Science-Metrix analyst Henrique Pinheiro will present a paper on normalization approaches for “rare citation events,” in the context of uptake of peer-reviewed publications in the policy-related literature at STI 2023 on September 29. 

Although citations of research publications are common in peer-reviewed literature, mentions of research publications in news, social media, Wikipedia, and other non-scientific types of literature are much less common. While these citations can provide useful clues about the broader uptake of scientific research by society, in cases where these events are rare, normalization of scores can amplify the effect of outliers.  

To address this issue, the paper, “Normalization of rare citation events in the context of uptake of research in the non-scientific literature,” co-authored with Science-Metrix analysts Etienne Vignola-Gagné and David Campbell, proposes a new normalization method (difference-based method) and compares it with the usual (ratio-based) approach.  By comparing both methods on a large sample of UK organizations, the paper shows, with examples, that the difference-based approach can reduce the impact of outliers.

The 27th International Conference on Science, Technology, and Innovation Indicators, 2023 (STI) is taking place September 26-29, in a hybrid format, online and in Leiden, Netherlands. Mr. Pinheiro will be presenting online as part of the “Bibliometrics – Indicators and methods 2” panel on September 29 at 14:30-15:45.

Read the full paper.

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