ABSTRACT
A growing interest for demonstrating prestige and status of higher education institutions has spurred the establishment of several international ranking systems. A major percentage of these rankings include parameters related to scientific productivity. Here, we examined the differences between diverse rankings as well as correlation with bibliometric parameters and disciplines for the top universities. We investigated the top 300 universities from four international rankings, the Times Higher Education World University Ranking (THE), the QS World University Rankings (QS) the ShanghaiRanking-Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) and the U.S.News Best Global Universities Ranking (USNews). The assessed parameters include ranking positions, size related and bibliometrics-related indicators of each selected ranking. The weight of scientometric parameters ranges between 20% (QS) and 75% (USNews). The most important parameters defining ranking positions include citations, international reputation, and the number of researchers, but the correlation strength varies among ranking systems. The absolute number of publications and citations are particularly important in ARWU and USNews rankings, and scientific category normalized (field weighted) citation impact is central in THE and USNews rankings. Our results confirm that universities having outstanding results in rankings using size-independent indicators (QS and THE) compared to others have significantly lower number of students. High impact research can improve position in ARWU and USNews ranking lists. Regarding to different disciplines, the main results show that outstanding universities in THE ranking have higher publication activity in social sciences and universities which perform better in USNews and QS ranking have more publications in science, technology, and medicine fields and lower score in social sciences. In brief, here we present a comprehensive analysis of the correlation between scientometric parameters and university ranking positions, as well as the performance of outstanding universities and their correlation with different disciplines, to help decision makers select parameters for strengthening and to attract the interest of prospective students and their parents via a better understanding of the functions of different ranks.
ABSTRACT
The present study intends to draw attention to the importance of authorship ethics. It is necessary since papers these days that have many authors--even 10-12 authors--become increasingly general. In the first part of this study the change of author-number in four journals--JAMA, Nature, Lancet and Science--was analyzed based on the main document types--article, editorial material, letter and review--from 1975 until 2009. These changes were similar in all journals. The number of authors for 'articles' has changed the most significantly, a fourfold increase during 34 years. The possible correlation between the expected citations and the change of author-number could not be demonstrated based on this analysis. The increase in the number of authors may include more abuses. This study emphasizes the guideline of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors regarding authorship ethics which could help to reduce the number of misconduct cases. The analysis of some foreign and Hungarian biomedical journals reveals that the foreign periodicals try to follow the main guidelines, but only 4 Hungarian journals, of the analyzed 16, point out the matter of the authorship ethics. The practical solution for this problem is still in the making.
Subject(s)
Authorship , Bibliometrics , Editorial Policies , Journalism, Medical , Periodicals as Topic/statistics & numerical data , Periodicals as Topic/trends , Duplicate Publications as Topic , Guidelines as Topic , Humans , Hungary , International Cooperation , Periodicals as Topic/standards , United StatesABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: The majority of scientific results from Hungarian Medical Universities are published in international periodicals in foreign languages. AIM: This study shows that in what numbers, with what kind of impact factors and where the results of the scientific work in the Hungarian Medical Universities are published. METHODS: The examined period is between 2000 and 2003. These scientific publications were explored by two methods based on the own assembled bibliographies of the Hungarian medical universities - University of Debrecen Medical and Health Science Center, University of Pecs Medical School, University of Semmelweis and University of Szeged Albert Szent-Györgyi Medical and Pharmaceutical Center - and the Web of Science's recording. RESULTS: The scientific publications from our medical universities are published in great number and generally with increasing impact factors to guarantee the international publicity for the Hungarian researches. The 90-95 percent of publications which are intended for international publicity is published in those international journals which have impact factor. Among these journals there are many prestigious ones. CONCLUSIONS: Neither of the two methods which were used for exploring of publishing activity has decisive validity. The institutional reason for this is the insufficiency and the lack of precision of the bibliographies of the universities. In the authors' opinion it would be necessary to develop a uniform, electronic processing and take it over in each universities. So a national scientific database of medical universities would be created by joining these universities' databases.
Subject(s)
Databases, Bibliographic , Journalism, Medical , Periodicals as Topic/statistics & numerical data , Schools, Medical , Bibliometrics , Humans , Hungary , Internet , Language , Schools, Medical/statistics & numerical dataABSTRACT
Nobody doubts the importance of the scientific performance's evaluation. At the same time its way divides the group of experts. The present study mostly deals with the models of citation-analysis based evaluation. The aim of the authors is to present the background of the best known tool - Impact factor - since, according to the authors' experience, to the many people use without knowing it well. In addition to the "non-official impact factor" and Euro-factor, the most promising index-number, h-index is presented. Finally new initiation - Index Copernicus Master List - is delineated, which is suitable to rank journals. Studying different indexes the authors make a proposal and complete the method of long standing for the evaluation of scientific performance.
