Skip to main content

Advertisement

Log in

Benchmarking citation measures among the Australian education professoriate

  • Published:
The Australian Educational Researcher Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Individual researchers and the organisations for which they work are interested in comparative measures of research performance for a variety of purposes. Such comparisons are facilitated by quantifiable measures that are easily obtained and offer convenience and a sense of objectivity. One popular measure is the journal impact factor, based on citation rates, but it is a measure intended for journals rather than individuals. Moreover, educational research publications are not well represented in the databases most widely used for calculation of citation measures, leading to doubts about the usefulness of such measures in education. Newer measures and data sources offer alternatives that provide wider representation of education research. However, research has shown that citation rates vary according to discipline and that valid comparisons depend upon the availability of discipline-specific benchmarks. This study sought to provide such benchmarks for Australian educational researchers based on analysis of citation measures obtained for the Australian education professoriate.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Abramo, G., D’Angelo, C. A., & Viel, F. (2010). A robust benchmark for the h- and g-indexes. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 61(6), 1275–1280.

    Google Scholar 

  • Australian Research Council. (2009). The Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) Initiative. http://www.arc.gov.au/era/. Accessed 24 March 2010.

  • Bar-Ilan, J. (2008). Which h-index?—A comparison of WoS. Scopus and Google Scholar. Scientometrics, 74(2), 257–271.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bates, R. (2003). Phelan’s bibliometric analysis of the impact of Australian educational research. Australian Educational Researcher, 30(2), 57–64.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bornmann, L., & Daniel, H.-D. (2007). What do we know about the h-index? Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 58(9), 1381–1385.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bornmann, L., & Daniel, H.-D. (2008). What do citation counts measure? A review of studies on citing behavior. Journal of Documentation, 64(1), 45–80.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bornmann, L., & Daniel, H.-D. (2009). The state of h-index research. EMBO Reports, 10(1), 2–6.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bornmann, L., Mutz, R., Neuhaus, C., & Daniel, H. D. (2008). Citation counts for research evaluation: Standards of good practice for analyzing bibliometric data and presenting and interpreting results. Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics, 8(1), 93–102.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, P. (2008). Escape from the impact factor. Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics, 8, 5–7.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clarke, R. (2009). A citation analysis of Australian information systems researchers: Towards a new ERA? Australasian Journal of Information Systems, 15(2), 23–44.

    Google Scholar 

  • Egghe, L. (2006). Theory and practise of the g-index. Scientometrics, 69(1), 131–152.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goodyear, R. K., Brewer, D. J., Gallagher, K. S., Tracey, T. J. G., Claiborn, C. D., Lichtenberg, J. W., et al. (2009). The intellectual foundations of education: Core journals and their impacts on scholarship and practice. Educational Researcher, 38(9), 700–706.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harzing, A. W. (2009). Publish or Perish (Version 2.8.3644).

  • Harzing, A. W. K., & van der Wal, R. (2008). Google Scholar as a new source for citation analysis. Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics, 8(1), 61–73.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Henzinger, M., Suñol, J., & Weber, I. (2010). The stability of the h-index. Scientometrics, 84(2), 465–479.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Herther, N. K. (2009). Research evaluation and citation analysis: Key issues and implications. The Electronic Library, 27(3), 361–375.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hirsch, J. E. (2005). An index to quantify an individual’s scientific research output. Proceedings of the National academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 102(46), 16569–16572.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hodder, A. P. W., & Hodder, C. (2010). Research culture and New Zealand’s performance-based research fund: Some insights from bibliographic compilations of research outputs. Scientometrics, 84(3), 887–901.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jarwal, S. D., Brion, A. M., & King, M. L. (2009). Measuring research quality using the journal impact factor, citations and ‘Ranked Journals’: Blunt instruments or inspired metrics? Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 31(4), 289–300.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Levine-Clark, M., & Gil, E. (2009). A comparative analysis of social sciences citation tools. Online Information Review, 33(5), 986–996.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meho, L. I., & Yang, K. (2007). Impact of data sources on citation counts and rankings of LIS faculty: Web of science versus Scopus and Google Scholar. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 58(13), 2105–2125.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moed, H. F. (2005). Citation analysis in research evaluation. Dordrecht: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moed, H. F. (2008). UK research assessment exercises: Informed judgments on research quality or quantity? Scientometrics, 74(1), 153–161.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Norris, M., & Oppenheim, C. (2010). Peer review and the h-index: Two studies. Journal of Informetrics, 4(3), 221–232.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Panaretos, J., & Malesios, C. (2009). Assessing scientific research performance and impact with single indices. Scientometrics, 81(3), 635–670.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Phelan, T. J., Anderson, D. S., & Bourke, P. (2000). Educational research in Australia: A bibliometric analysis. In DETYA (Ed.), The Impact of Educational Research (pp. 575–671). Canberra: Higher Education Division Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs.

  • Saad, G. (2010). Applying the h-index in exploring bibliometric properties of elite marketing scholars. Scientometrics, 83(2), 423–433.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, A. (2008). Benchmarking google scholar with the New Zealand PBRF research assessment exercise. Scientometrics, 74(2), 309–316.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vaughan, L., & Shaw, D. (2008). A new look at evidence of scholarly citation in citation indexes and from web sources. Scientometrics, 74(2), 317–330.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Peter R. Albion.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Albion, P.R. Benchmarking citation measures among the Australian education professoriate. Aust. Educ. Res. 39, 221–235 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-012-0060-1

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-012-0060-1

Keywords

Navigation