Abstract
Pichappan's formulation of the Discipline-Contribution Score (DCS) in the identification of core disciplinary journals is applied to social science literature. Modifications are made to Pichappan's method to cater for problems associated with low citation counts. Further analysis is undertaken to verify Pichappan's claims concerning the size-independent nature of the DCS score. The proposed modified formulation of the DCS calculation facilitates research into small research fields, and those characterised by low citation rates. The modified equation is tested on business and management literature.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
B. Cronin,The Citation Process, London: John Wiley, 1984, p. 12.
A. Sandison, The use of older literature and its obsolescence,Journal of Documentation, 17 (1971) 184–189.
E. Garfield, Citations-to divided by items-published gives the impact factor,Current Contents, 15 (1972) 6–7.
L. M. Raisig, Mathematical evaluation of the scientific serial,Science, 131 (1960) 1417.
P. Doreian, Measuring the relative standing of disciplinary journals,Information Processing and Management, 24 (1988) 45–56.
C. He, M. L. Pao, A dicipline-scientific journal selection algorithm,Information Processing and Management, 22 (1986) 405–416.
G. Hirst, Discipline impact factor: a method for determining core journal lists,Journal of the American Society for Infromation Science, 29 (1982) 171–172.
P. Pichappan, Identification of mainstream journals of science speciality: a method using the discipline-contribution score,Scientometrics, 27(2) (1993) 179–193.
E. Garfield (Ed),SSCI Journal Citation Reports: A bibliometric analysis of social science journals in the ISI data base, Philadelphia: ISI Press, 1988.
E. Garfield, Journal citation studies, 46, Physical chemistry and chemical physics journals, Part 3, The evolution of physical chemistry to chemical physics journals inE. Garfield (Ed),Essays of an Information Scientist, Vol. 2, Philadelphia: ISI Press, 1977, pp. 192–194.
Op. cit., (p. 183).
Op. cit., (p. 10A).
S. Bonzi, Charactericstic of a literature as predictors of relatedness between cited and citing works,Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 33(4) (1982) 208–216.
M. J. Moravcsik, P. Murugesan, Some result on the function and quality of citations,Social Studies of Science, 5 (1975) 86–92.
Op. cit. (p. 179).
H. Peters, A. van Raan, On determinants of citation scores: a case study in chemical engineering,Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 45(1) (1994) 39–49.
J. King, A review of bibliometric and other science indicators and their role in research evaluation,Journal of Information Science, 13 (1987) 261–276.
R. B. Cooper, D. Blair, M. Pao, Communicating MIS research: a citation study of journal influence,Information Processing and Management, 29(1) (1993) 113–127.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Thomas, P.R. Size effects in the assessment of discipline-contribution scores: An example from the social sciences. Scientometrics 33, 203–220 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02020569
Received:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02020569