The BiPublishers ranking: Main results and methodological problems when constructing rankings of academic publishers

TL;DR

This paper introduces the BiPublishers ranking, a systematic bibliometric evaluation of academic publishers based on data from the Book Citation Index, highlighting methodological challenges and initial results across various fields.

Contribution

It presents the first comprehensive bibliometric publisher rankings, develops multiple indicators, and discusses methodological issues in constructing such rankings.

Findings

42 publisher rankings across fields and disciplines

Differentiation between commercial publishers and university presses

Identification of key publishers in various research areas

Abstract

We present the results of the Bibliometric Indicators for Publishers project (also known as BiPublishers). This project represents the first attempt to systematically develop bibliometric publisher rankings. The data for this project was derived from the Book Citation Index, and the study time period was 2009-2013. We have developed 42 rankings: 4 for by fields and 38 by disciplines. We display six indicators by publisher divided into three types: output, impact and publisher's profile. The aim is to capture different characteristics of the research performance of publishers. 254 publishers were processed and classified according to publisher type: commercial publishers and university presses. We present the main publishers by fields. Then, we discuss the main challenges presented when developing this type of tools. The BiPublishers ranking is an on-going project which aims to develop and explore new data sources and indicators to better capture and define the research impact of publishers.