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Visualization and co-occurrence of journals in the area of information science in vis-a-vis the Qualis/Capes system in Brazil

Visualisation et concomitance des revues dans le domaine des sciences de l’information face au Qualis/Capes système du Brésil
Adilson Luiz Pinto, Alexandre Semeler-Ribas, Audilio Gonzales-Aguilar and Carole Clauzel
p. 325-346

Abstracts

This paper aims at qualifying scientific journals that are part of the listing Qualis/Capes Brazil. The site of Capes only lists a few influential international titles. Included in this list are “Information Processing & Management, Organization Knowledge and Library” but several other important titles in Information Science are not covered. Our study describes 27 scientific worldwide journals, representing the world stage in Information Science, and which for some reason are not well respected in Brazil. The influence of these international journals (which are part of Web of Science) is evidenced by measuring the power they have in the scientific field of Information Science as well as the power of major authors (Salton, Spink, Nicholas, Belkin, Saracevic, Dervin, Garfield and others). Citation index comparison with the other journals in the area and index of impact factor are also analyzed. The results highlight the importance of JASIST, Information Processing & Management, College Research Library, Journal of Documentation, ARIST, Journal Information Sciences, Information Retrieval and Library Trends, both in the matter of world representativeness and in the number of citations.

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Initial considerations

1The area of Information Science gathers a lot of important titles, making the area one of the rare ones to work directly with social contexts, humanities and technology.

2In Brazil, there is an official process of classification of national and international journals of great credibility developed by Capes. The publications which are in the list serve as models to be followed on the national level. However, there are authors who disagree with the titles included in that list.

3Hence, we want to investigate why some international titles included in the Web of Science, which are extremely important for the area of Information Science, are not related in Qualis/Capes classificatory list.

The Qualis/Capes list

4The Qualis/Capes list is annually organized by national committees of researchers of Graduate Programs Stricto Sensu (one per area evaluated) who are recommended by Capes. Such evaluation considers the journals titles used by the authors of that area (Silva, 2009a).

5The result of that evaluation is the qualification of the journal in A (1 and 2), B (1, 2, 3, 4 and 5) or C depending on the weight given to it, i.e., to the same journal is given different weights in the system, according to the thematic area in which the article is published. However, until August 2012 this process was not based on international standards (Silva, 2009b).

6In this sense, such classificatory system presents some failures. For example, the Journal of Documentation, an influential title in Information Science, is not included in the list of Applied Social Sciences I, to which Information Science is related, but placed in the lists of interdisciplinary (B1) and Architecture and Urbanism (B1) areas.

7Regarding such an inconsistency, is it possible to consider that the journals related to the area of Information Science are, in a broad and coherent way, the best international journals in the area?

8Concerning the area of Information Science, the periodicals categorization has some aspects that are difficult to understand, for example, the permanence of journals classified as international which are not indexed in any international base or directory. Also, there are journals that are indexed in repertories and are not included in the list because the Qualis/Capes list is based on the previous year’s production of Graduate Program professors.

9In the first classificatory version of Qualis/Capes, the initial criteria used to qualify journals were the following:

  • It has to be registered in the ISSN ;

  • The publication rules (particularly, the procedures regarding the submission of texts to a group of referees) have to be clear ;

  • It should have an editorial group composed of national and international researchers ;

  • It should maintain periodicity and regularity ;

  • It should have existed for at least five years ;

  • And should also have a group of national and international collaborators (authors) equally distributed (this criterion, however, must differ foreign authors’ translated texts from foreign authors’ original texts) (Capes, 2005).

10The current version of the system requires, besides the items mentioned above, the impact factor of journals, as it is applied for Chemistry, Physics and Biology, and other areas that categorize their publications in journals ISI/JCR and SciELO (Andrade and Galembeck, 2009). Those criteria must be combined with their periodicals indexation in databases and informative resources (Goldstein Junior, 1999), assuring their quality.

11In this sense, it is important to remember what is understood as scientific communication. It can be defined as the exchange of information among scientific community members, including, according to Garvey (1979), activities related to the production, dissemination and use of information, from the moment the scientist conceives an idea for research to the time his research results are accepted as constitutive of scientific knowledge. Through scientific communication the researchers who participate in the communities are kept informed about the area trends, the developed studies and their results.

12The scientific journals play an important role in the communication among researchers. The number of publications of a group can be considered as an indicator of its scientific production. The number of times the papers of a group are referred in publications is the measure of the impact or visibility of those papers. In the journal global system it is possible to distinguish between the “central” international ones and the peripheral ones according to regional interests. The Institute for Scientific Information, through its indexed bases in Web of Science, aims at encompassing most of the important international periodicals.

13One of the functions of the Web of Science is the analysis of scientific production:

Science needs to be considered as a broad social system in which one of the activities is the dissemination of knowledge. Its second activity is assuring the preservation of patterns, and the third one is giving credit and acknowledgement to those whose papers have contributed to the development of ideas in different fields (Macias-Chapula, 1998, 136).

14Among other means of generation of productivity indexes, the best known is bibliometry, which is based on qualitative judgments, reusing evaluations undertaken for other purposes and using quantitative techniques for its treatment.

15The indicators of Input and Output (product), their relationship with each other, as well as their importance for quantitative studies, are discussed by authors such as Spinak (1998). By using those indicators, the scientific activity can be compared to companies’ activities, with inputs and results. According to Población and Oliveira (2006, 68), “input is a combination of factors that favor the production of a determined amount of goods and services (output)”. The measuring becomes the base for production of scientific indicators.

16Regarding the aforementioned considerations about scientific communication, it is worth mentioning that the quality of databases, which are understood as electronic information sources, can be looked up in an interactive or conversational way through electronic resources. Bibliographic sources are characterized by the presence of an organized collection of bibliographic information; machine legibility and possibility to be accessed online or in batch (Cunha, 1997).

17Databases play an important role in the dissemination of information, storing and providing its retrieval. In this aspect they greatly contribute to any investigative process.

18In a research process, scientific visibility is a considerable factor. In the databases’ universe, such factor is also analyzed as information management process and competitive intelligence, precisely because it is inside information.

19There are several databases which work as information sources for specific areas such as: Chemical Abstract for Chemistry, the ERIC for Education, the EconLit for Economics and the LISA and Library Literature for Library and Documentation Sciences. However, a lot of scientific areas use multidisciplinary sources despite the availability of specialized bases, such as Web of Science and more recently, Scopus.

20Web of Science holds three bases: the Science Citation Index Expanded, published since 1964, the Social Science Citation Index, edited since 1972 and the Arts & Humanities Citation Index, organized since 1975. Its repertoire is included in more than 10,000 scientific journals of all fields of knowledge. Web of Science selects high impact’s journals. It is most used for bibliometric studies. Its structure presents information about author(s), institution(s), article title, journal, volume, number, pages, publication year, descriptors and country, among others. It also favors data extraction for elaborating indicators and variables for study. However, this base has some access restrictions. An online interface of the Web of Science is available in Capes Portal but only people who are in Capes system are allowed to use it together with the private universities that pay for its access.

21Given the high impact of information science journals indexed in the Web of Science, we wonder why most of those titles are still not included in the Qualis/Capes list.

22Some journals indexed in the Web of Science are qualified as journals layer A1 to Qualis / Capes, yet they are referenced with this qualification only if a permanent teacher in a graduate program has published in a journal that is indexed in the database.

23Even though the Web of Science is a multidisciplinary database it is an important resource for the field of Information Science since the most relevant contents of the area indexed by LISA, LISTA, ISTA are also indexed in the WoS, (Lucas, Pinto & Lara, 2013).

24Another critical fact is that the list of Qualis / Capes is evolving very slowly with little changes since the years 2000.

25Just for comparison, in Spain, journal´s criteria are structured in three points, where two points are very similar to the Brazilian model:

  1. The dissemination of publication and access the teacher’s job for usability overall,

  2. The publication journals are peer review, and

  3. The difference is in using citation indices and impact as differential (DICE, 2014).

26The Spanish system uses a large number of information sources - Francis, International Bibliography of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities Citation Index, Social Science Citation Index, Bibliography of the History of Arts (RLG), Historical Abstracts of Music Literature, Philosopher’s Index, Répertoire Bibliographique, International Bibliography of Periodical Literature in Humanities and Social Sciences (IBZ) Bibliographie Linguistique / Linguistic Bibliography (BL) ea Library and Information Science Abstracts (AECI, 2008).

27In France, researchers are incited to publish in journals having:

  • An ISSN or e-ISSN number ;

  • A website with domain ;

  • An institutional support to look at the regular dissemination in a five years range ;

  • Editing data (abstract, keywords) ;

  • Editorial counseling ;

  • A variety of publications and authors (domestic and foreign) ;

  • And journals that are indexed in international databases (AERES, 2013).

28Closer to Brazil, the Argentine Center of Scientific and Technological Information (CAICyT) determines that a journal should have all the key requirements of publication, but resources should be highly visible and indexed in SciELO-Argentina, Scopus or the Web of Science (Flores, 2010).

29In order to clear up that situation, it is important to : (I) identify the most relevant journals for Information Science ; (II) investigate the most representative authors in this field ; (III) identify the authors’ citation index ; (IV) develop co-citation maps ; (V) generate convenient scientific indicators, according to theories of Bradford, Lotka and Zipf.

30As a result of that work, based on bibliometric analysis, it is expected to identify and suggest to Capes more appropriate titles in which Brazilian authors can publish their studies/papers. Such list would hold relevant titles for the Information Science area. By analyzing the most representative authors and their citation index, the second contribution would be to identify the level of recognition and visibility of the authors by their peers as their papers are published in the most representative journals in the Information Science area.

31Therefore, it is important to explain why the most important authors and their co-citations are investigated. First, because it is the aim of the Brazilian government, through Capes, to elaborate a list of journals in which the authors “should” publish their studies/papers. Second, because we want to see to what extent the Web of Science’s content can give us a global overview of the Information Science area and therefore could serve as a guide for Capes to establish a list of journals for authors in Information Science.

Methodological aspects

32From 1994 to 2008, we have selected some of the highest impact factor journals concerning the area of Library and Information Sciences (Library Science & Information Science) in the world, based on the analysis made by Leydesdorff (2007) and complemented by a research for titles formerly carried out by the authors of this study.

33Our work is about citation and co-citation networks of scientific journals. This characteristic is based on the impact factor of the periodicals of Information Science regarding the relationship and citation index (with) (for) the Scientometrics journal, in which the author describes the most important journals for the area in a comparison to Scientometrics.

34The methodology is developed in two steps: one to explain the search strategy and the other one for informational retrieval and treatment of those data, measured by statistics and bibliometric theories (Vanti, 2002).

35The pattern strategy of data search and retrieval is characterized by a simple research in which the period and all databases of Web of Science (Science Citation Index, Social Science Citation Index e Arts & Humanities Citation Index) are limited, focusing on the field of the journal title (Source Title).

36The retrieved journals are presented by their full name; however, in some cases, the data base filter is used to have the journals simplified names. There is a selection of 28 journals for the analysis purpose.

Table 1: List of ISI journals for Information Science & Library Science areas

Journal

Country

Language

Annual Review of Information Science and Technology

USA

English

Aslib Proceedings

ENGLAND

English

Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science

CANADA

English

College & Research Libraries

USA

English

Government Information Quarterly

USA

English

International Journal of Information Management

ENGLAND

English

Information Processing & Management

ENGLAND

English

Information Society

USA

English

Information Technology & Libraries

USA

English

Journal of Academic Librarianship

USA

English

Journal of the American Society Information Science & Technology

USA

English

Journal of the American Society Information Science (even 2000)

USA

English

Journal of Documentation

ENGLAND

English

Journal of Information Science

ENGLAND

English

Journal of Library & Information Science

USA

English

Knowledge Organization

GERMANY

English

Library Hi Tech

ENGLAND

English

Libri

GERMANY

English

Library & Information Science

JAPAN

Japanese

Library & Information Science Research

USA

English

Library Journal

USA

English

Library Quarterly

USA

English

Library Trends

USA

English

Online

USA

English

Reference User Services Quarterly

USA

English

Scientometrics

NETHERLANDS

English

Zeitschrift fur Bibliothekswesen und Bibliographie

GERMANY

German

37For informational treatment, a strategy developed by Pinto et al. (2007) has been used, in which co-citations networks are mapped. That type of analysis, also known as information visualization (Pinto & Rodríguez-Barquím, 2005), favors data representation.

38For the treatment of retrieved registrations, ProCite is used (Saxton, 2001). In regard to information visualization, CiteSpace (Chen, 2006) is used; it treats and defines indexes automatically.

39For the data visualization, we used a system where the size of the nodes depends upon their centrality. Darker shades are closer to 2008, and clearer are closest to 1994. Another detail, the greater the circumference higher is the citation impact of the unit of analysis.

Representation, visibility and co-occurrences

40This step is centered on the investigation of productivity in the most important journals for areas correlated with Information Science and their visibility in the Web of Science database.

41Among those journals, we notice that only two of them are included in the Qualis/Capes list, Information Processing & Management and Organization Knowledge (list version by local, regional and international level). However, in the list that was released in 10/13/2009, these journals were excluded and the Library Trends journal was added.

42Curiously, there are some initiatives in the country, for example, the School of Communication of the University of São Paulo (ECA/USP) released a book about scientific communities journals and their respective areas, in which Information Science is particularly important because there are two studies almost completed that focus the Qualis/Capes list and national journals, and international journals.

Authors’s productivity in Information Science

4311,212 authors have published in those journals, representing a total of 19,855 scientific articles from 1994 to 2008.

44Lotka’s Law was used to verify the authors’ productivity and to provide a firm foundation for the initial premise that “few researchers publish a lot of works and a lot of researchers publish few works” to which the inverse Square law was used (1/n²).

45This analysis shows that 20 % of the authors published 10,254 documents, representing 90,9 % of productivity.

46This High index that reveals a production distortion, in which 20 % of scientists produce 80 % of literature, is also known as the inverse square. In the scientific community, it is also known as Pareto’s principle, but its application in Bibliometry might be attached to the elite of authors.

47Another analysis made is the Elitism Law, proposed by Price (1963), which estimates how big a specific population of elite authors is. Is this case, the elite of authors is composed by 105 names, represented on Table 2.

Table 2: Elite of Authors (WoS 1994-2008)

Order

Authors

Fq

Order

Authors

Fq

Order

Authors

Fq

1

[Anon]

134

36

Gunter, B

22

71

Moed, Hf

15

2

Tenopir, C

104

37

Wolfram, D

22

72

Rowlands, I

15

3

Nicholas, D

85

38

Chen, Hc

21

73

Vaughan, L

15

4

Oppenheim, C

66

39

Dugan, Re

21

74

Warner, J

15

5

Oder, N

61

40

Mcafee, Rp

21

75

Wilson, Td

15

6

Rousseau, R

60

41

Berry, J

20

76

Davenport, E

14

7

Egghe, L

59

42

Coyle, K

20

77

Moya-Anegon, F

14

8

Thelwall, M

58

43

Large, A

20

78

Fox, Bl

14

9

Huntington, P

55

44

Rowley, J

20

79

Hawkins, Dt

14

10

Rogers, M

54

45

Braun, T

19

80

Hjorland, B

14

11

Hoffert, B

52

46

Delfino, E

19

81

Lewison, G

14

12

Spink, A

47

47

Pearl, N

19

82

Mcknight, C

14

13

Williams, P

45

48

Zhang, J

19

83

Mcmurdo, G

14

14

Tennant, R

42

49

Beheshti, J

18

84

Meyer, M

14

15

Berry, Jn

39

50

Connolly, B

18

85

Minkel, W

14

16

Ojala, M

39

51

Morris, D

18

86

Stlifer, E

14

17

Cronin, B

36

52

Shuler, Ja

18

87

Willett, P

14

18

Crawford, W

33

53

Garg, Kc

17

88

Wilson, Cs

14

19

Leydesdorff, L

33

54

Golderman, G

17

89

Baxter, G

13

20

Glanzel, W

30

55

Ingwersen, P

17

90

Born, K

13

21

Mcclure, Cr

29

56

Nicholson, S

17

91

Burns, A

13

22

Nottelmann, H

29

57

Savolainen, R

17

92

Collins, Br

13

23

Bar-Ilan, J

27

58

Anderson, Aj

16

93

Dimattia, Ss

13

24

Hernon, P

27

59

Burrell, Ql

16

94

Hartley, J

13

25

O’leary, M

26

60

Jansen, Bj

16

95

Klein, Lr

13

26

Albanese, Ar

25

61

Kostoff, Rn

16

96

Makulowich, Js

13

27

Cole, C

25

62

Losee, Rm

16

97

Miller, R

13

28

Dilevko, J

25

63

Schubert, A

16

98

Williams, W

13

29

Bawden, D

24

64

Yang, Cc

16

99

Barry, J

12

30

Bertot, Jc

24

65

Foo, S

15

100

Bates, Me

12

31

Bryant, E

24

66

Jaeger, Pt

15

101

Chowdhury, Gg

12

32

Budd, Jm

24

67

Kenney, Bj

15

102

Gao, Sj

12

33

Ford, N

24

68

Kling, R

15

103

Kumar, S

12

34

Gupta, Bm

23

69

Laguardia, C

15

104

Pack, T

12

35

Jarvelin, K

23

70

Marcella, R

15

105

Perez, E

12

NOTE: Fq = Frequency; [ANON] = Much are editorial and historical documents of the journal.

48The highest productivity in absolute numbers comes from anonymous authors. This is assumed to happen due to the fact that Web of Science turns some editorial notes into scientific articles automatically. Lots of those papers are written by editors who describe the journals contents as an informative synopsis, which is very common in scientific journals. This is an interesting datum because even if only scientific articles are selected, the editorials will come out since they are considered as articles by the system. That is why some editors appear in the journals publications.

49In the frequency chart of the most important authors, it is also possible to see the centrality of those authors and their collaborators, pointing out that the higher professional visibility the researcher gets, the bigger his/her opportunity to publish new papers (Valchy, 1970).

Figure 1: Centrality and frequency of the most representative authors (WoS 1994-2008)

Figure 1: Centrality and frequency of the most representative authors (WoS 1994-2008)

50On this figure, the size of the circles depends upon the authors’ position in their clusters (groups). The red color shows the centrality among their peers, which is high for Glänzel W, Hernon P, Thelwall M, Davenport E, Williams P, Large A, among others.

51We can distinguish between different thematic areas: the large group of authors who work on Metric Studies; a group involving researchers in Digital Libraries; another group working on discussions about Formation and Profile of Library Science and Information Science; two other groups on Information Retrieval.

52The color shades, from bright to less bright represent the frequency of the author’s publications in the studied journals; from orange shades to yellow ones (2008 to 2003), then, green color, from the brightest to the lightest (2002 to 1999) and blue shades (1998 to 1994). The greater the representation of all color shades, the higher the visibility of the authors throughout the time period.

Keyword analysis in Information Science

53The analysis of keywords resulted in 3,209 terms, in which descriptors’ frequency summed up 16,981 appearances.

54According to Zipf’s Law, which measures words frequency, it has been identified a frequency of 50 % in which the totality was represented by 8,654 (a little over 50 %) from 132 keywords considering that all constant data over 20 appearances were included.

55The following information is taken from the fields: ID (identification of descriptors), DE (descriptors) and KW (keywords) in Web of Science.

56Table 3 shows the compound terms (in bold) as the most representative for Information Science area; the single terms are not very representative because they are more generic, such as Work, Future, Needs, among others. Therefore, it is observed that the seeking and indexing system of Web of Science concerning attribution to keywords is not very efficient. More generic indicatives should be considered and attributed automatically. The data consistency and normalization has not been verified.

Table 3: Key-words frequency (WoS 1994-2008)

Thematic area

Fq

Thematic area

Fq

Thematic area

Fq

Science

491

Impact-Factors

52

Information-Systems

28

Information

326

Scientists

51

Law

28

Retrieval

294

Services

50

Links

28

Information-Retrieval

244

Students

50

Obsolescence

28

Systems

232

Work

49

Success

28

Model

206

Framework

47

Authorship

27

Internet

199

Life

47

Instruction

27

Design

198

Publication

47

Usage

27

Library

177

Education

46

Information Technology

26

Behavior

169

Strategies

45

Online Catalog

26

Technology

169

Algorithms

44

Ranking

26

Impact

162

Productivity

44

Index

25

Web

157

Resources

44

Space

25

Knowledge

153

User

43

Tasks

25

Seeking

145

Issues

42

Feedback

24

World-Wide-Web

144

Publications

42

Firm

24

Journals

140

Research Performance

42

Project

24

Indicators

138

Faculty

41

Scientific Journals

24

Communication

136

Organizations

41

Women

24

Performance

135

Selection

41

Age

23

Users

133

Document-Retrieval

40

Ask

23

Relevance

126

Queries

39

Bibliographic Instruction

23

System

116

Context

38

Care

23

Patterns

110

Interface

37

Decision-Making

23

Networks

103

Academic-Libraries

36

Electronic Journals

23

Information-Science

93

Bibliometrics

36

Experience

23

Needs

93

Perceptions

36

Output

23

Management

88

Trends

34

Query Expansion

23

Citation

84

Co-Citation

33

Satisfaction

23

Quality

84

Countries

33

Strategy

23

Citation-Analysis

76

Sites

33

Time

23

Access

67

Hypertext

32

Words

23

Information-Seeking

67

Scholarly Communication

32

Attitudes

22

Classification

65

Search Process

32

Computer-Mediated Communication

22

Libraries

63

Database

31

Economics

22

Models

63

Organization

31

Determinants

21

Search

62

Environment

30

Future

21

Online

61

Growth

30

Humanities

21

Text

61

Seeking Behavior

30

Policy

21

Perspective

60

World

30

Scientific Collaboration

21

University

57

Documents

29

Search Engines

21

Innovation

56

Humanities Scholars

29

Service

21

Collaboration

54

Articles

28

Text Retrieval

21

Data-Bases

54

Criteria

28

Yahooligans

21

NOTE : Fq = Frequency.

57The data have been treated and kept in the original language.

58To analyze the relationship between the keywords, one should be very attentive because, according to Santos and Kobashi (2009, p. 167),

…studies with semantic entities, such as the descriptors of a database, require intense previous treatment of data consolidation before they are submitted to bibliometric processing. In this sense, it is necessary to take a careful look at the automatic data classification because it may not bring much reliable results.

Figure 2: Correlation between keywords and descriptors (WoS 1994-2008)

Figure 2: Correlation between keywords and descriptors (WoS 1994-2008)

59Figure 2 shows the keywords’ co-occurrence relationships in the studied journals. For example, the word retrieval alone is very close to the word information, and also close to the compound noun information retrieval.

60Such case can also be applied to some sparse words. By checking the top of the Figure, there are the words journal, citation analysis, productivity, collaboration, indicators and citation, all of them concerning Science Metric Studies.

61In the center of the Figure, there is the library management environment with connected terms such as library, libraries, knowledge, management, needs and quality, among others.

62The results obtained from the keywords’ relationship map confirms what Table 3 shows that a lot of terms seem to have a single application, but actually (compound or not) they help to understand the behavior of Information Science identifiers in the journals studied.

Citation analysis in Information Science

63For the citation analysis, three variables have been verified: the most cited authors, the most cited journals and the most cited documents, showing the frequency (through tables) and the similarity (through co-occurent figures).

64The bibliographic coupling (retrospective) consists in the compilation of articles citing the same document(s), and the co-citation (prospective) in the compilation of articles cited by the same documents. According to Marshakova (1981), the bibliographic coupling measures the coupling level of two or more articles according to the number of identical documents cited by those articles. The co-citation measures the coupling level of two or more articles by the number of documents where those articles are cited, simultaneously.

65Based on that coupling, 27,116 different cited authors are gathering the total of 59,951 appearances.

66Table 4 shows the list of authors who have over 50 cited papers.

Table 4: Index of authors who have over citations (WoS 1994-2008)

Authors

Fq

Authors

Fq

SALTON G

453

KLING R

71

SPINK A

205

BLAIR DC

70

NICHOLAS D

190

YANG Y

69

BELKIN NJ

189

LAWRENCE S

68

SARACEVIC T

161

HARTER SP

67

ROBERTSON SE

135

TENOPIR C

67

DERVIN B

119

MARCHIONINI G

66

GARFIELD E

115

NIELSEN J

66

EGGHE L

114

PORTER ME

65

THELWALL M

110

CRONIN B

64

HARMAN D

105

BUCKLEY C

63

KUHLTHAU CC

105

FIDEL R

62

BATES MJ

100

WILSON TD

61

DAVENPORT TH

96

ALLAN J

59

VANRIJSBERGEN CJ

94

COOPER WS

55

JONES KS

92

NONAKA I

55

LOSEE RM

92

ROUSSEAU R

54

HERNON P

90

HAWKING D

53

JANSEN BJ

89

LANCASTER FW

53

ELLIS D

86

EARL MJ

50

INGWERSEN P

84

HEARST MA

50

BORGMAN CL

82

RICE RE

50

CROFT WB

81

SCHAMBER L

50

VOORHEES EM

73

 

 

NOTE : Fq = Frequency.

67Considering this volume of citations, it is possible to say that all those authors are extremely important for the area. Not only are they highly cited in the Web of Science journals but also are their publications incorporated in basic bibliographies of Library Science courses in Brazil.

68Moreover, it is essential to highlight their relevance in their thematic areas, for example: Lancaster and Robertson are relevant in indexation and Information Analysis; Rousseau, Garfield, Egghe and Thewmall in Metric Studies; Nonaka I in Informational Management; Cronin, Salton, Spink, Ingwersen and Blair in Information Retrieval, information needs and informational behavior; Nicholas, Belkin and Saracevic in Fundamentation of Information Science; and Dervin in communication theory.

Figure 3: Co-occurrence of authors’ citations (WoS 1994-2008)

Figure 3: Co-occurrence of authors’ citations (WoS 1994-2008)

69On figure 3, we can notice that there is a very strong relationship between information retrieval (Salton, Ingwersen) and metric studies (Garfield, Small, Price, Moed, Narin and Glänzel). However, there is also a relationship regarding, at the same time, the information retrieval and the metric studies, well represented by Cronin.

70In fact, the network provides explanations about the grounding of Social Science and Information Science.

71Another analysis proposed is that of verifying the citation index of journals by using Bradford’s theory to refine scattered zones. The number of cited journals is 26,014, with a total amount of 63,572 citations. In the first zone, we identified 226 cited journals. For a visual simplification, only the first 45 cited journals are represented, with average citation rates of over 100 appearances.

Table 5: Index of journals citations (WoS 1994-2008)

Cited Journals

Fq

Cited Journals

Fq

J AM SOC INFORM SCI

1687

LIBR TRENDS

179

INFORM PROCESSING MA

1195

RQ

166

COLL RES LIBR

782

INFORM MANAGE

165

COMMUN ACM

682

INFORMATION TECHNOLO

156

J DOCUEMENTATION

642

SCIENCE

147

J ACAD LIBRARIANSHIP

420

NIST SPEICAL PUBLICA

137

MIS QUART

405

ORGAN SCI

133

J AM SOC INF SCI TEC

389

J MANAGEMENT INFORMA

132

SCIENTOMETRICS

366

LIBR QUART

130

J INFORMATION SCI

338

LIBR J

127

INT J INFORM MANAGEM

316

INFORM SYST RES

125

GOV INFORM Q

252

MIS Q

125

HARVARD BUS REV

251

P 21 ANN INT ACM SIG

124

INFORMATION PROFESSI

230

ACAD MANAGE REV

121

INFORMATION RETRIEVA

226

PUBLIC ADMIN REV

116

ANNU REV INFORM SCI

219

RES STRATEGIES

116

LIBR INFORM SCI RES

217

BRIT MED J

115

MANAGE SCI

208

B MED LIBR ASSOC

110

ACM T INF SYSTEMS

200

INFORM SOC

110

COLL RES LIB

197

INTRO MODERN INFORMA

110

ASLIB PROC

195

WASHINGTON POST FEB

108

INFORMATION SYSTEMS

192

COLL RES LIB NEWS

100

SLOAN MANAGE REV

181

 

NOTE : Fq = Frequency.

72Apart from those 45 most relevant journals, it is important to mention some titles which, although they are not related on the prior Table, belong to Bradford’s first scattered zone, such as Decision Sci; Inform Technol Libr; Online, Information Management; Reference Services R; Lect Notes Comput Sc; Reference Librarian; Acad Manage J; Strategic Manage J, Information Seeking; J Lib Adm; Ann Int Acm Sig; Am Lib; Libr Resour Tech Ser, Lib J; Ann Int Acm Sig; Information Storage; Decis Support Syst; Computational Lingui; Ann Int Acm Sig, Telecommun Policy; Eur J Inform Syst; J Information Techno; J Marketing; Ann Int Acm Sig; Acm Comput Surv; Smart Retrieval Syst; Int J Man Mach Stud; Collection Managemen; J Strategic Inf Syst; Comput J; Internet Res; Res Policy.

73Some of the journals investigated in this study show high citation indexes, which reinforces the fact that journals indexed in the same database tend to be mutually cited. For Instance, the Journal of Information Science, Journal of Documentation, Information Processing & Management and Scientometrics are some of the high impact journals which are often cited together, as it can be seen in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Co-occurrence of journals citation (WoS 1994-2008)

Figure 4: Co-occurrence of journals citation (WoS 1994-2008)

74Focusing on the categorization of scientific centrality in co-citations, we observe that seven journals hold the status of the most influent, and are displayed with a pink outline in Figure 4, Jasist, Communication ACM, Information Processing & Management, Research Policy, College Research Library, RQ and Journal of Documentation.

75The other color shades represent the historical periods of co-citations of those journals; thus, the red and orange shades represent the most recent years (2004 to 2008), the yellow one represents 2003 and 2002, the green shades identify 1999 to 2001 and the several blue shades represent the period from 1994 to 1998.

76Regarding this display, the journals with bigger circles are seen all along since they are essential to the Information Science academic community, such as Library Trends, Jasis/Jasist, Communication ACM, Information Processing & Management, Scientometrics, College Research Library, Journal of Documentation and Science.

77By investigating the index of cited documents, 55,753 documents titles were compiled (journal articles and books), totalizing 63,155 general citations from which 84 documents with over ten citations are considered on Table 6.

78The frequency of documents citations is consistent with the index of the most representative authors in their respective areas, according to the analysis of authors citations’ frequency.

Table 6: Frequency of documents citation (WoS 1994-2008)

Documents cited

Fq

Documents cited

Fq

Documents cited

Fq

Salton G, 1983, Intro Modern Informa

77

Barzilai G, 2003, Communities Law Poli

12

Marshall P, 1997, Res Methods How Desi

11

Saracevic T, 1988, J Am Soc Inform Sci, V39, P197

76

Blair Dc, 1990, Language Representat

12

Meley Ms, 1994, Datapro, V3

11

Salton G, 1989, Automatic Text Proce

44

Brin S, 1998, Comput Networks Isdn, V30, P107

12

Morgan G, 1983, Method Strategies So

11

Salton G, 1990, J Am Soc Inform Sci, V41, P288

35

2002, Fed Reg 0222, V67, P8452

11

Nicholas D, 2002, Nhs Direct Online In

11

Salton G, 1988, Information Processi, V24, P513

34

Bates Mj, 1979, J Am Soc Inform Sci, V30, P205

11

Orlikowski Wj, 2002, Organ Sci, V13, P249

11

Baezayates R, 1999, Modem Information Re

32

Bates Mj, 1990, Inform Process Manag, V26, P575

11

Peterson Ra, 1997, J Acad Market Sci, V25, P329

11

Belkin Nj, 1982, J Doc, V38, P61

30

Benjamin Ri, 1990, Long Range Plann, V23, P29

11

Quillin Tj, 2000, Ind Button

11

Rogers Em, 1986, Communication Techno

22

Blumenfeld L, 2003, Washington Post 0708, A1

11

Rivest R, 1987, Mach Learning, V2, P229

11

Belkin Nj, 1992, Commun Acm, V35, P29

20

Broadypreston J, 1998, Int J Inform Manage, V18, P277

11

Ryan S, 2000, Virtual U Internet R

11

Bilal D, 2001, J Am Soc Inf Sci Tec, V52, P118

20

Caldwell B, 1998, Mill Mess Inf W 0413

11

Scheiderman B, 1992, Designing User Inter

11

Borgman Cl, 1996, J Am Soc Inform Sci, V47, P568

20

Callan Jp, 1995, P 18 Ann Int Acm Sig, P21

11

Shneiderman B, 1998, Designing User Inter

11

Salton G, 1971, Smart Retrieval Syst

20

Chen Hc, 1995, J Am Soc Inform Sci, V46, P194

11

Spender Jc, 1996, Strategic Manage J, V17, P45

11

Schamber L, 1994, Annu Rev Inform Sci, V29, P33

19

Conklin J, 1987, Ieee Comput, V20, P17

11

Sullivan M, 2003, Keyword Magic Truth, P1

11

Taylor Rs, 1968, Coll Res Libr, V29, P178

17

Currie Dl, 1995, J Agr Food Informati, V3, P13

11

Thompson Jd, 1967, Org Action

11

Barry Cl, 1994, J Am Soc Inform Sci, V45, P149

16

Denvir Dp, 2003, Academe, V89, P36

11

Vandijk L, 2000, Digitalisering Delee

11

Bates Mj, 1989, Online Rev, V13, P407

16

Dumais St, 1997, Aaai 97 Spring S Cro, P18

11

Warner J, 2000, Aslib Proc, V52, P350

11

Berry Mw, 1999, Siam Rev, V41, P335

16

Euster Jr, 1984, P 3 Nat C Ass Coll R

11

Willcocks L, 1994, Information Manageme, P49

11

Buckland Mk, 1992, J Am Soc Inform Sci, V43, P284

16

Foucault M, 1970, Order Things Archaeo

11

Yang Y, 1999, J Information Retrie, V1, P9

11

Blair Dc, 1985, Commun Acm, V28, P289

15

Gastwirth Jl, 1972, Rev Econ Stat, V54, P306

11

Yang Y, 1999, P 22 Ann Int Acm Sig, P42

11

Braun T, 1994, Scientometrics, V31, P3

15

Graham G, 1999, Financial Times 0113

11

Zobel J, 1995, Inform Process Manag, V31, P361

11

Salton G, 1968, Automatic Information

14

Hammer M, 1990, Harvard Bus Rev, P103

11

Zuboff S, 1989, Age Smart Machine

11

Zipf Gk, 1949, Human Behav Principl

14

Heijden H, 2003, Information Manageme, V40, P541

11

Almind Tc, 1997, J Doc, V53, P404

10

Bates Mj, 1993, Libr Quart, V63, P1

13

Hoot Jl, 1983, Educ Gerontol, V9, P493

11

Belkin Nj, 1980, Canadian J Informati, V5, P133

10

Callan Jp, 1994, P 17 Ann Int Acm Sig, P302

13

Kaufman Mt, 2002, Soros Life Times Mes

11

Belkin Nj, 1990, J Inform Sci, V16, P11

10

Zipf Gk, 1949, Human Behav Principl

13

Koehler W, 2002, Ref User Serv Q, V42, P41

11

Belkin Nj, 1993, Inform Process Manag, V29, P325

10

Rogers Em, 1995, Diffusion Innovation

13

Lancaster Fw, 1993, If You Want Evaluate

11

Beniger Jr, 1986, Control Revolution T

10

1997, Times Higher Ed 0103, P12

12

Lewin K, 1951, Field Theory Social

11

Salton G, 1975, Commun Acm, V18, P613

10

Allen Tj, 1977, Managing Flow Techno

12

Lucier C, 1997, Strategy Business, P14

11

Salton G, 1983, Commun Acm, V26, P1022

10

NOTE : Fq = Frequency.

79On Figure 5, we observe documents published by the most relevant authors in each thematic areas, such as SALTON G, 1983, INTRO MODERN INFORMA (information retrieval), with a frequency of 77 appearances; SARACEVIC T, 1988, J AM SOC INFORM SCI, v39, p197, 76 appearances and BELKIN NJ, 1982, J DOC, v38, p 61, 30 appearances, being configured as fundamental authors for the consolidation of the Information Science area. The authorship of the most cited documents is consistent with the index of the most influent authors in Information Science.

Figure 5: Co-citation of documents (WoS 1994-2008)

Figure 5: Co-citation of documents (WoS 1994-2008)

80Figure 5 allows us to visualize the centrality of the most representative authors in their respective thematic area. It is observed that Salton appears as a central author and so are all other authors who are circled in pink, such as Lotka, White, Garfield and Egghe for metric studies, and Belkin for grounding of Information Science.

Final considerations

81Databases are facilitating the scientific knowledge access through indexation of scientific periodicals in their repertoire. It appears that some international titles represented in Web of Science, are among the most important for Information Science.

82Regarding the authors productivity, it is verified that the most productive authors are the most relevant in their respective thematic areas, showing relevant citation indexes, such as Salton, in information retrieval, and Belkin in grounding of Information Science.

83According to Bradford’s theory, some of the journals that present high citation indexes are: Journal of the American Society Information Science, Information processing & Management, College Research Library, Communication ACM and Journal of Documentation.

84According to Lotka’s law, Tenopir, Nicholas, Oppenheim, Oder, Rousseau and Egghe are among the highest producers of the field.

85Based on Zipf’s law, the keywords frequency has been identified and it has been observed that the compound terms are the most representative for Information Science area.

86It has been found that only two of the most renowned journals in Information Science area are mentioned in the Qualis/Capes Brazilian list. The results of our analysis suggest that the Qualis/Capes titles’ list might not be covering the best journals for the area.

87Building on our analysis of the information science area, we consider the following actions should be taken:

  1. First, Universities should be aware of the importance of periodicals indexed in the Web of Science for the Information Science area, encouraging students and professors to promote those titles;

  2. Second, there should be a rearrangement of the Qualis/Capes system, replacing the current criterion based on journals in which the professors publish each year, which is believed not to be a suitable quality criterion. Indeed, there are journals of low or fake quality that are on the list just because some professors publish in them ;

  3. Third, professors and students should be encouraged to publish in more representative and renowned titles in Information Science.

88Publications in Brazil, in the area of Information Science, has a local feature, especially because of the Qualis / Capes system. According to us, this local feature turns the Brazilian publications difficult to be internationalized and studied.

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List of illustrations

Title Figure 1: Centrality and frequency of the most representative authors (WoS 1994-2008)
URL http://journals.openedition.org/netcom/docannexe/image/2116/img-1.png
File image/, 184k
Title Figure 2: Correlation between keywords and descriptors (WoS 1994-2008)
URL http://journals.openedition.org/netcom/docannexe/image/2116/img-2.png
File image/, 287k
Title Figure 3: Co-occurrence of authors’ citations (WoS 1994-2008)
URL http://journals.openedition.org/netcom/docannexe/image/2116/img-3.png
File image/, 228k
Title Figure 4: Co-occurrence of journals citation (WoS 1994-2008)
URL http://journals.openedition.org/netcom/docannexe/image/2116/img-4.png
File image/, 204k
Title Figure 5: Co-citation of documents (WoS 1994-2008)
URL http://journals.openedition.org/netcom/docannexe/image/2116/img-5.jpg
File image/, 202k
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References

Bibliographical reference

Adilson Luiz Pinto, Alexandre Semeler-Ribas, Audilio Gonzales-Aguilar and Carole Clauzel, « Visualization and co-occurrence of journals in the area of information science in vis-a-vis the Qualis/Capes system in Brazil », Netcom, 29-3/4 | 2015, 325-346.

Electronic reference

Adilson Luiz Pinto, Alexandre Semeler-Ribas, Audilio Gonzales-Aguilar and Carole Clauzel, « Visualization and co-occurrence of journals in the area of information science in vis-a-vis the Qualis/Capes system in Brazil », Netcom [Online], 29-3/4 | 2015, Online since 23 May 2016, connection on 24 January 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/netcom/2116 ; DOI : 10.4000/netcom.2116

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About the authors

Adilson Luiz Pinto

Federal University of Santa Catarina, Department of Information Science (PGCIN),
adilson.pinto@ufsc.br

Alexandre Semeler-Ribas

UFRGS; PGCIN - Federal University of Santa Catarina.
alex.semeler@icloud.com

Audilio Gonzales-Aguilar

IRSIC Institut de Recherche en Sciences de l’Information et de Communication. Aix Marseille Université.
Audilio.gonzales@univ-montp3.fr

By this author

Carole Clauzel

Doctorante CORHIS UM3, Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier.
carole.closel@univ-montp3.fr.

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