Citation Tracking in Academic Libraries: An Overview presents results from the overarching need for researchers to get relevant advice for their scholarly pursuits. This is even more critical in the fast changing environment, where even those who are established scholars find the new scholarly publishing paradigm hectic, and amateurs get easily intimidated. In the wake of the competitive ranking of universities, there is an added requirement for faculty to be involved with research activities so they can enhance the standing of their parent institutions. That means there is a need to use valid and authentic platforms for publishing. Making reference to already existing texts and answering questions that have been encountered by the author, the book is compiled to make easy, short, and concise reading that is an overview on the tracking of citations. Besides giving suggestions on how academic librarians can provide support to scholars, it includes the benefit of having librarians who are also scholars. - Explains the role of the academic library in citation tracking matters - Presents an explanation of what the academic librarian does in the scholarly publishing arena - Articulates the role of a research agenda in giving direction to research activities - Provides reasons to discuss the collaborative nature of library work and other offices of the university that support scholarly productivity

Chapter 1

Background Discussion

Abstract

It can be a very stressful position to be in when educators are required to modify their perception of what educating university students entails. This specifically relates to an instance where the university has originally been a teaching-centered facility to one that increasingly includes research-oriented priorities. The result is that several are not sure where and how to engage in the publishing arena for a variety of reasons. It may even be unclear why they should care.

Keywords

Citation tracking; impact factor; SCImago Journal Rank (SJR); Impact per Publication (IPP); Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP); United Arab Emirates (UAE); Zayed University

1.1 Introduction

This book is a result of experience working at Zayed University (ZU) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The university was originally a teaching-centered facility, as with many in the region (Mrad, Hanafi, & Arvanitis, 2013). However, it is gradually altering its model to increasingly include research-oriented priorities, with a learner-centered approach as the way to educate students. This is very similar to the situation in many universities across the world, and particularly in the developing world. It is in line with countries’ vision to enable education institutions to undertake research and enhance the probability of innovativeness and creativity among both faculty and students for strengthening the chances of making smart decisions. Accompanying this policy is the requirement for university faculty to develop, increase, and produce more scholarly work. This means that educators who previously did not have an inclination to do research are now required to do so, causing a lot of anxiety and stress for several reasons.

1.2 Dealing With Change and Reorientation in Teaching Practice

The learner-centered teaching that many universities are now putting into practice is a consequence of research and experience over a long time, and an inevitable result of/reaction to current changes in the information communication technology arena and global trends. ZU is no exception in adopting this approach. In fact, according to Doyle (2011, p. 7), “the traditional model of teacher-centered instruction, where teachers do a lot of the work, is less effective and can be detrimental to students’ learning.” But then, learner-centered approaches do not happen on their own. The educators have to learn, research, and study what it takes to adopt the approach, so that it is possible to move toward where research is taking the education profession. The approach also encourages them to undertake research in a wide variety of academic fields.

Mentioning this comes easy, but putting it into practice has many hurdles. For example, educators now have to appreciate that life does not have a syllabus, and that many classroom projects may not necessarily have real-life situations built into them if they are not deliberately thought out to achieve that. That means a student who attains an “A” grade is successful only if that is relevant to actual life situations rather than only to the exam as an end in itself. On the part of the student, learner-centered approaches require what Sternberg (2011) refers to as current students being expected to be creative, analytical, and use practical intelligence. Zhang, Sternberg, and Rayner (2011) postulate that there is a relationship between culture and learning, and this is a fact that educators at ZU and in other places where the background of the majority of educators and that of students are varied have to bear in mind.

While getting involved with research enhances the scholar’s image, it also helps avoid having the numerous expatriate educators being unconsciously incompetent (Bradley, 1997), in the sense that they genuinely try to offer services only according to what they have been trained but unaware of their lack of knowledge or expertise on how to appropriately communicate in the host culture. It sometimes happens that faculty members can innocently be unaware of culturally competent pedagogical strategies or how to respond in culturally sensitive ways, and thus they lack the ability to successfully communicate and work with learners from other cultures (Gopal, 2011; Paige & Goode, 2009). All these issues require researching into in order to keep abreast of inevitable professional changes, but that is accompanied by a lot of anxiety especially when it becomes a requirement.

1.3 Publishing Anxiety

Firstly, some of the educators are not sure where and how to engage in the publishing arena because it is complicated for them; secondly, making time for research when they already have a heavy teaching load is demanding; thirdly, prevailing discussions about university rankings (implying that they have to publish in recognized spaces) confuses many; fourthly, when they come across interesting sounding journal titles, they are sometimes unsure if they are not predatory; and fifthly, discussions of such terms as citation metrics and impact factor remain murky among many. Reference to metrics and indexing sources such as Scopus cause confusion, especially when there is mention of terms like SJR (SCImago Journal Rank), IPP (Impact per Publication), and SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper). The challenge becomes even more aggravating because some journals are not indexed in Scopus, but appear in alternative spaces such as Cabell’s Directories, which provide an “acceptance rate,” and then there is reference to journal citation reports, leaving some unsure of what to do, but wanting to get support from the library. Mention of alternative metrics (altmetrics), Eigenfactor, and h-index are terms that make the topic even murkier. Sometimes even the types of publications one can publish is not clear, for example, the benefits of producing original research, a review, a commentary, a case study, a book review, a clinical trial, and so on. It can also even be scary to imagine the prospects of one’s work being peer reviewed, with possible rejection of submissions.

Nonetheless, providing support to budding (and some experienced) researchers and scholars does not necessarily mean that every librarian has all the information and understands the meanings and implications of terms mentioned and used in bibliometrics. In fact, sometimes they are equally in need of a source of answers and explanations, which this book is intended to go a long way in doing, in a very simplified manner. In this instance, there is no intention to focus on formulas that demonstrate how the citation measures are calculated as this has been expertly articulated in other texts (eg, Measuring Academic Research: How to Undertake a Bibliometric Study by Andrés (2009), Chandos Publishing; or the edited compilation Beyond Bibliometrics: Harnessing Multidimensional Indicators of Scholarly Impact by Cronin & Sugimoto (2014)). Emphasis is largely on the influence and implications of citations on research and scholarship. It is neither meant to be localized to ZU nor provide the ultimate final solutions to all matters citation-related since it is an evolving landscape, but the challenges faced at this specific workplace have prompted interest in compiling the short book for the benefit of many, perhaps causing discussion in the process.

1.4 Context of the Discussion

The context of this discussion is in a modern economy that recognizes knowledge as an asset where knowledge management has been developing exponentially as its principles and tools are tailored to suit various disciplines. Library science and practice is directly impacted by this evolution in the globalized information world. Some of the knowledge assets that an academic library is mostly interested in tracking and monitoring are scholar citations. While a study and monitoring of citations can enlighten the library about collections gaps, their relevance is also in the fact that they are used not only to inform the academic and research disciplines, but extends to the topical issue of institutional rankings, a theme that will be discussed later. Researchers therefore need to be supported because their fame invariably enhances that of their parent institution. In fact, in the UAE, a knowledge management approach is a government-initiated perspective that makes it necessary for education institutions to be familiar with the culture and is expected to operate within its parameters as closely as possible.

It is thus appropriate to explain how citation tracking and management fits into the knowledge management agenda. While this position is UAE-specific, the discussion is very general and uses examples from other non-Western environments to demonstrate that some of the challenges encountered are shared by many.

1.5 Who Really Needs to Know?

On the whole, the book addresses librarians, researchers, and academic professionals working with them, evaluators of researchers, especially in academic environments, grant funders, and anyone interested in knowing about the research and publishing world in relation to scholarly productivity. Matters surrounding citation tracking are of interest to faculty, researchers, both undergraduate and graduate students, librarians, and administrators. This is because citations tell a story about the long-term investment that a university makes in supporting researchers in various ways.

For faculty and researchers, it is important to be able to identify research trends as well as be counted among influential contributors to the academe. Citation tracking matters because it indicates the direction that any discipline or research area is taking, bringing out new areas for investigation too (Gasparyan et al., 2015). An example is with this discussion. If it was written some 15 years ago, it is most likely that the focus would have been on print indexes, and bibliometrics would not extend to altmetrics. Citation tracking also identifies the response of the research community to published research articles.

Citations bring to light leading researchers in a specialized area and the discussions arising from the accompanying publications. It also directly affects what gets heavily funded over the next few decades. This makes it incredibly difficult to be a pioneer in a particular field because without as much readily available funding, and not as much visible or available data about it, securing funding for it is considerably difficult. This means getting research in general to change directions is a cumbersome process, since one has to first convince a more well-established scientists/researchers to buy into a new idea and stick with it long enough to begin to see worthwhile results. Getting anyone to part with money to venture into the unknown is always an uphill battle.

For students, it is mostly about learning the ropes and benefitting from the discoveries and results that are constantly taking place. For librarians, citation tracking enables a study of library collection gaps that inform acquisitions decisions and also makes patron habits clearer. For administrators, it helps with making budgetary decisions.

1.6 Conclusion

As educators become increasingly involved with research and publishing, it makes sense to be as supportive as possible to them so that the momentum continues. At the end of the day, with every involvement that an individual gets into, their impact is reflected and that enhances the image of the workplace too. This is the way that their anxieties can fall away. In the process, the responsibility of educating in a manner that suits the 21st century requirements has a higher likelihood of taking place.

Chapter 2

Citation Tracking

Abstract

Citation tracking refers to the discovery of how many times a particular article has been cited by other articles. It is a scientometrics type science, that is, the measuring and analyzing scientific productivity. Measuring happens in academia for accountability, but when it comes to citations, the concern is about the connection between impact, quality, and importance. This discussion thus expands to cover the meaning and implications of journal impact, article impact metrics, and scholar impact “citation metrics.” Great debates sometimes arise out of the fact that some articles get cited, not for their good quality, but for their outstanding poor quality, and the opposite can also happen with good quality articles, that is, not being cited at all despite their potential positive significance.

Keywords

Scientometrics; journal impact; article impact; scholar impact; SCImago; Eigenfactor; h-index; altmetrics

2.1 Citation Tracking

Citation tracking refers to the discovery of how many times a particular article has been cited by other articles. It bel...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Biography
• Foreword
• Chapter 1. Background Discussion
• Chapter 2. Citation Tracking
• Chapter 3. Knowledge Management
• Chapter 4. University Rankings
• Chapter 5. Recommendations
• References
• Index