Contributions of Open Access Journals in Library and Information Science indexed in SCOPUS Database: A Metric Study

Authors

Rajkumar Thangavel, Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education, Krishnankoil, Srivilliputtur - 626128Follow
Jeyapragash Balasubramani, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli - 620024Follow

Date of this Version

8-15-2021

Abstract

Purpose. The primary purpose of this paper is to measure the present status of publications, authors, citations, authors per publication, citations per publication, country, journal rank, Source-Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP), Cite Score, h-index, authorship productivity, and collaborative nature of open-access (OA) library and information science (LIS) journals in the SCOPUS database.

Material and Methods. The study selected 61open access journals of LIS in the SCOPUS database as a sample and assessed their current status. SCOPUS database was used to extract the bibliographical and citation data, and SCImago was used to extract the Country, Source-Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP), and Cite Score.

Results. A total number of 31 countries were contributed to 20250 publications by 40628 authors, which got 109050 citations from 1946 to 2020. The study found that the United States (US) has contributed the highest number of OA journals (10, 16.39%), 7982 publications by 15776 authors with an average of 1.98 authors per publication which got 54157 citations with an average of 6.78 citations per publication and followed by United Kingdom (UK) which has contributed a good number of (1848) publications by 5188 collaborative authors, resulting from an average of 2.81 authors per publication and which got 27320 citations, with an average of 14.78 citations per publication. The US has the highest number of citations (37658) in the period 2011-2015 and the lowest number of citations (99) in the period (1946-1973). The study has clearly shown that the h-index of the US (73) and UK (66) topped the other 29 countries, and also the US has received the highest SNIP (11.147), and the UK has received the highest cite score (26.8, 39.70%).

Conclusion. This study will be useful for library and information science students, researchers and professionals to know about the quality of OA journals and their impacts and visibility of the LIS publications in SCOPUS database.