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Researchers’ Publication Patterns and Their Use for Author Disambiguation

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Abstract

In recent years we have been witnessing an increase in the need for advanced bibliometric indicators for individual researchers and research groups, for which author disambiguation is needed. Using the complete population of university professors and researchers in the Canadian province of Québec (N = 13,479), their papers as well as the papers authored by their homonyms, this paper provides evidence of regularities in researchers’ publication patterns. It shows how these patterns can be used to automatically assign papers to individuals and remove papers authored by their homonyms. Two types of patterns were found: (1) at the individual researchers’ level and (2) at the level of disciplines. On the whole, these patterns allow the construction of an algorithm that provides assignment information for at least one paper for 11,105 (82.4 %) out of all 13,479 researchers—with a very low percentage of false positives (3.2 %).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The recent collection of Scientometrics papers dealing with individual researchers published by Academia Kiado (Braun, 2006) illustrates this trend: the study with the highest number of researchers included has less than 200. Similarly, notable studies in the sociology of science by Cole and Cole (1973), Merton (1973) and Zuckerman (1977) analyzed small datasets.

  2. 2.

    Physics journals, for instance, often having very long author lists, only provide initial(s) of author(s) given name(s).

  3. 3.

    See for example Gingras, Larivière, Macaluso, and Robitaille (2008) and Larivière, Macaluso, Archambault, and Gingras (2010) for the some results based on this population.

  4. 4.

    The bibliometric part of their paper used the Scopus database, which, contrary to Thomson Reuters’ databases, links names of authors with institutional addresses for papers published since 1996.

  5. 5.

    More details on the classification scheme can be found at: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind06/c5/c5s3.htm#sb1

  6. 6.

    For more details on the CIP, see: http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2002/cip2000/.

  7. 7.

    Thus, 2,256 of Quebec’s researchers did not publish any papers during that period nor had any of their homonyms.

  8. 8.

    The similarity threshold (MinSimilarity) was set at 0.25 in Microsoft SQL Server SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS). More details on the system can be found at: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/library/ms345128(v=SQL.90).aspx

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. École de bibliothéconomie et des sciences de l’information, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, Succ., Centre-Ville, Montréal, QC, Canada, H3C 3J7

    Vincent Larivière

  2. Observatoire des sciences et des technologies (OST), Centre interuniversitaire de recherche sur la science et la technologie (CIRST), Université du Québec à Montréal, Case Postale 8888, Succursale Centre-Ville, Montréal, QC, Canada, H3C 3P8

    Benoit Macaluso

Authors
  1. Vincent Larivière
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  2. Benoit Macaluso
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Vincent Larivière .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Informatics and Computing, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA

    Ying Ding

  2. University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium

    Ronald Rousseau

  3. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

    Dietmar Wolfram

Appendices

Appendix 1: List of Disciplines Assigned to Journals

  • Arts

    • Fine Arts & Architecture

    • Performing Arts

  • Biology

    • Agricultural & Food Sciences

    • Botany

    • Dairy & Animal Science

    • Ecology Entomology

    • General Biology

    • General Zoology

    • Marine Biology & Hydrobiology

    • Miscellaneous Biology

    • Miscellaneous Zoology

  • Biomedical Research

    • Anatomy & Morphology

    • Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

    • Biomedical Engineering

    • Biophysics

    • Cellular Biology Cytology & Histology

    • Embryology

    • General Biomedical Research

    • Genetics & Heredity

    • Microbiology Microscopy

    • Miscellaneous Biomedical Research

    • Nutrition & Dietetic

    • Parasitology

    • Physiology

    • Virology

  • Chemistry

    • Analytical Chemistry

    • Applied Chemistry

    • General Chemistry

    • Inorganic & Nuclear Chemistry

    • Organic Chemistry

    • Physical Chemistry

    • Polymers

  • Clinical Medicine

    • Addictive Diseases

    • Allergy

    • Anesthesiology

    • Arthritis & Rheumatology

    • Cancer

    • Cardiovascular System

    • Dentistry

    • Dermatology & Venereal Disease

    • Endocrinology

    • Environmental & Occupational Health

    • Fertility

    • Gastroenterology

    • General & Internal Medicine

    • Geriatrics

    • Hematology

    • Immunology

    • Miscellaneous Clinical Medicine

    • Nephrology

    • Neurology & Neurosurgery

    • Obstetrics & Gynecology

    • Ophthalmology

    • Orthopedics

    • Otorhinolaryngology

    • Pathology

    • Pediatrics

    • Pharmacology

    • Pharmacy

    • Psychiatry

    • Radiology & Nuclear Medicine

    • Respiratory System

    • Surgery

    • Tropical Medicine

    • Urology

    • Veterinary Medicine

  • Earth and Space

    • Astronomy & Astrophysics

    • Earth & Planetary Science

    • Environmental Science

    • Geology

    • Meteorology & Atmospheric Science

    • Oceanography & Limnology

  • Engineering and Technology

    • Aerospace Technology

    • Chemical Engineering

    • Civil Engineering

    • Computers

    • Electrical Engineering & Electronics

    • General Engineering

    • Industrial Engineering

    • Materials Science

    • Mechanical Engineering

    • Metals & Metallurgy

    • Miscellaneous Engineering & Technology

    • Nuclear Technology

    • Operations Research

  • Health

    • Geriatrics & Gerontology

    • Health Policy & Services

    • Nursing

    • Public Health

    • Rehabilitation

    • Social Sciences, Biomedical

    • Social Studies of Medicine

    • Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology

  • Humanities

    • History

    • Language & Linguistics

    • Literature

    • Miscellaneous Humanities

    • Philosophy

    • Religion

  • Mathematics

    • Applied Mathematics

    • General Mathematics

    • Miscellaneous Mathematics

    • Probability & Statistics

  • Physics

    • Acoustics

    • Applied Physics

    • Chemical Physics

    • Fluids & Plasmas

    • General Physics

    • Miscellaneous Physics

    • Nuclear & Particle Physics

    • Optics

    • Solid State Physics

    Professional Fields

    • Communication

    • Education

    • Information Science & Library Science

    • Law

    • Management

    • Miscellaneous Professional Field

    • Social Work

  • Psychology

    • Behavioral Science & Complementary Psychology

    • Clinical Psychology

    • Developmental & Child Psychology

    • Experimental Psychology

    • General Psychology

    • Human Factors

    • Miscellaneous Psychology

    • Psychoanalysis

    • Social Psychology

    Social Sciences

    • Anthropology and Archaeology

    • Area Studies

    • Criminology

    • Demography

    • Economics

    • General Social Sciences

    • Geography

    • International Relations

    • Miscellaneous Social Sciences

    • Planning & Urban Studies

    • Political Science and Public Administration

    • Science studies

    • Sociology

Appendix 2: List of Disciplines Assigned to Departments

  • Basic Medical Sciences

    • General Medicine

    • Laboratory Medicine

    • Medical Specialties

    • Surgical Specialties

  • Business & Management

  • Education

  • Engineering

    • Chemical Engineering

    • Civil Engineering

    • Electrical & Computer Engineering

    • Mechanical & Industrial Engineering

    • Other Engineering

  • Health Sciences

    • Dentistry

    • Kinesiology/Physical Education

    • Nursing

    • Other Health Sciences

    • Public Health & Health Administration

    • Rehabilitation Therapy

  • Humanities

    • Fine & Performing Arts

    • Foreign Languages, Literature, & Linguistics

    • Area Studies

    • French/English

    • History

    • Philosophy

    • Religious Studies & Vocations

  • Non-health Professional

    • Law & Legal Studies

    • Library & Information Sciences

    • Media & Communication Studies

    • Planning & Architecture

    • Social Work

  • Sciences

    • Agricultural & Food Sciences

    • Biology & Botany

    • Chemistry

    • Computer & Information Science

    • Earth & Ocean Sciences

    • Mathematics

    • Physics & Astronomy

    • Resource Management & Forestry

  • Social Sciences

    • Anthropology, Archaeology, & Sociology

    • Economics

    • Geography

    • Other Social Sciences & Humanities

    • Political Science

    • Psychology

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Larivière, V., Macaluso, B. (2014). Researchers’ Publication Patterns and Their Use for Author Disambiguation. In: Ding, Y., Rousseau, R., Wolfram, D. (eds) Measuring Scholarly Impact. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10377-8_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10377-8_7

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