Identifying landmark publications in the long run using field-normalized citation data
| Pages | 278-288 |
| Published date | 12 March 2018 |
| Date | 12 March 2018 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-07-2017-0108 |
| Author | Lutz Bornmann,Adam Ye,Fred Ye |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
Identifying landmark publications
in the long run using
field-normalized citation data
Lutz Bornmann
Max Planck Society, Munich, Germany
Adam Ye
Center for Bioinformatics, Peking University, Beijing, China, and
Fred Ye
School of Information Management, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to propose an approach for identifying landmark papers in the long
run. These publications reach a very high level of citation impact and are able to remain on this level across
many citing years. In recent years, several studies have been published which deal with the citation history of
publications and try to identify landmark publications.
Design/methodology/approach –In contrast to other studies published hitherto, this study is based
on a broad data set with papers published between 1980 and 1990 for identifying the landmark papers.
The authors analyzed the citation histories of about five million papers across 25 years.
Findings –The resultsof this study reveal that 1,013 papers (less than 0.02percent) are “outstandingly cited”
in the longrun. The cluster analyses of thepapers show that they receivedthe high impact level very soonafter
publication and remained on this level over decades.Only a slight impact decline is visible over the years.
Originality/value –For practical reasons, approaches for identifying landmark papers should be as simple
as possible. The approach proposed in this study is based on standard methods in bibliometrics.
Keywords Bibliometrics, CSS method, Dynamically normalized impact score,
Highly influential publication, Landmark publication, Outstandingly cited publication
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Besides peer review, research evaluation is frequently based on indicators (Bornmann,
2011; Moed and Halevi, 2015). The most prominent group of indicators comprises
bibliometric indicators with the basic indicators being number of publications and their
citation impact –as a proxy of quality (Wilsdon et al., 2015). “Bibliometric assessment of
research performance is based on one central assumption: scientists, who have to say
something important, do publish their findings vigorously in the open, international
journal literature”(van Raan, 2008, p. 463). Also, citations are rooted in the basic
requirements of scientific activity: “It is one of the basic rules of scientific research that a
piece of written research, in order to warrant publication, needs to be adequately situated
within the existing research literature”(Woelert, 2013, p. 350).
Since bibliometric indicators are frequently used in evaluative contexts and evaluations
focus as a rule on the last few years, bibliometric reports often refer to recent publication
years. Also, indicators are used which are generated on the base of short time frames: the
frequently applied Journal Impact Factor only considers the publications from two years
and the citations from the following year. However, the focus of research evaluation on short
and recent time frames obscures the fact that scientific progress is usually oriented toward
discoveries which prove successful in the long run. “Scientific progress is driven by
important, infrequent discoveries that cannot be readily identified and quantified, which
makes research assessment very difficult”(Rodríguez-Navarro, 2016, p. 731). According
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 74 No. 2, 2018
pp. 278-288
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-07-2017-0108
Received 20 July 2017
Revised 6 December 2017
Accepted 17 December 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
278
JD
74,2
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