Analysis of the 100 most-cited papers in one of the leading Library and Information Science journals “Scientometrics”

Authors

Muhammad Tanveer, Prince Sultan University, Riyadh, Saudi ArabiaFollow
Ikram Ul Haq, College of Dentistry, King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, & King Abdullah International Medical Research Centre, Riyadh, Saudi ArabiaFollow
Haider Mahmood, Department of Finance, College of Business Administration, Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University, Al-Kharj, Saudi ArabiaFollow
Zhang Yu, School of Economics and Management, Chang’an University, Xi’an, ChinaFollow

Date of this Version

2-2020

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Scientometrics is one of the leading peer-reviewed journals in the field of Library and Information Science (LIS). The present study is aimed to evaluate the salient characteristics of the 100 most-cited papers of Scientometrics. The bibliographic data of most cited papers were extracted from the Scopus database. The attributes of selected papers were analyzed by using Microsoft Excel, VOSviewer, and Biblioshiny software. These papers were published between 1979 and 2017. All papers gained citations with a mean ratio of 332.86 citations per paper and the range of citations varies from 155 to 3,222. These papers were contributed by 221authors, with an average of 2.21 authors per paper. Thirty-two papers were contributed by a single author pattern and these papers gained a higher proportion of citations as compared to multi-author papers. Likewise, the open accessed papers gained more citations as compared to subscription-based papers. Glänzel W. emerged as the most prolific author while the United States contributed the highest number of papers. This paper also highlighted the frequently used keywords and the analysis of cited references. Scientometrics is an important journal that has been providing a platform to LIS researchers, focusing on research evaluation, altmetrics, bibliometrics, and citation analysis, etc. The findings of the current study assist to recognize the publication trends and research markers in the area of scientometrics.