AnIWi of Library Science and Documentation 1991, 38(4), 119-126

PROCEEDINGS OF THE OFFSHORE TECHNOLOGYCONFERENCE - A QUANTITATIVE ANDQUALITATIVE ASSESSMENT

The Proceedings of the Offshore Technology Confer-ence (OTC) has been evaluated for its status. It isfound that there are veryfew core journals devotedto offshore technology alone. OTC Proceedingsconsidered with these journals is found to rankfourth on the basis ofits impactfactor. The OTC Pro-ceeding is also tested for other parameters ofqualitative aspects and found to be of reasonablestandard. On the basis of this it is suggested thatpublications in OTC Proceedings be considered atpar with the journal articles.

INIRODUCIlON

Making a qualitative assessment of publications isa very difficult task [6] and there is no thumb ruleyet to say which kind of paper willmake substantialcontributions to a field of study.One of the suggestedways to weigh a paper is the standard of the journalitself in which it appears [3].

The interviews of the university faculty membersand administrators to findout the acceptable parame-ters for evaluation of research publications [1] re-vealed that publication of papers in prestigiousjournals isone of the most accepted parameters ofevaluation.

The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research- the largest R & D establishment in India hasbeenevaluating research output of its constituent labora-tories on the basis of'impact factor of the publica-tions in which the articles emanating from themare published [2].

This has made the scientific community cautious inselecting journals for publishing their research pa-pers. In doing so, a doubt arises in the minds ofscientists as regard to the weightage given to a

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MPTAPASWINational Institute of OceanographyDona Paula, Goa 403004

paper published in the conference proceedingsbecause they are not considered at par with journals.The reason is that they do not, generally, undergothe process of refereeing system as in the case ofjournals. Even if this is considered as a validargument for the time being, this is not the onlycriterion for weighing the standard of a publication.Even among the journals, various parameters [4]aretaken into consideration to decide their ranking.Further, in some developing subjects, the numberof journals are very few and hence, the scientistsprefer to publish their papers in the conferenceproceedings. Keeping these in view, an attempt ismade to evaluate the status ofthe Proceedings ofthe Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) andits ranking among relevant journals.

OFFSHORElECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE

For more than two decades, professionals havechosen this conference as an outstanding annualforum for the dissemination of new technologyrelated to offshore operations. The conference issponsored by the following nine learned societies:

a) American Institute ofMining, Metallurgical &Petroleum Engineers,

b) American Association of Petroleum Geologists,c) American Institute of Chemical Engineers.d) American Society of Civil Engineers,e) American Society of Mechanical Engineers,1) Institute of Electrical & Electronic Engineers,g) Marine Technology Society,h) Society of Exploration of Geophysicists, andi) Society ofN avalArchitects and Marine

Engineers.

In recent past the proceedings has been publishingnearly 300 full length papers in four volumes every

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year. The scope of the proceedings cover the follow-ing:

a) Offshore geology and geophysics;b) Offshore founded and floating/mobile

structures;c) Diving, salvage and repair operations;d) Equipment, techniques and support services;e) Minerals and energy resources; and other

technological aspects such as fouling,corrosion, soil mechanics, hydrodynamics,etc.

The OTC has its own full time officeat Texas (USA)and works on strict time schedules.

METHODOLOGY

The criteria used by the ScienceCitation Index(SCI)[2] has been applied to the Proceedings of the OTCfor its evaluation. These are:

Impact Factor (I F),Internationality,Timeliness/regularity,Use of international editorial conventions,Language,Peer reviewing,Editorial quality, and,Reputation of publishers.

~e impact factors of the OTC Proceedings for 1989and 1990 have been determined using the methodol-ogy suggested by Sen et al [7]. To evaluate OTC'sstanding in the subject, it was necessary to compareit with other relevant journals. All the journals citedin 292 papers of OTC proceedings of the year 1990were considered as relevant and listed. Their impactfactorswere checked in the Journal Citation Reports(JCR) 1987.

The information on other different criteria has beencollected from the Proceedings and the correspon-dance with the authors.

OBSERVATIONS

Citations and Impact Factor

Since it is beyond the scope ofthe SCI to count thecitations to the conference proceedings, and there is

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no other ready made source to know such counts,the number of citations to OTC could not beascertained. Therefore, the study depends on thecitation counts from the OTC proceedings alone.

The citations from the Proceedingsof the OTCoftheyears 1989and 1990 to the previous two respectiveyears were manually searched and noted to findoutthe Impact Factor (IF) (Table 1).

The total citations (2122) in the citing articles (292)of the year 1990 proceedings were analysedfurther. The journal citations count WdS only 20.8%as against the citations to other material (79.2%).Maclean at [5]have also noticed that the citationsto journal articles among International Centre forAquatic Living Resources Management (ICLARM)publications are comparatively less than otherforms of literature. It is concluded from thisphenomenon that the journal articles do not consti-tute the "core" literature in developing countries.With observations from this study,it could be furtheradded that it is not only the developing countries butalso the developing subject that matters in decid-ing "core" literature in that subject.

The list of relevant journal titles (167) was furtherchecked with JCR 1987 to findout their I F. It isobserved that 41% of the titles did not find a placein JCR at all. This is probably due to the fact thatmany of these titles appear to be of popular newsmagazine type. The journals cited in OTC andfinding a place in SCI are listed (Appendix 1).Only11 of those could be categorised as core 'OceanTechnology' journals on the basis of coveringexclusively those topics which are dealt in the OTCProceedings. The Proceedings of the OTC wouldfind a fourth place among these journals if rankedaccording to the I F. The journals, i.e. MarineMining, Journal of Waterways, Port Harbour Divi-sion ASCE, and the IEEE Journal of Oceanic En-gineering are having I F higher than the OTCProceedings. On the basis of these observations,it is felt that the OTC Proceedings have made agood reputation as far as I F is concerned.

Internationality

Internationality of the publication could be checkedat two levels:

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PROCEEDING OF OFFSHORE TEO-INOLOGY CONFERENCL

a) The editorial board, andb) The authors contributing to the publication

The editorial board as such does not exist for OTCproceedings. The responsibilities of the editorialboard, like selection of papers on the basis ofrelevance, timeliness and quality, etc. rest on theProgram Committee. This committee for the years1989 and 1990was found to be purely US based.Therefore the scoring of the Proceedings in thisrespect is not satisfying.

Efforts to findout internationality among the authorson count basis could not work because of the lackof authors' complete addresses in the papers oranywhere else in the proceedings. However, in theintroductory pages of the proceedings of the year1990, it is mentioned that authors from 19 nationsare participating in the program. The score maybefixed at just satisfactory in this case.

Timeliness/Regularity

The OTC is an yearly programme taking place onschedule. The correspondance with authors fromOTC office reflects on their strictness in adheringto the deadlines for submission of abstracts,papers, "and other materials to be used forpresentation at the conference. The proceedings areinvariably available to the participants during theconference and subsequently to other institutions forpurchase. It isobserved that some of them have evengone out-of-print when the orders were delayed alittle bit. This shows that the proceedings scoresvery good in this criteria of the assessment.

Use of International Editorial Convention

The format of papers in the proceedings isverycloseto that of the international editorial conventions. Itincludes the title, the names oftheauthor(s), theiraffiliations, an abstract, an introduction, statementoftheory and definitions, description and applicationof the equipment and the processes, presentation ofthe data and the results, interpretation of the data,conclusions, nomenclature, acknowledgements andthe references.The restrictions on the length of thepaper and style of presentation are spell out indetail in the author's kit. However, the contentsof the paper are not reviewed and are subject tocorrection bytheauthors. The score in this respect

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is also good.

Language

The language of the conference and the paperspresented in the proceedings is only English. Thisis the most common language used by the scientistsfor international communication. Once again theProceedings scores a very good.

Refereeing System

The solicitation of the technical papers presentedat the conference is made primarily on the copy ofan abstract alone submitted earlier.The abstractsareinvited on a specific form wherein the author has tosummarize the scope and the nature of the work,describe the possible application of knowledge pro-vided in the paper, describe the results and conclu-sions of the work and state the most significantaspect ofthe subjectmatter. The form contains fourparts: Description; Application; Results; Observa-tions and Conclusions and Significance of thesubject matter. The author has to spellout theinformation on his work which he wishes tocontribute to the conference under these headingsin as detailed as 300words.Actually, information ofthis size appears more appropriate to be titled as'synopsisInstead of 'abstract'. It is seen in manyjournal's the 'instructions to authors', state that thelength of an abstract is restricted to around 150words. In the light of this the score may not beabove satisfactory level in this case.

The preliminary information or synopsisof the worksupplied on the abstract page is sufficient to judgethe quality and relevance of the work.The ProgramComitteemembers review and select on the meritsof the work. This methodology for selection of aspecific paper appears to be very convenient fromthe timeliness point-of-viewand enough to judge thequality of the work.

The OTC while conveying the acceptance of thepaper, intimates the author that they reserve theright to reconsidertheir acceptance ofthe fun lengthpaper if it subsantiallydiffers from the descriptionsgiven in the abstract/synopsis. Further, all manu-scripts are reviewed for conformance of the size andother editorial standards before incorporating inthe proceedings.

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Table 1Impact FaClOrQ/OTC Proceedings/or 1989 and 1990

(previous Two Years)

Year(a)

No. of citations to(b)

Source items in(c)

IF(d=b/c)

19891990

8598

262+265265+307

0.16130.1717

Table 2Rating of OTe Proceedings

Marks: 10 = Very good, 7 = Good, 4 = Satisfactory, 1 = Fair

SI. No. Parameter Marks Max. Marks

1 Impact Factor 7 102 Internationality in editorial board 1 13 Internationality in authors 4 104 Timeliness 10 105 International Editorial Convensions 7 106 Language 10 107 Refereeing System 4 10

Total 43 (61.42%) 70

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Reputation of the Publisher

PROCEEDING OF OfFSHORE 1EGINOLOGY OONFERFJllCE

The OTe is jointly sponsored by well established,highly reputed and respected marine science wingsofthe professional societies. The reputation ofthesociety could be decided on the basis of theirmembership, programmes and publications. It isunderstood from the proceedings of OTe (1990) thatthe sponsoring societies have a total membership ofover 700,000. They publish various journals,conference proceedings, etc. in respective disci-plines.

Though all societies are US based, their standing - theworldover in the respective disciplines is beyond anydoubt.

CONCLUSION

Using the above observations and rating eachparameter of the assessment as

Very good (100% satisfying conditions),

Good (almost satisfying conditions),

Satisfactory (average/ordinary standard) and

Fair (not satisfying but showing the mere existence).

By fixing the scores at 10, 7, 4 and 1 respectivelyto these ratings out of 10, the evaluation of OTCproceedings would be viewed as shown in the Table2.

On the basis of this rating, it is suggested that thepapers published in the OTC Proceedings may beconsidered at par with the journal articles and beplaced appropriately in the rank list of the rele-vant journals and be considered as quality publi-cation.

It might be difficult for (he OTC to improve onits refereeing system due to timebound tasks but thereshould not be any difficulty in considering interna-tional representation in the Program Committee,

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printing complete addresses of authors onrespec-tive papers and adhering to the editorial style ofpapers. This would certainly add to the merits ofOTC and benefit the authors when their worksare evaluated.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author is thankful to Shri Anup Gujar forproviding the information material, Shri S R Bhat forcritically going through the manuscript and givingsuggestions. Thanks are also due to the Director,NIO for his permission to work on it and publish thepaper.

REFERENCES

1. Chan J L: Organisational consensus regardingthe relative importance of research outputindicators. Accounting Rev 1978,53,309-323.

2. CSIR: CSIR Research Output 1989 - A bibliom-etric analysis. Council of Scientific and Indus-trial Research, New Delhi. 1990.

3. Garfield E: What scientific journals can telius about scientific journals. IEEE Trans ProfCornmunicat 1973, 16 (4),200-202.

4. Garfield E: How ISI selects journals forcoverage - quantitative and qualitative consid-erations. Curr Cont. 28 May 1990.

5. Maclean J 1., Temprosa R M, Jhocson N I andDiaz A F: Bibliographic impact of ICLARM.International Centre for Aquatic Living Resources Management. Tech Rep 26, 1990,19 pp.

6). Maddox J: Is the literature worth keeping? BullAtomic Scient 1963, 19 (9), 14-16.

~..1). Sen B K, Karanjai A and Munshi U M: A methodfor determining the impact factor of a non-SCIjournal. J Doc 1989, 45 (2)~ 139-141.

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APPENDIX 1Journals cited in the O'I'C Proceedings of 1990

(Listed in decreasing order of IF (JCR 1987). The journals marked with •• ' could be considered as corejournals in 'Ocean Technology'

IF14.99914.3046.8393.2133.2122.5252.3132.0782.077*1.6471.6141.5971.5741.5711.4021.3461.3121.2361.2331.1811.1121.0841.0411.0411.0000.9850.9800.9760.9490.9390.9280.8870.8590.8360.8090.7670.7220.7220.6830.669

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TitleNatureScienceJournal of Geophysical ResearchGeochemica et Cosmochemica ActaEarth and Planetary Science LettersQuarterly journal of the Royal Meteorological SocietyBulletin ofthe Seismological Society of AmericaJournal of Physical Oce,anographyDeep-Sea ResearchMarine MiningJournal of Fluid MechanicsProceedings of the Royal Society of London. AJournal of Colloid Interface ScienceAAPG BulletinIEEE Transactions on Software EngineeringIEEE SoftwareJournal of the Acoustical Society of AmericaPhilosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London. AIEEE Transactions on Automat. Contr.Water ResearchMarine GeologyGeophysicsIEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and CyberneticsChemical GeologyCanadian Journal of Earth SciencesInternational Journal of ControlInternational Journal for Numerical Methods in EngineeringReview of Scientific InstrumentsGeotechniqueGeological JournalChemical Engineering ScienceAutomaticaJournal of Chemical Engineering in JapanJournal of Research of the National Bureau of StandardsAmbioJournal of GlaciologyJournal of Geochemical ExplorationJournal of Engineering Mechanics Division ASCEJournal of HydrologyInternational Journal of Multiphase Flow

Contd

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PROCEEDING OF OFFSHORE TE01NOLOGY CONFERENCE

0.632 International Journal for Numercial and Analytical methods in Geornechanics0.619 Corrosion0.613 Powder Technology0.604 Journal of Sound and Vibration0.604 Journal of Aerosol Science0.601 Journal of Geotechnical Engineering Division ASCE0.597 Journal of Hydraulics Engineering0.570 IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications0.554 Engineering Fracture Mechanics0.549 Journal of Applied Mechanics0.521 International Journal of Solids and Structures0515 Journal of Structural Division ASCE0.466 Optimal Control Applications and Methods0.458 Geo-marine Letters0.443 International Journal of Mechanical Sciences*0.423 Journal of Waterway, Port Harbour Division ASCE*0.420 IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering0.419 New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Science0.413 Chemical Engineering Research Design0.404 Journal of Hydraulics Research0.381 Revue de I' Institute Francais du Petrole0.381 Chemical Engineering News0.368 Journal of Strain Analysis0.358 Scandinavian Journal of Metallurgy0.351 Computers and Structures0.347 New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics0.34i Canadian Geotechnical Journal0.330 Engineering and Mining Journal0.307 Journal of Oil Color Chemists Association0.250 Thin Walled Structures0.245 Journal of Dynamic Systems Measurement and Control0.243 Journal of Petroleum Technology (JPT)0.206 Engineering Structure0.200 Journal of Constructional Steel Research0.197 New Zealand Journal of Marine ;'nd Freshwater Research0.193 Journal (JFluid Engineering0.173 Journal of Testing and Evaluation0.165 WeldingJournal*0.157 Applied Ocean Research*0.156 Ocean Engineering0.153 Zeitschrift F angw. Math und Mech.0.147 Society for Petroleum Engineers Journal0.147 Material Performance*0.141 Marine Technology Society Journal*0.136 Oil&GasJournal*0.133 Marine Geoiechnology*0.130 Journal of Ship Research0.101 Journal of Transportation Engineering ASCE0.080 Journal of Pressure Vessel Technology

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0.073 Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics0.071 Journal of Energy Resources and Technology0.064 Journal of Engineering for Industry·0.039 Naval Engineers Journal0.026 World Oil·0.020 Marine Technology0.015 Acta Polytechnica Scandinavia0.000 Transactions of American Society of MechanicalEngineers0.000 EOS Transactions of American Geophysical Union

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