A Review of Theory and Practice in Scientometrics

TL;DR

This paper reviews the evolution, methodologies, metrics, and applications of scientometrics, highlighting its role in research evaluation and future directions in measuring scientific impact.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of scientometrics, integrating historical context, data sources, metrics, visualization techniques, and policy implications in a single review.

Findings

Historical development of scientometrics

Overview of citation metrics and impact factors

Emerging trends and future challenges in the field

Abstract

Scientometrics is the study of the quantitative aspects of the process of science as a communication system. It is centrally, but not only, concerned with the analysis of citations in the academic literature. In recent years it has come to play a major role in the measurement and evaluation of research performance. In this review we consider: the historical development of scientometrics, sources of citation data, citation metrics and the "laws" of scientometrics, normalisation, journal impact factors and other journal metrics, visualising and mapping science, evaluation and policy, and future developments.