Abstract
This paper analyses the determination of visibility of journals in which researchers of INRA (National Institute for Agricultural Research) publish. The corpus is comprised of 671 articles published over a period of four years in 258 journals. The advantage of the method applied for determining the visibility of journals is that it combines two approaches: a) bibliometric indicators (coverage by the ISI-publications and by two specific French databases) and b) experts' opinions (10 economists and sociologists). The main results are: a) There is a convergence between the opinion of the experts and «visibility» in the databases, b) The impact factor confirms the main opinions of the experts. The first journals ranked by the experts and JCR Social Sciences are the same but represent only 40 per cent of the total journals analysed. The other journals were revealed by the experts and French databases.
«Whoever seeks to pass a balanced but lucid judgement on the general trends of the activity carried out by the profession to which he belongs, is liable to say either banalities or to hurt his colleagues»
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bauin, S. et al., In: Caractérisation du CNRS dans les journaux sciences de l'univers: “positionnement et collaborations scientifiques en sciences de l'univers”, sep. 94,Les cahiers de l'OST (Observatoire des Sciences et des Techniques), no. 2.
Bruin de, R. E., Kint, A., Luwel, M., Moed, H. F., A study of research evaluation and planning: the University of Ghent,Research Evaluation, 3, No. 1 (1993) 25–41.
Diamond, A. M. Jr., The core journals of economics, current comments, journal citation studies, Part 1,Current Contents (Jan. 2, 1989) 4–11.
Finkenstaedt, T., Measuring research performance in the Humanities,Scientometrics, 19 (1990) 409–419.
Garfield, E., How to use citation analysis for faculty evaluations, and when is it relevant?Current Comments, No. 44 (Oct. 1983) 5–13.
Gordon, T. J., Helmer, O., Report on a long range forcasting study,Rand Corporation, 1964, p. 29–82.
Jeannin, P., Autour des revues d'économie: Auteurs et articles de la “revue économique” (1980–1990) une analyse comparative,Revue Economique, No. 1 (Jan. 1993) 117–141.
Koen, V., La production française de connaissances économiques: Analyse bibliométrique,Revue Economique, No. 1 (1986) 117–136.
Kagann, S., Leeson, K. W., Major journals in economics: a user study,Journal of Economic Literature, 16 (1978) 979–1003.
Laband, N., Measuring the relative impact of economics book publishers and economics journals,Journal of Economic Literature, 28 (1990) 655–660.
Lemennicier, B., Marrot, O., Setbon, P., L'originalité des économistes universitaires français,Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, 1, No. 1 (Hiver 1989–1990) 151–170.
Liebowitz, S. J., Palmer, J. P., Assessing the relative impacts of economics journals,Journal of Economic Literature, 22, No. 1 (1984) 77–88.
Lovell, M. C., The production of economic literature: an interpretation,Journal of Economic Literature, 11, No. 1 (1973) 27–55.
Malinvaud, E., Propos de circonstance sur les orientations de la discipline économique,Annales Economies Sociétés Civilisations, No. 1 (jan–fév. 1990) 115–121.
Morrisson, C., Jean Lhomme, de l'économie à l'histoire (1901–1987),Revue Economique, No. 3 (1988) 497–510.
Narin, F., “Measuring the Research Productivity of Higher Education Institutions using Bibliometric Techniques”, Rapport présenté au Séminaire de l'OCDE sur les indicateurs de la science et de la technologie dans le secteur de l'enseignement supérieur, OCDE, Paris,-juin 1985.
Nederhof, A. J., Noyons, C. M., International comparison of department's research performance in the humanities,Journal of the American Society for Information Science, No. 43 (1992) 249–256.
Nederhof, A. J., Zwaan, R. A., Quality judgements of journals as indicators of research performance in the humanities and the social and behavioral sciences,Journal of the American Society for Information Science, No. 42 (1991) 332–340.
Nederhof, A. J., Zwaan, R. A., De Bruin, R. E., Dekker, P. J., Assessing the usefulness of bibliometric indicators for the humanities and the social and behavioural sciences: a Comparative Study,Scientometrics, 15 (1989) 423–435.
Nederhof, A. J., van Raan, A. F. J., A bibliometric analysis of six economics research groups: a comparison with peer review,Research Policy, 22, No. 4 (1993) 353–368.
Spangenberg, J. F. A., Buijink, W., Alfenaar, W., Some incentives and constraints of scientific performance in departments of economics,Scientometrics, 18 (1990) 241–269.
Taverdet, N., “Modèle prospectif de consommation d'énergie dans l'agriculture: le cas de la fertilisation azotée à l'horizon 2010”, Thèse de doctorat en économie, Université Pierre Mendès France, Laboratoire INRA/SERD, Grenoble (1993), 2 volumes, 422p. +annexes.
Tijssen, J. W., “Comprehensive Journal Maps of Scientific Areas Based on ISI and non-ISI Journals”, Centre for Science and Technologie Studies (CWTS), University of Leiden P. O. Box 9555, 2300 RB Leiden, The Netherlands.
van Vianen, B. G., Moed, H. F., van Raan, A. F. J., An exploration of the science base a recent technology,Research Policy. No. 19 (1990) 61–81.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
The notion which we retain of core is that which is successively and conjointly validated by the experts and by the major databases representative of the field.
This study was financed by the Department of Rural Economy and Sociology of INRA.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
De Looze, MA., Coronini, R., Legentil, M. et al. Determining the core of journals of a research centre: The example of researchers from the Department of Rural Economy and Sociology of the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, France. Scientometrics 36, 167–183 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02017312
Received:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02017312