Identification of milestone papers through time-balanced network centrality

doi:10.1016/j.joi.2016.10.005

	Identification of milestone papers through time-balanced network centrality
	Mariani, Manuel Sebastian 1; Medo, Matus 1; Zhang, Yi-Cheng 1,2
刊名	JOURNAL OF INFORMETRICS
	2016-11-01
卷号	10 期号:4 页码:1207-1223
关键词	Citation analysis Metrics evaluation PageRank Time bias Milestone papers
ISSN号	1751-1577
DOI	10.1016/j.joi.2016.10.005
通讯作者	Mariani, MS (reprint author), Univ Fribourg, Dept Phys, CH-1700 Fribourg, Switzerland.
英文摘要	Citations between scientific papers and related bibliometric indices, such as the h-index for authors and the impact factor for journals, are being increasingly used - often in controversial ways - as quantitative tools for research evaluation. Yet, a fundamental research question remains still open: to which extent do quantitative metrics capture the significance of scientific works? We analyze the network of citations among the 449,935 papers published by the American Physical Society (APS) journals between 1893 and 2009, and focus on the comparison of metrics built on the citation count with network-based metrics. We contrast five article-level metrics with respect to the rankings that they assign to a set of fundamental papers, called Milestone Letters, carefully selected by the APS editors for "making long-lived contributions to physics, either by announcing significant discoveries, or by initiating new areas of research". A new metric, which combines PageRank centrality with the explicit requirement that paper score is not biased by paper age, is the best-performing metric overall in identifying the Milestone Letters. The lack of time bias in the new metric makes it also possible to use it to compare papers of different age on the same scale. We find that network-based metrics identify the Milestone Letters better than metrics based on the citation count, which suggests that the structure of the citation network contains information that can be used to improve the ranking of scientific publications. The methods and results presented here are relevant for all evolving systems where network centrality metrics are applied, for example the World Wide Web and online social networks. An interactive Web platform where it is possible to view the ranking of the APS papers by rescaled PageRank is available at the address http://www.sciencenow.info. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
URL标识	查看原文 ; 查看原文
资助项目	EU FET-Open Grant[611272]
WOS研究方向	Computer Science ; Information Science & Library Science
语种	英语
出版者	ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
WOS记录号	WOS:000389548900024
内容类型	期刊论文
源URL	[http://119.78.100.138/handle/2HOD01W0/3147]
专题	中国科学院重庆绿色智能技术研究院
通讯作者	Mariani, Manuel Sebastian
作者单位	1.Univ Fribourg, Dept Phys, CH-1700 Fribourg, Switzerland 2.Chinese Acad Sci, Chongqing Inst Green & Intelligent Technol, Chongqing 400714, Peoples R China
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Mariani, Manuel Sebastian,Medo, Matus,Zhang, Yi-Cheng. Identification of milestone papers through time-balanced network centrality[J]. JOURNAL OF INFORMETRICS,2016,10(4):1207-1223.
APA	Mariani, Manuel Sebastian,Medo, Matus,&Zhang, Yi-Cheng.(2016).Identification of milestone papers through time-balanced network centrality.JOURNAL OF INFORMETRICS,10(4),1207-1223.
MLA	Mariani, Manuel Sebastian,et al."Identification of milestone papers through time-balanced network centrality".JOURNAL OF INFORMETRICS 10.4(2016):1207-1223.