Presented by: Michael A MabeDirector of Visiting ProfessorAcademic Relations Dept Information Science

Elsevier City University, London

Globality & Disciplinarity in the Serials Universe

PART ONE

• Global and national trends– Publishers– Journals– Articles– National productivity– Author differences by country

Journals Produced in Different Countries

0

20

40

60

France

Germany UK US

Russia

Other

1901

-13 1961 20

02

1901-13 1961 2002

National Shares of Scholarship: 2002 Data

National Shares of Scholarship: 1975 Data

Winners & Losers of National Share 1975-2002

Winners & Losers: Last Five YearsWorld Share of Articles by Top 20 Countries

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

0.35

% All 1998 % All 1999 % All 2000 % All 2001 % All 2002

Year

Co

un

try'

s ar

ticl

e sh

are

US

JAPAN

UK

GERMANY

FRANCE

ITALY

PEOPLES R CHINA

CANADA

SPAIN

AUSTRALIA

NETHERLANDS

SOUTH KOREA

RUSSIA

INDIA

SWEDEN

BRAZIL

TAIWAN

SWITZERLAND

ISRAEL

BELGIUM

Nationality & Author Behaviour

Nation References given per paper

% references to same nation papers (self-cites)

Observed self-cites/ expected (%)

US

UK

Germany

France

Japan

Canada

7.206

6.054

5.845

5.998

4.151

6.186

70.7

38.3

29.6

28.0

31.1

25.4

211

486

496

571

402

626

Source: Frame & Narin Research Policy 17.203-13, 1988

PART TWO

• Disciplinary differences– Journal characteristics by area– Relative sizes of disciplines– Author behaviour per discipline

• Journals vs books

• Peer review & preprints

• Collaboration & productivity

One View of Disciplinary Differences…

Lord Rutherford

There’s physics… and then there’s stamp-collecting

Another View…

Those who think and get somewhere are mathematicians. Those who think and don’t get anywhere are philosophers. Those who

don’t think and get somewhere are the natural scientists.

Those who don’t think and don’t get anywhere are the humanists.

Contributor at a meeting of American Council of Learned Societies

US Scholarly/Scientific Journals 1995

Average Number per Title

Field of Science Number of Journals

Articles Pages Pages per art.

Physical Sciences

Mathematics

Engineering

Life Sciences

Social Sciences

ALL

432

206

828

2104

2140

6771

306

127

163

130

38

123

2604

2069

1830

1396

918

1434

8.51

16.29

11.23

10.74

24.11

11.66After T&K p237

US Journals 1995 by Publisher Type

Average Number per Title

Type of Publisher

Number of Journals

Articles Pages Pages per art.

Commercial

Society

Educational

Other

ALL

2679

1557

1106

1429

6771

118

202

70

84

123

1533

1813

1500

786

1434

12.99

8.98

21.43

9.36

11.66

After T&K p237

Suggests Commercials concentrate on applied and engineering journals, Societies on pure disciplines, Educational on social

science

Discipline Sizes: 2002 Data

UK Faculty Per Capita Performance 1992

Subject

Authored

books

Refereed

Conference

proceedings

Journal

articles

Research

students

Relative

Research

Council

Income

Science

Technology

Medicine

0.18

0.17

0.15

1.34

3.57

1.99

5.52

3.45

6.12

1.65

1.90

0.82

0.99

1.00

0.44

Social Science

Humanities

0.64

0.68

0.76

0.74

2.30

2.73

0.60

0.56

0.15

0.06

Source: A J Meadows Communicating Research, Academic Press, 1998

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

StronglyDisagree

Disagree No Opinion Agree Strongly Agree

perc

enta

ge

clinical medicine

organic chemists

mechanical engineering

high energy physics

When looking for specific information, researchers are not interested in the quality of the refereeing process

Researchers are not interested in the quality of the refereeing: interviewees comments

AGREE • “Researchers are able to referee themselves” “Refereeing function is not important and has

never had real influence or impact. It is useful in ministerial bureaucracies, but not in the scientific community.”

- High Energy Physicists

DISAGREE • “The quality of peer review is one of the biggest assets of a journal”

- Clinical Medic “Wrong information is even worse

than no information.” - Organic Chemist

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

StronglyDisagree

Disagree No Opinion Agree Strongly Agree

perc

enta

ge

clinical medicine

organic chemistry

mechanicalengineering

high energy physics

Readers will preferably use preprint databases or other so called grey-literature for their own early warning

Use of Preprints for Early Warning: interviewees comments

AGREE

DISAGREE

• “Personal communication will be replaced by desk-top information tools”

– Organic Chemist

• “Preprint is useful, peer-review has a substantial time lag”– Clinical Medic

• “One cannot rely on non-refereed articles, even abstracts are quite useless”

– Neuroscientist

• “The need for early-warning is based on competition between individual scientists: it is relevant in a competitive enviornment but irrelevant scientifically”

• “Scientists use conferences for early-warning!”– Organic Chemists

Collaboration by Authors

• Average for all fields: 3.9• Variation by discipline

– Life sciences highest (4.4)– Mathematics lowest (about 1.9)– Special case: high energy physics

• Co-authorship in 100s but very small field

• Variation over time– Has grown from an average of 1.8 to 3.9

over last fifty years

Collaboration by DisciplineCo-authorship Variation

0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.50 4.00 4.50

Social Sciences

Mathematics & Computer Sciences

Materials Science & Engineering

Environmental Sciences

Earth Sciences

Biological Sciences

Chemistry & Chemical Engineering

Physics

Neuroscience

Pharmacology & Toxicology

Clinical Medicine

Fundamental Life Sciences

Fiel

ds

Co-authors

0.00

0.50

1.00

1.50

2.00

2.50

3.00

3.50

4.00

4.50

1954 1956 1958 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000

No

of A

uth

ors

or

Pap

ers Authorships per

Paper

Authorships per Unique Author

Papers per Unique Author

Data from ISI Science Citation Index

Collaboration and Productivity Over Time

3.98

3.03

0.75

From: Mabe & Amin ASLIB Proc. 54(3).149-175, 2002

Global vs Local

• Nations– Local publishing to global

• Multinational to Anglo-American in 20th C• To China in 21st?

• Disciplines– Global: fundamental in English

• Physics, chemistry, life sciences– Local: applied, social & humanities in English &

local languages• Medicine, politics, history, economics

– Different scholarly traditions and behaviours• International Collaboration

– Growing and potentially could affect the model