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Do types of collaboration change citation? A scientometric analysis of social science publications in South Africa

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Abstract

Scientometric studies have, by and large, focused on the features of the hard sciences rather than the soft sciences. Prior research has been highly centered around natural science disciplines and not many studies have dealt with the social sciences. This applies to Africa as well. However, attempts to investigate the features and tendencies in the social sciences are gradually emerging. This is the first paper to explore the social sciences in South Africa, examining the interrelationships between the types of collaboration and the impact of research publications as measured in the count of citations. Extracting Web of Science data from its Social Science Citation Index (from 1956 to present) for sampled years between 1970 and 2015 (n = 4991), the analysis explains citations in terms of the type of collaboration, international partners and subject areas. The highlights of this analysis are that the social sciences in South Africa have certain distinguishing characteristics that determine the production and impact on knowledge.

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Notes

  1. http://ipsciencehelp.thomsonreuters.com/incitesLive/globalComparisonsGroup/globalComparisons/sbAreaSchemesGroup/oecd.html. In the WoS dataset there were some publications that were not socialscience subjects. These were removed before the analysis was done.

  2. The advanced search option of the Web of Science, Core Collection (under which Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) 1956–present was selected) was used. Publications (all languages, articles and reviews) of South African authors (CU = South Africa) were searched. The time span chosen was all the sampled years of 1970, 1975, 1980, 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015, which was done individually for each year.

  3. The total percentage of internal-institutional and external-institutional collaboration is not 100% as they are not exclusive categories of domestic collaboration. In other words, a publication might have both types of collaboration.

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  1. School of Social Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 4041, South Africa

    Radhamany Sooryamoorthy

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  1. Radhamany Sooryamoorthy
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Correspondence to Radhamany Sooryamoorthy.

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Sooryamoorthy, R. Do types of collaboration change citation? A scientometric analysis of social science publications in South Africa. Scientometrics 111, 379–400 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2265-6

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