Citation Analysis of Doctoral dissertation submitted to Banaras Hindu University in Physics

Sunil Kumar Gautam[1]

ABSTRACT

A citation analysis of Ph.D. theses submitted to Banaras Hindu University was performed as a way of determining the use of information sources made by the research scholars of the university. In the present study, Sixty Six Ph.D. theses of Physics were chosen as a sample from the year January 1990 to December 2002.There are 12873 citations in 66 theses. The data were collected from the bibliographical entries listed at the end of the theses, which was used by the researchers for completing the theses. The citations were photocopied and the data was collected. Citation analysis carried out to find the types of cited documents, the chronological distribution of cited documents, to find out the authorship pattern of cited documents, rank list of cited journals and to find out the language wise distribution.

Keywords: Citation Analysis, Authorship Pattern, Core Journal.

1. Introduction:

Citation analysis is a major area of bibliometric research, which uses various methods to establish relationship between authors and their work. Citation analysis is useful for understanding subject relationships, author effectiveness, publication trends, and so on. Citation analysis has rapidly become a popular tool for evaluating the research output of scientific institutions. The technique of citation analysis involves the process of collection, counting and analysis and interpretations of citations given in various types of literature and thereby, helps in identification of significant sources of information, individuals, institutions and other aggregates of scientific activities.

2. Objectives

The objectives of the study are to:

• To identify the forms of documents mostly used.
• To determine the authorship pattern in the field of Physics.
• To find out ranking of journals.
• To find  out geographical distribution of cited documents
• Difference between P-Citation and Web citation.

3. Scope and Limitation

The present study is based on 12873 citations appended at the end of 66 Ph.D. theses on Physics, submitted to Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi. The span of 13 years was taken into consideration; that is, from 1990 to 2002.

4. Methodology and Sample

The total sample for this study is 12873 citations that figured in 66 doctoral dissertations accepted by the Banaras Hindu University from 1990 to 2002.These citations pertained to journals, books, conference proceedings and theses. Accordingly, the bibliographic references cited at the end of doctoral dissertations are taken as the source data for the study.

5. Types of Document

The following table presents data on different types of documents cited by the Physics researchers in their doctoral dissertations:

Table No.1

Form Wise Distribution of Cited Literature

The analysis of data in table 1 depicted that out of 12873 citations 11033 (85.70 %) citations were from journals, so it can be said that the most of the authors or researchers depends up on the journals literature for their study, whereas books 1262 (9.80 %), reference books 149 (1.15 %), Conference Proceedings 119 (0.92 %), theses116 (0.90 %) and remaining citations were collected from web resources, reports, special collection, newspapers.

6. Chronological Distribution of Cited Documents                                                                  

Table No.2

Chronological Distribution of Cited Documents

From the table 2 it was seen that the duration of the whole period is divided individually from 1990 to 2002.It was observed that, the highest numbers of citations were in 1992 that is 1932 (15.00 %) and the lowest numbers of citations were in 1990 that is 200 (1.55 %).

7. Authorship Pattern

The study has also analyzed the citations by the numbers of authors to access the pattern of authorship in the literature of Physics.

Table No.3

Authorship Pattern of Documents

It is clear from Table 3 that single author (65.21%) is highest percentage in book; two authors (47.30%) have maximum percentage in Journals, Three authors (15.96%) have maximum percentage in conference proceedings and four authors (9.24%) and more than four authors (10.92%) have highest percentage in conference proceedings.

8. Ranking of cited journals                                                                       

Ranking of Journals has been prepared on the basis of total frequency received by each journal. The journals which are highly cited in documents are most important and they must be kept in the library. Thus journal ranking is essential for the librarian as well as researchers.

Table No.4

Ranking of Top Cited Journals

In the rank list of journal Physical Review occupies the first rank. The total numbers of citation only first 10 ranked journals have been given in table no.4.

9. Difference between P-Citations and Web-Citations

Table No.5

Difference between P-Citations and Web-Citations

 

In table 5, it may be observed that there are total 12873 numbers of citations; out of them 12797 (99.40%) citations are P-citations (Printed- citations) and only 76 (0.59 %) citations are web-citation or E citations.

10. Geographical Distribution of Cited Journals

Geographical analysis of citations provides information of the range of countries active in the field and their relative contribution.

Table No.6

It is found that about 89.95% of the journals used were found from USA.4.99% from India, 3.63% from UK.

Conclusion

The study of citation analysis of 66 Ph.D. theses on Physics shows that most cited documents in Physics literature from journals (85.70%) and remaining (14.30%) citations were from books, conference proceedings, theses, reference books, reports, newspapers and others. So it is concluded that, researchers depend more on journal literature for their investigations. The chronological distribution of citations shows that maximum number of citations are covered in 1992 i.e. 1932 (15%).The authorship pattern of citations shows that the single author citations are very high in books and co-authored in Journal. Ranking of journals shows that the ‘‘Physical Review’’ ranked first which was highly cited journal by authors. The geographical distribution shows that the foreign literature is mostly used for the research by researchers.

References

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