How can citation impact in bibliometrics be normalized? A new approach combining citing-side normalization and citation percentiles

Since the 1980s, many different methods have been proposed to field-normalize citations. In this study, an approach is introduced that combines two previously introduced methods: citing-side normalization and citation percentiles. The advantage of combining two methods is that their advantages can b...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Quantitative science studies Vol. 1; no. 4; pp. 1553 - 1569
Main Author: Bornmann, Lutz
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: One Rogers Street, Cambridge, MA 02142-1209, USA MIT Press 01.12.2020
MIT Press Journals, The
The MIT Press
Subjects:
Bibliometrics
citation analysis
citation percentiles
citing-side normalization
Mathematical analysis
Skewed distributions
ISSN:2641-3337, 2641-3337
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Since the 1980s, many different methods have been proposed to field-normalize citations. In this study, an approach is introduced that combines two previously introduced methods: citing-side normalization and citation percentiles. The advantage of combining two methods is that their advantages can be integrated in one solution. Based on citing-side normalization, each citation is field weighted and, therefore, contextualized in its field. The most important advantage of citing-side normalization is that it is not necessary to work with a specific field categorization scheme for the normalization procedure. The disadvantages of citing-side normalization—the calculation is complex and the numbers are elusive—can be compensated for by calculating percentiles based on weighted citations that result from citing-side normalization. On the one hand, percentiles are easy to understand: They are the percentage of papers published in the same year with a lower citation impact. On the other hand, weighted citation distributions are skewed distributions with outliers. Percentiles are well suited to assigning the position of a focal paper in such distributions of comparable papers. The new approach of calculating percentiles based on weighted citations is demonstrated in this study on the basis of a citation impact comparison between several countries.
Bibliography:Fall, 2020
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ISSN:2641-3337
2641-3337
DOI:10.1162/qss_a_00089