Network-based statistical comparison of citation topology of bibliographic databases

TL;DR

This study compares the citation network structures of six major bibliographic databases, revealing significant topological inconsistencies and assessing their reliability for scientific research and evaluation.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive topological comparison framework for bibliographic databases, highlighting their differences and reliability based on citation network analysis.

Findings

Web of Science is the most consistent database.

arXiv.org has the most exhaustive citation information.

DBLP shows significant topological differences due to coverage.

Abstract

Modern bibliographic databases provide the basis for scientific research and its evaluation. While their content and structure differ substantially, there exist only informal notions on their reliability. Here we compare the topological consistency of citation networks extracted from six popular bibliographic databases including Web of Science, CiteSeer and arXiv.org. The networks are assessed through a rich set of local and global graph statistics. We first reveal statistically significant inconsistencies between some of the databases with respect to individual statistics. For example, the introduced field bow-tie decomposition of DBLP Computer Science Bibliography substantially differs from the rest due to the coverage of the database, while the citation information within arXiv.org is the most exhaustive. Finally, we compare the databases over multiple graph statistics using the critical difference diagram. The citation topology of DBLP Computer Science Bibliography is the least consistent with the rest, while, not surprisingly, Web of Science is significantly more reliable from the perspective of consistency. This work can serve either as a reference for scholars in bibliometrics and scientometrics or a scientific evaluation guideline for governments and research agencies.