Invisible Publications: A Study of Academic Productivity in the Web of Science Database

• Schvirck, Eliandro ^[1] ; Lievore, Caroline ^[1] ; Rubbo, Priscila ^[1] ; Herrera Cantorani, José Roberto ^[2] ; Pilatti, Luiz Alberto ^[1]
  1. [1] Federal University of Technology

     Federal University of Technology

     Nigeria

     
  2. [2] Federal Institute of São Paulo (IFSP). Department of Program in Production Engineering
• Localización: Revista española de documentación científica, ISSN-e 1988-4621, ISSN 0210-0614, Vol. 47, Nº. 1, 2024
• Idioma: inglés
• DOI: 10.3989/redc.2024.1.1454
• Títulos paralelos:
  • Publicaciones invisibles: un estudio de la productividad académica en la base de datos Web of Science
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo
• Resumen
  • español

    El propósito de este estudio es examinar el panorama contemporáneo de la publicación académica, con énfasis específico en la difusión y evaluación de la investigación académica y en las características de los artículos indexados en la base de datos Web of Science, en el marco temporal de 2017 a 2021, que no han sido citados o han sido citados con poca frecuencia. Se utilizó la estadística descriptiva para caracterizar la muestra según el campo de investigación. Se utilizó un método de regresión binomial negativa para estimar qué variables influyen en el número de citas recibidas por los artículos de la muestra. Encontramos que de los 256.524 artículos que componen el corpus de investigación, 39.469 (15,39%) no recibieron citas y 91.963 artículos (35,85%) recibieron hasta cuatro citas. Concluimos que las presiones de la productividad académica crean un círculo vicioso en el que los estudios son referenciados en función de su posición en la lucha por un espacio editorial privilegiado.

  • English

    The present study aims to outline the profile of uncited or rarely cited articles indexed in the Web of Science database between 2017 and 2021. We used stratified random sampling of 14,425 journals to extract our study sample of 373 journals. The dependent variable was defined as the number of citations, with independent variables being the JCR index, maturity, quartile, language of publication, and whether the research was funded. Descriptive statistics were used to characterize the sample according to field of research and variable. A negative binomial regression method was used to estimate which variables influence the number of citations received by articles in the sample. We found that of the 256,524 articles that make up the research corpus, 39,469 (15.39%) received no citations and 91,963 articles (35.85%) received up to four citations. The variables that positively influenced estimates of the number of citations were maturity (0.481), JCR index (0.159), and funding (0.020), while quartile (-0.170) and language (-1.032) had a negative influence on number of citations. We conclude that the pressures of academic productivism create a vicious cycle in which studies are referenced based on their ranking in the struggle for privileged editorial space, with articles in higher quartile journals being more prone to citation.

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