Invited Plenary Talks

From Fragmentation and Complexity to Community and Common Cause

 

Donald deB Beaver

 

Professor of History of Science, Williams College, Williamstown, MA 01267, USA

 

            I would like to thank Prof. Hildrun Kretschmer for her kind and gracious invitation to speak at this meeting, and also thank Dr. Ramesh Kundra for his extensive efforts in helping to host and organize this meeting. We are indeed fortunate to have such a modern, well-equipped, and pleasant venue for our meeting, which marks the 3rd International Conference on Webometrics, Informetrics, Scientometrics, and Science and Society, as well as the 8th COLLNET meeting.
It is a pleasure to see so many old friends and acquaintances, and so many fresh faces, as well.  It is always difficult to find a time of year that fits most of our schedules for a meeting.  Nonetheless it is encouraging that so many of us have found time to be here.
I have been trying to figure out just what to say to you, my colleagues in the quantitative approach to the characterization of scientific and technological research activity.  I haven’t really been very active in the field since just before the Stockholm Conference last July.  But, in keeping with my role as a historian of science, I’ve managed serendipitously to come up with a little something.
In January this year, I had some time to clean up my office a little –  I tend to keep everything.  While clearing out one bookcase, I came across a projected book of readings on Collaboration and Interdisciplinarity, ca. 1982, some 25 years ago.  After selecting the articles, and beginning preliminary overtures to publishers, my co-editor and I never followed up energetically, and the project lapsed. 
But it is interesting to see what seemed timely and informative 25 years ago, in light of how much the world of information science has changed in the intervening years.  But first, note that 1982 is approximately the time when the so-called “computer revolution” took on the new dimension of the mass production and spread of personal computers.  Those accessible and affordable new machines quickly led to the Internet and the World Wide Web.  The very means by which we communicate, store, and retrieve information has undergone a profound transformation, and in our research, we are still struggling with the attempt to understand and make use of the novel practices.  Of course, that we are here physically at a conference, that we present papers and posters, and that some of those contributions will eventually be published in scholarly journals testifies to the continuing role of conventional forms of information communication and storage.
The first thing of note is the narrow scope of the institutions represented by the authors in 1982 – all American or English institutions, with no contributions from non-English speaking countries, whether Europe, Asia, or Africa.   In 2007, we can say that information science is practiced and produced internationally, by researchers, research groups and institutions in countries all over the world.  In fact, with the recent creation of webometrics, physical geographical location has been receding in importance, as websites have become primary locations in webspace, even though many websites are associated with physical institutions.
The second thing to note is the relatively non-specialized language used in the titles.  The words are simple, direct, and almost jargon-free, thus making the titles understandable even to the non-specialist.  Twenty-five years later, such relatively uncomplicated titles are still with us, but represent a minority among more jargon-laden, complex, and specialized publications.  In twenty-five years numerous measures and indicators have been developed and proposed along with new statistical techniques for handling data, to the extent that in order to carry out professional research in the fields one must become acquainted with many more methods and procedures than were present a quarter century ago.
The third thing to note, related to the non-specialized language, is the relative breadth or generality of the articles, in comparison to the more focused and detailed studies typical of the research reports and papers now being published.  This relative breadth may also reflect in part our editorial choices at the time, but that reflection doesn’t wholly account for the greater splitting up of the field into finer and finer foci.  It has become increasingly difficult over time to try summarize in a few words just what informetrics and scientometrics share beyond a quantitative approach to understanding the characteristics of researchers and research groups.
The fourth thing to note is the relative absence of female authors amongst the authors in 1982.  My co-editor was a woman, so we didn’t lack a feminine perspective in choosing the entries for our book.  At that time, there were far fewer women in research than there are now.  If anything, we now have roughly the same numbers of men and women involved in the fields, if not actually a slightly larger number of women.
What might one conclude from comparing 2007 to 1982?  It’s clear that professionalization and specialization have developed to a much greater degree in the last 25 years, and that the research fields and activities denoted by informetrics and scientometrics are far more solidly established and valued by the larger societies in which they take place, and by which they are supported.  It’s also clear that the fields have become more fragmented as specialization has developed, a not unexpected result of creating a greater variety of techniques and methods for gathering and analyzing data.  In 25 years we have produced and learned so much that we can no longer return to those less complex and specialized, less sophisticated times. 
Yet there’s something appealing in the mythic simplicity and unity of the good old days. Have we lost a sense of identity and commonality, a “mainstream” that once served to unify us as a community?  Do we have any overarching conceptual scheme that would help bind us together in our various researches and endeavors?  Do we even need one? 
The “good old days” are mythical – simplicity and communality are relative terms after all, and although we may be situated farther along the spectrum toward complexity and fragmentation than a quarter of a century ago, we are far more effective and powerful in our work than then. 
However, we might well ask if our activities, however fascinating we find them, will continue to be valuable to the larger institutions or societies which support them? 
In an age characterized by globalization, economic competition, and information, there can be no doubt that science and technology are major factors in the wealth of nations, and perhaps play even more important roles than dreamed of a quarter of a century ago.  Our field is ideally situated to provide reliable and sophisticated comparative evaluations and assessments about the status and health of different research communities.  Such information is essential to making policy decisions about the distribution of social resources in support of scientific and technological research – neither oversupporting research areas and effectively giving a free ride to competitors, nor undersupporting research areas, and effectively hampering the ability to compete.
In this new information age characterized by globalization our  community is dispersed and international, and therein lies our strength.  
In particular, our international character and comparative approach strengthens the argument for our field’s appropriateness and value.  We already employ just the analytic and evaluative tools that are needed to provide essential information to research institutions and research policy makers. 
It seems to me that the more we cultivate and develop a shared identity, the more we manage to emphasize our commonality, despite our differing methodologies and projects, the stronger and more valuable our field will appear.  Therein lies part of the hope for our future.

 

Invited Plenary Talks

Collaborate or Collapse.
Co-authorship at any Price?

 

Wolfgang Glänzel

 

Steunpunt O&O Indicatoren, K. U. Leuven, Leuven (Belgium)

IRPS, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest (Hungary)

 

          According to deSolla Price (1963) massive funding is one of the characteristics of ‘big science’; team work is another. Above all, economic and intra-scientific factors are responsible for intensifying collaboration (e.g., deB. Beaver & Rosen 1978, 1979, Luukkonen et al., 1992, 1993). Sharing equipment, resources or observations/data and bundling efforts are among the traditional motives of academic co-operation and its sharp rise. Furthermore, changing communication patterns and increasing mobility of scientists have also contributed to intensifying collaboration. However, collaboration in science is at most partially a self-organising phenomenon. The necessity of collaboration is also a consequence of increasing inter- and cross-disciplinarity as well as of the ongoing internationalisation and globalisation of science (e.g., Zitt & Basselcoulard, 2004). Besides these essential factors, science policy and research management has at least indirectly contributed to the spectacular intensification of scientific collaboration which we can characterise as ‘inflationary values’ (Persson et al., 2004). Deb. Beaver (2001) has – in addition to the economic and intra-scientific factors – identified ‘improving access to funds’, ‘obtaining prestige or visibility’, ‘collaboration for professional advancement’ as important reasons for planning or doing joint research. Access to funding and the scientists’ attempt to strengthen their own position in the community has resulted in an increasing number of co-authors and institutions involved in the research. Cronin (2001) recognised honorific authorship and hyperauthorship as two symptoms of this inflationary process.
Bibliometricians have paid attention to these phenomena ever since. However, what we can depict by means of bibliometrics is rather the peak of the iceberg. Nonetheless this picture might be considered representative of recent trends. Intensifying co-author relationship has been reported for all fields and at practically all level of aggregations, for instance, by Glänzel (2001) for the macro level, by Gómez et al. (1995) for the meso level, and by Ding at al. (1999) and Glänzel (2002) for the micro level. Persson et al. (2004) have shown that these tendencies have inflationary features. The naïve idea that multi-authorship necessarily increases productivity, and always results in high citation impact does not hold. Examples from different research areas substantiate that ‘exaggerate’ co-authorship might indeed become counter-productive (Glänzel, 2002). Collaboration does not always pay-off in terms of visibility and impact, either, although collaborative work usually attracts more citations than single single-authored papers.
Although, the overwhelming part of papers is co-authored by ‘continuants’ and co-authorship relations with other authors categories are usually also mediated by them, the share of ‘transient’ and other non-continuant collaboration is, however, large (see Braun et al, 2001). Collaboration among continuants might admittedly be occasional, too, but the above-mentioned observation makes the notion of ‘collaboration in stable teams’ as engine of co-authorship is nonetheless more than likely. Mechanisms of funding and professional advancement might indirectly foster inflationary tendencies, indeed; however, integration in stable collaboration teams and networks as the very core and engine of scientific co-operation might, on the long run, be able to compensate for possible negative effects.

 

Invited Plenary Talks

Collaboration Network of 36 Research Universities in China

 

Chen Yue 1, Liu Zeyuan 2

 

2 WISE Lab of Dalian University of Technology, 116085, Dalian(China), E-mail: chenyuedlut@yahoo.com.cn, liuzy@vip.163.com

 

 

This paper aims to display the collaboration between Chinese 36 research universities in recent 5 years based on centrality concept in Social Network Analysis. It was found that there is short of collaboration between Chinese universities, although these 36 research universities are the most powerful in R&D ability, some of them situated in a periphery position, it isn’t benefit for them to advance academic ability in future.

 

 

Invited Plenary Talks

Collaboration in HIV/AIDs Research in Eastern and Southern Africa,

1980-2005

 

Dennis Ocholla

 

Department of Library and Information Science, University of Zululand South Africa

 

The paper examines the trend and type of HIV/AIDS research collaboration in E&S Africa(18 countries) and recommends ways of improving or strengthening such collaborative activities. Responds to the following  sub-questions:   What is the trend of single and multiple-author papers between 1980 and 2005?  What is the degree and extent of HIV/AIDS research collaboration in E&S Africa?  What are the types of collaboration in HIV/AIDS research, i.e. domestic, regional and international, etc?    Who or which are the collaborating authors, institutions, and countries in the two regions?   What is the growth rate and composition of author collaborative networks in E&S Africa?    Which are the geographic areas of research focus of the major author networks.

 

 

 

ABSTRACTS

 

 

A Survey of Collaboration Rate Among of Iranian LIS Students in Producing Scientific Articles for Annual Student Conference of Al-Zahra University

(2000-2006)

 

Amir Reza Asnafi 1, Farshid Danesh 2, Maryam Pakdaman naeini 3

 

1 PhD Student of Library and Information Sciences,Iran, University of Ahwas, Email:aasnafi@yahoo.com
2 Academic member, department of medical library and information science,Iran,Isfhan, University of medical science Email:farshid_danesh@yahoo.com
3 Postgraduate Student of Library and Information Sciences ,Iran,Tehran, University of Al Zahra Email:m.pakdaman@gmail.com

 

 Collaboration in research and production of scientific publications is common in all academic areas. This collaboration among researchers results in the development of scientific knowledge and hence the attainment of wider information. The significance of collaboration in the production of scientific publications in today's complex world where technology is everything is very apparent. Scientists from many nations have realized that in order to get their work wildly used and cited to by experts, they must collaborate. This research aims to survey the rate of collaboration among Iranian LIS students on the production of scientific articles for the annual student conference of Al-Zahra University and assess their contribution to domestic scientific production in the field of Library and Information Sciences. It is through the efforts of the Al-zahra library and information science students accosiation and  their lecturers , that this annual conference happens every year and has been able to bring together lecturers, librarians and LIS students in order to debate the latest information in the aforementioned field since its establishment in 2000 for seven consecutive years. As this is a student conference and most of the LIS students of all levels submit papers to this conference. The aim of the present article is to survey the rate of collaboration among contributors which in turn should clarify the contribution of Iranian LIS students in the production of these articles. To that end submitted articles and thematic inclinations of each conference has been examined.
Research results indicated that in the seven conferences held 63 articles were present in speech form, of the 91 authors collaborating in the production of these articles, 51 were female and the rest i.e. 37 were male. The most number of articles, 15 on the subject of Iranian University Libraries in the form of a speech were presented in 2003. The least numbe r were submitted in 2000 and 2004 where a total of 7 in the form of speech on the subject of the education of Library and Information sciences and its difficulties were submitted. Of the 63 articles 42 were presented individually while the other 21 were as a result of collaboration where 15 were the result of the collaboration of 2 authors and the other 6 the work of 3 authors. The most number of collaborative articles were submitted in 2005 and 2006 with 6 and the least number was presented in 2001 and 2003 where nothing was presented. The results of this research indicated that The LIS students of AL Zahra University with 18 articles took first place while The Chamran University of Ahvaz with 8 was second and Shiraz University with 5 came third.

 

 

Indian Contributions to the Field of Hepatitis (1984-2003): A  Scientometric Study

 

B Ramesh Babu 1, J Ramakrishnan 2

 

1 Department of Information Science, University of Madras, CHENNAI 600 005, India, E-mail: beeraka_r@yahoo.co.uk
2 Regional Medical Library, TN Dr. MGR Medical University, Guindy, CHENNAI 600 032, India, E-mail: dhanaram@yahoo.com

 This paper presents a scientometric study of Indian contributions in the field of Hepatitis covered in the bibliographic database namely MEDLINE. The literature covered in the database for the period 1984-2003 was considered. MEDLINE covered the maximum of 939 records during the study period i.e. 1984 to 2003.  71% (666) of all the cited records were “journal articles”. Out of a total 939 records, all of them were in English language forming 100% of the total.  The results of the Activity Index indicate that India’s efforts in Hepatitis research were higher than the world during the study period i.e. 1984-2003.  Only three journals are needed to supply one-third of the cited references for zone 1. The most frequently cited journals are general medicine titles with 26.9%. 87.3% of the total contributions are collaborative research with different degrees of collaboration. The average degree of collaboration is 0.87. The collaborative research tends to be more in the field of Hepatitis.

 

 

Scenario of  Foreign Collaborations  and Technology Transfer - The Case of Indian Cement Industry

 

P R Bose 1 , Sujit Bhattacharya 2

 

National Institute of Science Technology and Development Studies, K. S. Krishnan Marg, New Delhi.

 

Govt. of India introduced the New Industrial Policy (NIP) in 1991. This policy had significant change in the industrial climate of the country. Among others, it eased norms and regulations for companies to forge foreign collaborations and provided channels for import of technology. The policy of the Government of India before the NIP was selective and was designed to direct investment into areas, which were expected to reinforce R&D efforts to accelerate the country’s economic growth. Foreign collaborations were therefore primarily sought in areas, which required sophisticated technology or where critical production gaps existed or which would enhance the export potential. Government’s policy with regard to foreign technical collaboration was therefore primarily based on national priorities. Collaborations were welcome   especially in export-oriented or import substitution industries.  They were also encouraged for enabling indigenous industry to upgrade existing technology in the country to meet competition from major units and to suit changing consumer preferences and/or to become competitive in export market.  The growth of Indian cement industry had direct bearing on the policy changes. It affected all aspects of the cement industry: production, utilisation, monopoly position, capital flow, foreign collaboration. This study will mainly focus on the foreign collaborations over the period and also attempt to analyse the technology changes in the industry due to the collaborations.
Foreign investment in 1948 in India was estimated to be around Rs. 2.5 billion of which 21 percent was in manufacturing industries.  In 1961, the total private foreign investment in the country was about Rs. 5.8 billion and by 1974 it increased to Rs. 16 billion. The Government of India approved as many as 11470 industrial collaboration agreements during 1957-87.  Seventy five percent of the collaborations approved were of technical nature and the rest were of financial nature (IIC, 1988). As of today, since the announcement of NIP in July 1991, there has been a major change in the nature of foreign collaborations.  Indian Government as on December 2003 has approved 25021 foreign collaborations out of which 7557 are technical and 17464 are of financial nature. They attract total investment equivalent of Rs. 2907.2 billion.  Technical collaborations account for 30.2 percent, whereas the financial collaborations account for 69.8 percent of total collaborations (SIA, 2004).
Since independence the Government of India has emphasized on self-reliance. To achieve this aim, foreign financial and technical collaborations were encouraged in selective areas with certain restrictions to upgrade indigenous technologies in the industrial sector. In cement industry the highest number of foreign collaborations were tied up in cement machinery making, which led to a radical and structural changes in achieving the aim of self-reliance in this sector. R&D institutions in the country have contributed in developing and designing the technologies meeting the local requirements.  Today India is second largest cement producing country in the world.  It has leap forged from the phase of importing cement to fulfil the demand for domestic consumption to the phase of excessive production and exporting of cement. Today India is using technologies of international standards which are computer controlled and energy saving. With the advent of NIP 1991 there are some multi-national corporations in cement sector in the country. Foreign collaborations have played a vital role in transferring the technologies both vertically and horizontally in Indian cement industry. However, entry of foreign MNC’s has increased the competition in the market. Indian companies can only survive and become major player themselves in the international market by making strategic collaboration with global players, otherwise it can lead to their quickly loosing ground to the MNC’s resulting in leaving the lucrative domestic market to them.

 

 

Detecting  Epistemic Fields Dynamics from A Scientific Content Database

 

David Chavalarias 1 & Jean-Philippe Cointet 2

 

1 CREA, Ecole Polytechnique, 1, rue Descartes, 75005 Paris, France, E-mail: david.chavalarias@polytechnique.edu
2 CREA & TSV (Social and Political Transformations related to Life Sciences and Life Forms), INRA.

 

 

Massive collections of scientific publications are now available on-line thanks to multiple public platforms. These databases usually cover large-scale scientific production over several decades and for a broad range of thematic areas. Today researchers are used to perform queries on these databases with keywords or combination of keywords in order to find articles associated to a precise scientific field. This full text indexation performed for millions of articles represents a huge amount of public information. But instead of being used to characterize articles, can we revert the standpoint and use this information to characterize concepts neighborhood and their evolution? In this paper we give a yes answer to this question looking more precisely at the way concepts can be dynamically clustered to shed light on the way paradigm are structured. We define an asymmetric paradigmatic proximity between concepts which provide hierarchical structure to the scientific database upon which we test our methods (20 000 000 scientific articles). We also propose an overlapping categorization to describe paradigms as sets of concepts that may have several usages. This approach can be fully automatized and applied to get insight on other kind of electronic corpuses, among them blogs and web pages.

 

 

Analyzing Technological Innovation Competitiveness of Taiwan Corporations through Patent Indicators

 

Dar-Zen Chen 1, Mu-Hsuan Huang 2*, Paul Chang-Bin Liu 3

 

1 Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, National Taiwan University Taipei, Taiwan
2*Dept. of Library and Information Science, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan,
e-mail: mhhuang@ntu.edu.tw
3 Graduate Institute of Intellectual Property, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan

  This study attempts to evaluate the technology innovation competitiveness of Taiwanese corporations through patent analysis. In addition to the patent indicators generally used, we develop two new patent indicators named Essential Patent Index (EPI) and Essential Technological Strength (ETS) to assess the innovation competitiveness of the corporations. 70 companies that have the most patents granted by USPTO from 1998 to 2003 were reviewed in this study. The 70 companies were grouped into 6 different industrial categories and the indicators were used to evaluate the performance of each company. In addition to revealing the innovation competitiveness of these Taiwanese companies, the results also serve as references for the government and enterprises for their future plans in industrial development and patenting policies.

 

 

Investigation of Web indicators for Agricultural Web Sources on India

 

K S Chudamani 1, C A Sharadamma 2

 

1 JRD Tata Memorial Library, IISc, Bangalore –12, E-mail: ksc@library.iisc.ernet.in

 

 Agriculture is an important sector of the Indian economy. A study of its web indicators is a fruitful exercise to understand the structure of the same in the context of information retrieval. This paper explores the web indicators of agricultural resources in India and their optimization using Lorenz curve approach as an example for web based information retrieval.

 

 

Status of Physics Research in India:
An Analysis of Research Output during 1993-01

 

B M Gupta 1, S M Dhawan 2

 

1 National Institute of Science, Technology & Development Studies, Dr K.S.Krishnan Marg, New Delhi – 11012, E-mail: bmgupta1@yahoo.com, bmgupta@nistads.res.in
2 Library & Information Consultant, Former Scientist F, National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi 110012, Email:smdhawan@yahoo.com

 

Review the present status of Indian physics, particularly with regard to the nature of research system, nature of institutions involved, type of education available and outturn at postgraduate and Ph.D level, the extent of extra-mural funding support available from various agencies, and the nature of professional organizations involved Analyses the growth of Indian physics output, as reflected in mainstream international journals covered in Expanded Science Citation Index (Web of Science) during 1993-01. Discusses the various features of Indian physics research output, such as growth, institutional publication productivity, nature of collaboration, and the quality and impact of its research output.

 

 

Bibliometric Assessment of Scientific Journals from DBs JCR Social Science Edition

Aneta Drabek 1, Irina Marshakova-Shaikevich 2

 

1 e-mail:adrabek@bg.us.edu.pl
2 e-mail: ishaikev@mail.ru

 

 The present paper is devoted to bibliometric analysis of scientific journals presented in JCR:SSE DBs in 1994-1998 period. For  I&LS journals this periopd was extended to 2004. The idea of Standard impact factor (K) which is used for evaluation of journals  was to compare the traditional impact factor (Ip) of a journal, as indicated in JCR DB, with the average impact factor of the corresponding field of knowledge (Ig). Some examples of the results of this  study are given  in tabular form.

 

 

Traditional System of Medicine: A Scientometric Profile of Herbal Medicine Research in India and China

 

Bharvi Dutt 1, Suresh Kumar 2, K.C.Garg 3

 

3 National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies, Pusa Gate, K.S. Krishnan Marg, New Delhi 110 012, (India)

Abstracts:

An analysis of 2183 papers published by Chinese researchers and 1034 papers published by Indian researchers in the field of herbal medicine during 1990-2004 and indexed by PubMed (MEDLINE) indicates that China’s output is more than twice the India’s output. Medical universities and colleges mainly contribute China’s output, while the Indian output mainly comes from the academic institutions. Chinese activity index declined during 1993-2001 as compared to 1990-1992, while that of India has gone up during the same period. Chinese researchers mainly emphasized on aspects of chemical analysis, extraction and isolation, and drug herbal interaction, while Indian researchers main emphasis has been on the use of herbal medicine for the treatment of diabetes. Chinese researchers prefer to publish their research results in domestic journals, while Indian researchers preferred to publish their research results in journals published from the advanced countries of the West. Also the share of papers in journals covered by SCI for India was higher than that from China. However, the proportion of papers in high impact factor journals for China is higher than India. Also Chinese papers received more citations than the Indian papers. The value of collaborative coefficient for both the countries is almost the same indicating that the pattern of co-authorship for both the countries is similar.      

 

Database Coverage and the Consequences for Bibliometric Research: A Study of Intra-Disciplinary Differences

 

Tove Faber Frandsen 1, Jeppe Nicolaisen 2

 

Royal School of Library and Information Science, irketinget 6, DK-2300 Copenhagen S., DENMARK, tff@db.dk; jni@db.dk

 

 

Intra-disciplinary differences in database coverage affect the results of bibliometric research based on retrieved data from databases. Large differences in the discipline of Economics are documented including quite uneven coverage of economic specialties and research traditions. These observable facts have consequences for all bibliometricians - not only those studying the discipline of Economics. Intra-disciplinary differences in database coverage are likely to be widespread. Consequently, specialties and research traditions of any discipline are not covered equally well in databases. The implications for bibliometric research are discussed, and possible precautions are outlined.

 

 

Web Services: A Study of XML Technology

 

Gadagin B R 1, Parashuram S Kattimani 2

 

1. Research Fellow, Dept of Library & Information Science, Gulbarga University, Gulbarga – 585 106,
E-mail: gadagin_raj@rediffmail.com
2. Asssitant Librarian, Gulbarga University, Gulbarga – 585 106, Karnataka, India,
E-mail: parashu_kattimani@rediffmail.com

 

The integration of information systems must consider various aspects, including the individuals of an organization, cooperating with other vendors, and the connections within this organization. The advantages of integration include shortening the negotiation process among the organization and the cooperating vendors, saving time for the users, and identifying the interface management. However, the greatest difficulties are how to integrate different system platforms and implement technical aspects into a suitable Web-interface for users to operate. Information technology companies have developed Web Services which rely on the flexibility of the Extended Mark-up Language. The services not only apply to integrated information systems, but also provide open services in Web environments. This article evaluates the feasibility of Web Services for application in integrated library information systems.

 

 

A Simple Technique to Normalize Impact Factor of Journals

 

K.C.Garg 1, Suresh Kumar 2, Bharvi Dutt 3

 

1 National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies (NISTADS), New Delhi, India,
E-mail: gargkc@nistads.res.in

 

 Various methods have been suggested in the literature to normalize the impact factor of journals. However, these methods have their own limitations. Present communication suggests an alternative method to normalize the impact factor of journals based on average impact of journals.

 

 

Role and Contribution of High Productivity Institutions in Different Sub-Fields of Indian Physics

 

S.M.Dhawan 1 and B.M.Gupta 2

 

1 National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi 110012, smdhawan@yahoo.com
2 National Institute of Science, Technology & Development Studies,Dr K.S.Krishnan Marg, New Delhi – 11012, bmgupta1@yahoo.com, bmgupta@nistads.res.in

 

 

India has more than a century old tradition of contributing to physics.  The physics research in India is an institutional activity organized under various sectors, such as Universities & Colleges, Institutes of National Importance, R&D, Industry, etc. By far, institutions under Universities & Colleges and R&D sectors  contribute the largest share to the country research output in physics. There are at present more than 400 organizations engaged in research in different branches of physics, employing more than 5000 Ph.D and more than 10.000 M.Sc workers. A large number of universities & colleges offer postgraduate teaching and research and award annually around 600 to 700 Ph.Ds. Even though physics institutions are spread through the country, but the research activity in physics is confined mainly to select few important high productivity institutions. Such high productivity institutions in the country are relatively better placed. They possess comparatively more qualified and skilled manpower, have developed strong network linkages, and command better-quality research and technical infrastructure and the state of the art research facilities. In all, India had been having institutional participation from 1307 institutions in physics research as seen from publications data during 1993-01. During  this period India published a total of 27018 papers in 378 mainstream national and international journals. Of the, total participating institutions 1307), only 64 had published 100 or more papers each and accordingly these institutions have categorized as high productivity institutions (HPIs) in this paper. These 64 high productivity institutions have together contributed 23,835 papers, accounting for 88% of the total Indian physics output during 1993-2001. Of the 64 HPIs, eight belong to Institutes of National Importance (INIs), 23 to Research Institutions (RIs), and 33 to Universities & Colleges (Univ). In this paper, high productivity institutions engaged in physics research and publishing at least 100 or more papers during 1993-01 were studied using a number of quantitative indicators. A few important studies have been carried out in the country in the past based on the physics and related publications output. Broad characteristics of Indian physics research output in different periods have been studied by Dhawan and Gupta, etc.1-6 from time to time. The quality of Indian physics research output has been studied by Dhawan and Gupta7 using journal impact factor and citations received per paper in the Indian context. Since, so far no study has been undertaken on the contribution and impact of high productivity institutions in Indian context in physics, as a result the need was felt to undertake the present study. The objective of this study is to study the performance of high productivity institutions (HPI) in physics, using various quantitative indicators. It also compares different types of high productivity institutions for their relative performance in different branches of physics.
           The present study identified the strength of select top high productivity institutions in terms of publications output, impact, and specializations in different sub-fields of physics. It has implications in terms of setting up research priorities and allocation of resources for physics research in the country and in setting the country agenda for bringing physics research in the forefront of world’s scenario. For improving physics research conditions in the country, some structural changes are needed. It is suggested that the country may set up a Board in physics under the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. It will have the responsibility for coordination and management of overall physics research in the country. Such a Board may address issues such as the need for setting common research to be used by scientists working in different sub-fields of physics, as well as allocation of funds in different areas for setting up specialized facilities. An advisory Committee may be set up in each sub-field. The Committee may recommend to the Board on the nature of specialized facilities to be set up, their location and the funds needed to set up new experimental and infrastructure facilities. The Committee should also have the mandate to monitor the progress of physics research in the country.

 

 

Lotka’s Distribution and Distribution of Co-Author Pairs

 

Kretschmer, Hildrun 1,2,3 and Kretschmer, Theo 3

 

1 Department of Library and Information Science, Humboldt-University of Berlin, Dorotheenstr. 26, D-10099 Berlin, Germany
2 The School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, 116023, China
3 COLLNET Center, Borgsdorfer Str. 5, D-16540 Hohen Neuendorf, Germany,
E-mail: kretschmer.h@onlinehome.de

 

The original Lotka’s Law refers to single scientist distribution. However with increasing collaboration in science and in technology the study of the frequency of pairs or triples, etc. of co-authors is highly relevant.
Starting with pair distribution well-ordered collaboration structures of co-author pairs will be presented.
We have assumed that the distribution of co-author pairs can be considered to be a social Gestalt and therefore can be described by the corresponding mathematical function based on well-known general characteristics of structures in interpersonal relations in social networks.  We have shown that the distribution of co-author pairs can be better explained by this model of social Gestalts than by a simple bivariate function in analogy to Lotka’s Law.

 

 

A Bibliometric Analysis of Indian Journal of Entomology (IJE), 1989-2003

 

Surendra Kumar 1, S Kumar 2, Geeta Shah 3

 

 

1 Documentation Officer, National Research Centre for Soybean (ICAR), Indore – 452 017 (M.P.)
2 Reader &Head, SS in Library & Information Science, Vikarm University, Ujjain-      (M.P.)
3 Librarian, Govt. College, Madipur

 

  Analyses 1429 research papers comprising 1117 main articles (MA) & 312 short notes (SN) published in fifteen volumes nos. 51-65 published for the year 1989-2003 in Indian Journal of Entomology. The study reveals status of entomological research and importance of insect & pest control in India. Also gives an account of IJE, objectives & methodology of this study. Analyses year wise distribution, length of articles, & use of tables, graphs and diagrams. Finds out authorship pattern and calculates collaboration coefficients. Also finds out profilic contributors, location of papers and subject & crop wise distribution.  Analyses number of citations per article.

 

 

Malaria Research, 1980-2004, and the Burden of Disease

 

Grant Lewison 1, Divya Srivastava 2

 

1 Evaluametrics Ltd, 50 Marksbury Avenue, Richmond, TW9 4JF, England, E-mail = glewisonxx@aol.com
2 Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi 110029, India, E-mail = drdivya/srivastava@gmail.com

 

Malaria is estimated to cause about 1.6% of the 57 million deaths occurring annually and 2.3% of the disease burden.  However it accounts for only about 0.4% of world biomedical research, and this percentage is barely changing.  Most of the research takes place in Europe and North America, which are little affected directly by the disease, 90% of whose burden occurs in sub-Saharan Africa.  Research includes both pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical approaches; the fastest growing ones involve the artemisinins and genetics.  Leading countries in malaria research (including India, Thailand, Kenya and Nigeria) differ greatly in the subjects that they favour.

 

 

Health Research Collaboration in Mexico

 

Macías-Chapula C A 1, Mendoza-Guerrero J A 2, Rodea-Castro I P 3, Gutiérrez-Carrasco A 4, Juárez-Sánchez E 5

 

Mexico’s General Hospital, Research Unit
cesarmch@liceaga.facmed.unam.mx
chapula@data.net.mx

 

 

The purpose of this work is to present the exploratory results of a research in progress on the patterns of health research collaboration in Mexico. A selection of the 25 Mexican leading institutions in health research was conducted in order to identify the patterns of collaboration of such institutions, as reflected in the Web of Science (WOS) for the period 1990-2005. The study included only those institutions conducting mainly clinical research at hospitals, clinics or national institutes of health. For each selected institution a distribution of documents by number of authors was conducted. This led to the identification of co-authorships as derived from the work of two or more collaborators. Collaboration was then classified in four types as follows: (a) intra-institutional; (b) national; (c) regional, within the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) regions; and (d) international. Patterns of collaboration were thus analyzed through type of documents, language of publication and behavior of collaboration over time. Microsoft Excel 2000; Microsoft Access 2000; and Bibexcel 2001 were used in the different processes involved in the validation and organization of data. Results indicated a general pattern of collaboration in all 25 institutions. Over 90% of the production in each institution was published by the collaboration of two or more authors. Identification of institutional benchmarking in terms of production and collaboration was possible to obtain. Regional collaboration was mainly with South American countries; and international collaboration was more significant with European countries. In spite of the fact that regional and international collaboration was found, we can conclude that health research collaboration in Mexico is mainly national and intra-institutional. Further research is needed not only to evaluate research performance activities but also to take action and to improve capacity building regarding health research infrastructure, human resources and social empowerment in the LAC regions.
Here we can identify those institutions which behaved with a high pattern of collaboration within their own institution; for example the National Institute of Nutrition, Salvador Zubirán (rank 1), with 60.19%; and the National Institute of Neurology and Neurosurgery, MVS (rank 7), with 62.47%. On the contrary, institutions like Mexico’s General Hospital (rank 5) reported only 41.70% of intra-institutional collaboration; and Regional Hospital Adolfo López Mateos (rank 24) reported only 30%.
Regional collaboration on the other hand was more visible with the National Institute of Cardiology Ignacio Chavez (rank 3) with 3.99%; and the National Institute of Perinatology (rank 13) with 4.11%. While 18 LAC countries were identified as collaborators with Mexico, South American countries emerged as important collaborators; mainly Venezuela (24.76%); Brazil (14.98%); and Argentina (13.68%).
Finally, international collaboration was more visible in the National Institute of Cancer (rank 9) with 7.51%, and the Institute of Diagnosis and Epidemiological Reference (rank 18), with 7.28%. A total of 49 countries emerged as collaborators with Mexico. While several countries from Africa and Asia were identified, collaboration was mainly distributed among European countries. In descending order such countries were Spain (20.27%); France (15.79%); England (11.20%); and Germany (9.18%).

 

 

Information Use Pattern of Structural Engineering Scientists - A Bibliographic Case Study of Journal of Structural Engineering, Structural Engineering Research Centre, India.

 

S Maheswaran 1, R D Sathish Kumar 2, Dr. K.R. Sridharan 3

 

1 Scientist, 2 Information Officer, 3 Dy Director, Information Division, Structural Engineering Research Centre, CSIR Campus, Taramani, Chennai -600113, India

 

 

Knowledge generation for LIS professionals is the study of citation pattern of research papers published in general. This paper analyses the citation pattern of research papers published during 2000 – 2005 in the Journal of Structural Engineering, Structural Engineering Research Centre (JoSE, SERC) Chennai, India. It is studied in order to develop knowledge for information use pattern of scientists engaged in structural engineering activities in particular.  Of the total 2049 citations appended to 168 research papers, the highest of 49.88% citation from journals followed by that from reference and text books (26.26%), 8.39 % from proceeding of conferences / seminars / symposia, 6.49% from codes / standards, 4.88% from reports, 3.26% from thesis and as low from website at 0.83%.  The obsolescence factor of structural engineering literature is found to be 15-16 years. It is noted that structural engineering literature complies with Bradford’s law of scattering.  Based on the number of citations received, rank list of journals published is prepared.

 

 

Scientometric Portrait of Nobel Laureate Alan J. Heeger

 

Mallikarjun Angadi 1, Muttayya Koganuramath 2, B. S. Kademani 3, B D Kumbar 4, Suresh Jange 5

 

1 Sir Dorabji Tata Memorial Library, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Deonar, Mumbai – 400 088, INDIA,
E-mail: angdi@rediffmail.com 
2 Sir Dorabji Tata Memorial Library, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Deonar, Mumbai – 400 088, INDIA,
E-mail: koganuramath@rediffmail.com
3 Library and Information Service Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay, Mumbai – 400 085, INDIA, E-mail: bskademani@yahoo.co.in
4 Reader, Dept. of Library & Information Science, Karnataka University, Dharwad - 580 003,
E-mai: bdkumbar@yahoo.com
5 Asstt. Librarian, Gulbarga University Library, Gulbarga University, Gulbarga – 585106,
E-mail : suresh_jange@rediffmail.com

 

 

This paper attempts to analyse quantitatively, the publication productivity of Alan J. Heeger, the Nobel Prize winner of 2000 in Chemistry.  He was honoured with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his outstanding contribution at 65 years of biological age and at 41 years of research publishing career.  He had 746 publications during  1960–2004 in various domains: Polymers  and Macromolecules (569), Phase Transition (36),  Localised Magnetic Moments in Metals (12), Magnetism (40), Bio-Sensors (8),  Thin Films (17), One Dimensional Metal (21), and  Miscellaneous (43) which were analysed  for authorship pattern with his 482 collaborators. His publication productivity peaked in 1979 with 35 publications. The average number of publications per year was 18.19. His H-index is 107.  The most productive collaborators with Alan J. Heeger were : MacDiarmid, A. G. (133), Moses, D. (112), Wudl, F. (69), Garito, A. F. (62), Cao, Y. (61),Yu, G. (61), Lee, C. H. (41), Chiang, C. K. (34), Sariciftci, N. S. (33), Wang, J (32), Smith, P. (28), Chen, J (27), Yang, Y. (24), Chung, T. C. (24), Bazan, G. C. (23), Zhang, C. (22), Ehrenfreund, E. (20). He had only 37 single authored papers (4.96%).  His 95.04  per cent of papers were collaborative in nature. The highest collaboration rate (1) for Alan J. Heeger was found during 1960, 1966, 1968, 1971-1973, 1975-1976, 1978, 1980, 1982-1984, 1988, 1990, 1992-1994, 1996-1997, 2003.  Journals have been the most preferred channel of communication where, as many as 695 papers out of 746 have been published. The core journals publishing his papers were: Adv. Mater. (17),  Appl. Phys. Lett. (29), Chem. Phys. Lett. (23), J. Am. Chem. Soc. (8), J. Appl. Phys. (25), J. Chem. Phys. (28), J. Electrochem. Soc. (8), Macromol. (15), Mol. Cryst. Liq. Cryst. (12), Phys. Rev. (108), Phys. Rev. B (19), Phys. Rev. Lett. (37), Sol. State. Commun. (57), Synth. Met. (98).

 

 

Ranking Approaches for Search Engine Result Sets for a Semi-Automated Generation of Occurrences in Topic Maps

 

Bernd Markscheffel 1, Hendrik Thomas 2

 

1 & 2 Technical University Ilmenau, Chair of Information and Knowledge Management, Bernd.Markscheffel | Hendrik.Thomas@TU-Ilmenau.de

 

 

Merlino is a prototype that supports a semi-automated generation of occurrences using search engines. The prototype identifies relevant information resources by querying multiple search engines automatically based on the knowledge stored in a given topic map. Merlino combines the retrieval power of search engines with the ability to express semantic relationships in topic maps. Various ranking mechanisms (e.g. Search Engine Score, Web Impact Factor – WIF, AlexaTraffic Rank and Google PageRank) are used in Merlino to facilitate users decision process for the relevance ranking of the result set entries. First empirical studies are presented to show the impact of the ranking mechanisms on the relevance scoring.

 

 

MEMORY and MEMORIES in Lexical Environment: Bibliometric Analysis of SSCI DB

Irina Marshakova-Shaikevich

 

The Institute of Philisiphy, Moscow, RUSSIA, E-mail: ishaikev@mail.ru

 

 

The goal of this study is to discover   lexical environment and to show the thematic groups for the words MEMORY and MEMORIES. The present study is an exercise in application of distributional statistical analysis (DSA) to the corpus of abstracts, containing words MEMORY and MEMORIES. This formal analysis 'discovers' multiword sequences (potential terms of a science discipline). The data for the present bibliometric study were drawn from SSCI DB 2005, including many fields of social sciences (Economics, Neurosciences, Psychology etc.)
The present study is an exercise in application of distributional statistical analysis (DSA)to the corpus of abstracts, containing words MEMORY and MEMORIES. DSA is an algorithmic procedure, based entirely on graphic word frequencies in the text without any recourse to the semantic content of words. This formal analysis 'discovers' multiword sequences (potential terms of a science discipline). The results of DSA is followed by an interpretation, taking into account all kinds of information, accessible to the researcher. This two-step procedure belongs to the wider field of bibliometrics, aimed at making inferences about science through the analysis of quantified data.

 

 

International Collaboration in EU 6th Framework Programme: The Case of India and China

 

Ülle Must

 

Archimedes Foundation, EU Innovation Centre, Väike-Turu 8, Tartu 51013 (Estonia), ylle@archimedes.ee

The current paper concentrates on investigation in which level two Asian giants – Peoples Republic of China (=China) and India are influenced by EU Framework Programs, who are their collaboration partners, and are occurred trends linked with publication performances.

 Collaborative research will constitute the bulk and the core of European Union (=EU) research funding. Ambitious idea to be the most successful knowledge based society by 2010 calls for attraction not only European resources but also resources from all around the world. Promoting international research cooperation will be the main guarantee of success. European funding has to be increased to meet the challenges from the USA and Japan, as well as from the rapidly emerging economies in Asia and some other parts of the world. Countries such as China, India are investing massively in higher education and knowledge and are already very competitive.
There is long history of EU and China’s and India’s Science and Technology (=S&T) collaboration. EU-China cooperation in S&T started in the early eighties. An official science and technology co-operation agreement was signed in 1998 and renewed in 2004. China has been most active cooperation partner amongst the non-member states. After signing the EU-China S&T Agreement, the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) started actively support Chinese project partners. Chinese researchers are more and more successful, especially in the areas of IT, life sciences, energy and materials research.
China and India are more active in FP projects in Information society technologies, Food quality safety and Sustainable development priority areas. These are the areas which are most attractive and beneficial for both parties – for EU and India and China.
Despite the moderate number of FP projects, the effect of participation is mostly seen in possibilities for collaboration. Chinese partners are making cooperation in 105 projects with 1885 organizations from 95 countries. Indian authors respectively in 35 projects with 590 organizations from 72 countries. And final results show for sure greater results.
There is concurrency between top ten institutions that are involved in FP6 projects and belong to top ten the most productive institutions in terms of publication pattern.

China and India have traditional collaboration partners which constitute the core of countries. Traditional partners for China and India are neighbouring countries – Japan, South Korea, Australia, Taiwan, and Singapore. At the same time, partners from USA are leading almost in all cases. Germany, UK and France belong to the traditional partners in all cases. In sum, foreign co-authors constitute about quarter of total amount of authors.
The growth of number of papers was supported by citation data. Especially good results received both countries in computer science.

 

 

The Distribution of Author Frequency in Journals of Different Topics and Different Countries

 

Hamzehali Nourmohammadi 1, Walther Umstätter 2

 

1 Institute of Library Science at the Shahed University of Tehran, nourmohammadi.h@gmail.com
Walther Umstätter
2 Institute of Library Science at the Humboldt-University of Berlin, umstaetter.walther@hu-berlin.de

 

The distribution of author frequencies in different journals can be used as an indicator for the typology of special journals. Like the Impact Factor, the Immediacy Factor or the Half Life, the Journals Author Distribution (JAD) is helpful for continuous categorization of journals. The involved Power Law is used to get simple factors for the comparison of the analysed journals. So we can find differences for natural and social sciences, for core journals and more peripheral journals in the Science Citation Index, and for different countries.

 

 

Human Resource, Society and Role of Corporate Sector in India

 

S P Pati

 

UGC Academic Staff College, Sambalpur University, Jyoti Vihar-768 019, Sambalpur, Orissa, E-mail: patispsu@sancharnet.in, prof_sppati@yahoomail.com

 

The ancient heritage and culture of our Country was unparallel and India had excelled in almost all fronts like Science, Mathematics, Music, Economics, Art, Literature and many more areas. The imagination of writers of Ramayan, Mahabharat, and discovery of zero, astrophysical calculation with a pair of sticks, the composition of iron pillar, Chanakya’s Arthasastra and the teachings of Geeta are respected as heights of our achievements, knowledge, culture and belief. The revolutionary ideas like wireless transmission of intelligence and vision, the mass-energy conversion etc., were indicated in our puranas. The Universities of Ujjain, Taxilla were world’s excellent centers of learning. The forest above the earth and the mines below it made our country reach which inducted smile in common man. However, lack of communication between places made the people divided and foreign power invaded/looted India times and again and finally our Country went under foreign rule for hundreds of years and driven with back-gear. Our wealth transported overseas, our culture became distorted, our people suffered from atrocities, society became non-existent and miseries imprinted sorrow in every face. The Industry Revolution, the Development of Science and better standard of life occurred elsewhere at our cost and they could not reach this Country. Ninety percent people pushed to below poverty line. The devils like famine in one side and hatred in the form of riots on other side crushed country even in early twentieth century. We are grateful to our Father of Nation who brought independence for us in 1947 after long fight and seeded the seed of development.
Democratic Government is formed of/by/(for?) our own people, five year plans were worked out, new education system introduced and Industries established-all aimed to wipe out tears from common man. But less is achieved and more is lost. The gap between poor and reach widens, ninety percent wealth retained by ten percent of population, updated education made available to privileged class, small pockets of society enjoyed the discoveries of Science and the most damaging was to award a caste stamp to each individualThose who received quality education in centers of excellence go out through brain drain.However, the picture is not entirely gloomy, we can see a silver lining in the dark cloud which has become the source of hope for the society and the nation. The standard of living improved, famine could be irradiated, means of instant electronic communication developed, the quality of finished industrial products had reached international level, national per capita income is on rise. All these goodness are due to entry of Private Corporate Sectors (CS) into everything. During first three/four plan periods, Public Sector Industries are established, like SAIL, BHEL etc. Gradually the Public Sector Industries record losses due to fall in efficiency amongst workers because of secured nature of service conditions. The TATA, Jindal established steel industries, which exhibited better quality products and record big profit. As time passes, Privatization is accepted globally as a means for rapid development. The Government at Centre adopted economic reforms, which include the much talked Privatization, Globalization and Liberalization. The Private Corporate Sectors have entered all fronts and worked for nation’s economic development. Multinational Companies now have entered the Indian Corporate Sector.
Full co-operation between Public and Corporate Sector, between Government and the Corporate Sector and between Public and Government would provide the golden triangle for progress.

 

Let us follow the Motto “Let us live and let others live”.

                       

 

 

 

How to Lose Basic Telecom Market Share: A Case Study of BSNL in India

 

Santanu Roy 1, Arvind Kumar 2

 

1 Vinod Gupta School of Management, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, Kharagpur 721 302,
Email: rsan58@yahoo.co.uk, santanu@vgsom.iitkgp.ernet.in
2 CGM-TAQC-BSNL, Sanchar complex, BSNL WMS Compound, Jaynagar 5th Block, 4th Cross, Bangalore 41, Email: arvind.kumar.m@gmail.com, arvkum@yahoo.com

 

India is the fourth largest telecom market in Asia after China, Japan and South Korea and is the eighth largest in the world and the second largest among the developing countries.  Historically, the telecom sector in India was entirely under government control but with reforms unfolding in the 1990s the scenario has undergone a radical change.  The National Telecom Policy (NTP) announced in 1994 (the first attempt to give a comprehensive roadmap for the Indian telecom sector) was followed by NTP 1999 that brought in third generations of reforms in this sector.  During the past few years, the total subscriber base of telecom services has been growing at a rate of about 22%.  This is largely due to the rapid increase in cellular service subscribers (http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/ctps/services.htm). Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), a Government of India undertaking, was constituted in October, 2000.  This is the world's  7th largest telecommunications company providing a comprehensive range of telecom services in India: wire line, CDMA mobile, GSM Mobile, internet, broadband, carrier services, MPLS-VPN, VSAT, VoIP services, IN Services etc. Within a span of five years it has become one of the largest public sector units in India.BSNL is headquartered in New Delhi, India and is driven by 26 Telecom Circles, 3 world class training centres, 2 metros, 4 project & maintenance units, 4 specialized telecom units and 6 telecom factories.  It has vast experience in planning, installation, network integration and maintenance of switching & transmission networks.  In the metros of Delhi and Mumbai, its sister concern, the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) operate. The present paper reports the results of a study that attempts to probe into the above questions and arrive at some plausible answers as to why such a large number of subscribers are deserting BSNL’s B-fone fixed wire line segment.  The study aims to bring out the major and minor contributing factors leading to the erosion of BSNL’s landline customer base in general and the high end users in particular. It appears from the study results that the management of BSNL is still living in the past, unable to cope with the changing times.  BSNL, like its predecessor the Department of Telecommunications of the Government of India, had earlier thrived in an era of little competition and monopoly control over the telecom sector.  With liberalization of the Indian economy in general and the Indian telecom sector in particular having finally set in, the private telecom players are now firmly in place, with access to new technology, adopting new work ethics and an aggressive drive to capture the emerging markets with new schemes tailored to suit specific market segments.  BSNL, a state-owned enterprise, cannot afford to remain oblivious to these developments.  The present study probes into the issues that affect customer satisfaction (and dissatisfaction) in an age where the customers are much more aware about what other options are available to them in the telecomm market and in the light of a steady drift of customers away from BSNL into the lap of the private players. The implications of the study results would be highly invaluable to the management researchers in general and those interested in telecom sector in particular.  It might assist the management of BSNL in reassessing the current position of the organization in the telecom market, and more importantly, helping them take decisive steps to overcome the situation in which they find themselves in at the moment and facilitate creating a customer-responsive culture in the organization.

 

 

Communication and Collaborative Research Pattern of Indian Ocean Science: A Scientometrics Study

 

S L Sangam

 

Department of Library and Information Science, Karnatak University, Dharwad –580 003 India,
E-mail: slsangam@yahoo.com

 

The paper discusses the year wise growth of scientific productivity and authorship pattern in Indian Ocean science. It investigates the nature, type of collaborated research and the degree of collaboration linkages. Further it compares the growth v/s collaboration.  Concludes that there is a high degree of collaboration in Indian Ocean science.

 

 

Conflict Management Strategies in Different Cultures: IT Researchers in China, Germany and India

 

Annedore Schulze 1, Ying Han 2, Katrin Meischner 3

 

1 Humboldt - University, Institut of Psychology, Berlin
2 University Beijing, Institut of Psychology, China
3 Humboldt-University, Institut of Psychology, Berlin

 

Controversies and Conflicts During the Genesis of Scientific Innovations:

                 Social conflicts have been studied in various vocational groups: e.g. teachers, politicians, managers, lawyers, businessmen etc. However, there is a very obvious reserve to study social conflicts among scientists (in the field of science and technology). This phenomenon is particularly remarkable because especially the innovativeness of research makes one expect conflict-ridden arguments par excellence. Although since Coser (1972), at the latest, it is out of the question that conflicts and their constructive solution lead to emergent evolutions within groups (by making separating elements visible and leading them to a new synthesis), the realization that conflicts must be considered as constituting features of the research process has hardly entered the scientific research.
Social conflicts are often not perceived or not admitted by the working scientists. Ideals like objectivity, rationality, the absence of contradictions, the rejection of subjective opinions and value statements are important and often internalized norms for scientists (Mitroff, 1974). This implicit understanding is shaken when a researcher stumbles into a conflict situation with a behavioral repertoire which is oriented toward these ideals. Without adequate conflict solution techniques he or she reacts with "full subjectivity", i.e. with heavy emotions, antipathies, and prejudices. But in the reflections afterwards this "subjective side" is repressed, because such behaviors do not match the image of the rational, objective scientist and are therefore an eminent threat to his or her identity (Schulze & Wenzel). Yet, research is just like other organized activities - not free of conflicts, and researchers have often to deal with these identity threats. This dilemma provokes in conflict situations either a strategy of avoidance or one of forced carrying one's interests through, though both strategies have negative consequences for the growth of know­ledge (Scholl). Leading scientists and engineers are successful with the strategy of forceful assertion, and become - because of their accepted status models worthy of imitation for younger scientists. In a study at the MIT, leading scientists often said: "Conflicts in research? They go by, what remains are the scientific results!" Because of this downplaying by leading experts, students and young scientists are not prepared to handle conflicts productively. Some take such conflicts inside blaming themselves for failure vis-à-vis their own aspiration level and will react with psychic illness and/or complete retreat (Schulze).
Science anthropologists (e.g. Traweek) and laboratory researchers (e.g. Latour & Woolgar, Knorr-Cetina) sometimes mention incidentally conflicts in their reports about the genesis of scientific discoveries. Turkle is more explicit about conflicts in her studies without analyzing them in more detail. Studies about scientific controversies touch upon social conflicts, but the likely metamorphosis from controversy into conflict and vice versa is ignored (e.g. Pickering, Pinch). But looking more closely at the unfolding processes in such controversies suggests that conflict episodes within those controversies are of decisive importance (Schulze & Wenzel). Therefore, controversies sometimes will turn into conflicts and such conflicts will in turn heighten the controversies if they are denied or perceived as a question of who has the better knowledge. It seems that constructive management of such conflict episodes will lead - as in business innovations - to a more valuable outcome. The conflict behavior is often studied in relation to characteristics of the cultural context. The well known cultural dimensions collectivism and individualism may have an impact on the conflict-strategies in different cultures: Numerous cross cultural studies with other occupational groups show, that the dominating conflict-handling style being the predominant in individualistic cultures (i.e., Western Europe and the U.S.) and the avoiding style being the most prevalent in collectivistic cultures (East Asia). We are aware of the fact that this is a very cultural theoretical discussion which actually would need a lot of elaboration and differentiation. Some instance, that the dichotomisation between collectivism and individualism is too simple (Kim, 1994, Schwartz, 1994). A theoretical progress is the differentiation in vertical collectivists and horizontal collectivists (Triandis, Chen and Chan, 1998). In this approach some mediating factor has not been taken into account: the norms, the normative power of international communities, the special field, task and content of work. In this paper, we would like to speak about the scientific community’s influence on the conflict behavior of computer scientists.In this study, a problem-centred interview and the questionnaires Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory-II (Forms A, B, and C) (Rahim, 1983) were used. We measured conflict-handling styles of organizational members with co-workers, superiors, and subordinates. Data were collected from 70 IT-specialists from China, Germany and India, scientists employed in university and company research institutes.
Whereas most comparative studies established that members of individualistic cultures prefer the dominant and members of collectivistic cultures favour the avoiding conflict handling style, in this study we came up with different results: The IT specialists from China, Germany and India prefer using integrating style to handle conflict with superior, subordinates, and peers. The similar preference of the integrative conflict handling style of Chinese, Germans and Indians is primarily attributed to their similar working conditions and up to date scientific research and developmental work.
The extremely great importance of the integrative style for the computer experts in comparison with other target groups is probably a consequence of the normative force of the research and developmental work of the IT specialists and of the communication within their international community. The integrative style of solving problems together is the most suitable for promoting innovations.
Also integrating is the favoured style by Chinese. Chinese IT specialists seem to integrate the least. The hypotheses regarding dominance could not be confirmed for China.
Chinese IT specialists as superiors, show a tendency to the dominant conflict handling style (similar to Germans). Chinese perform significantly less obliging than Indians and Germans.
Indians have significantly the highest level of avoidance and obliging.
These differences between the groups are due to their growing up in very dissimilar cultures.
We will discuss these results.

 

 

A Quantitative Analysis of Spices Research in India

 

P Senthilkumaran 1*, A Amudhavalli 2

 

1. Indian Cardamom Research Institute, Spices Board, Myladumpara, Kailasanadu – 685 553, Kerala, India, Email: senthilicri@rediffmail.com
2. Department of Information Science, University of Madras, Chepauk, Chennai - 600 005, Tamil Nadu, India, Email : amudha75@yahoo.com

 

This paper attempts to analyse the quantitative literature on Spices for the chosen period, 1968 to 2002 at the regional and national levels using HORT-CD database. Asian countries are the major producers, marketers, and consumers of spices in the world. Hence, the R & D activity is assumed to be very high on this subject. India is one of the ancient and acclaimed Asian countries in Spices.  The focus is to identify the distribution of Spices literature by categories of spices, forms of publications, core journals, prime authors and institutions at the national level.

 

 

Mapping of Malaria Research from India on the Basis of Indian Science Abstracts : An Initial Findings

 

Sikha Sinha 1, Arvind Singh Kushwah 2, Divya Srivastava 3

 

1 Scientometric Unit, Division of Publication & Information, Indian Council of Medical Research, Ansari Nagar, New Delhi – 29, India, shikhakk2002@yahoo.co.in

 

  

Current global picture of malaria indicates it is a public health problem is prevalent in more than 90 countries. In India, the burden of malaria has deteriorated in past few years. Role of Indian scientist working in this field can be traced out by publications from research journals. Papers related to malaria were collected from Indian Science Abstracts as it covers almost all research journals published in India and is the only Indian abstracting service. The study was carried out for a period of 30 years with interval of 10 years. This data was collected for the years 1970, 1980, 1990 and 2000. Later on further studies will be carried out for continuous years i.e. from 1970 to 2000. The data was analysed to map out the trend of research, most active institutes and prolific journals for Malaria. Maximum papers appeared during the year of 2000, some of the most active institutes were National Malaria Research Center(MRC-ICMR), Central Drug Research Institute, (CSIR), International Center for Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology and National Vector Borne Diseases Control Programme(NVBDCP). It was interesting to see that with the development of new technologies in medical sciences, there was a tremendous increase in work related to molecular biology, immunology, proteomics, vaccine development and antimalarial compounds. Though in some areas like malaria in children and malaria during pregnancy there were smaller number of papers. Before 1980’s papers were mostly focused on Plasmodium parasite and vector control. Apart from increase in number of papers in modern biology after 1980’s, there were few other upcoming areas also exploratory. The study is still going on, these are part of initial findings.

 

 

Link Analysis as Indicators for Geriatric  Websites from India

 

Divya Srivastava 1, Ajit Mathur 2

 

1 Scientometric Unit, Division of Publication & Information, Indian Council of Medical Research, Ansari Nagar, New Delhi – 29, India, E-mail: drdivya.srivastava@gmail.com
2 Indian Council of Medical Research, Ansari Nagar, New Delhi – 29, India, E-mail: ajiticmr@hotmail.com

 

Several initiatives have been proposed which could be applied at different levels to improve the average quality of web sites. In the present study efforts have been made to identify risk markers for disappearance of certain geriatric Indian web sites. The elderly population is increasing globally, so is in India. For this cross section of society, Internet is very useful communication media, therefore, the sites catering to their needs must maintain their quality and should survive. Various webometric parameters are being employed in the study to develop a model for calculation of survival chances of a web site.

 

 

The Role of Collaborative Linkages between Academia  and the Industry in Health Care: A Case Study of HIV/AIDS Vaccine.

 

S Srivastava 1, K Satyanarayana 2

 

1 Intellectual Property Rights Unit, Indian Council of Medical Research, Ansari Nagar, New Delhi-110029, Email:sadhanaipr@yahoo.com
2 Intellectual Property Rights Unit, Indian Council of Medical Research, Ansari Nagar, New Delhi-110029,
Email: kanikaram_s@yahoo.com

 

 

The emergence of new diseases in the developing world like HIV/AIDS, SARS and more recently Bird flu outbreak along with established scourges like TB, Malaria etc. have created a new urgency for a need to establish mechanisms that could synergize global efforts to find health products for local needs. Innovative health technologies can be harnessed the benefit to billion of people through public-private partnerships (PPPs), a strategy to build up and optimize national and international R&D efforts with local initiatives. PPPs innovatively combine different skills and resources from institutions in the public and private sectors to address persistent global health problems. One recent example on PPP from India to develop a safe and cost effective HIV/AIDS vaccine indigenously through a tripartite partnership between ICMR (Govt. of India) - International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) –an international non-governmental agency and Therion- a New York based company. A comprehensive Memorandum of Understanding between the parties covers the development, upscaling, manufacturing and distribution of the vaccine globally. The Govt. of India shall hold exclusive rights to license the vaccine in India and neighboring (SAARC) countries while the IAVI will have exclusive license to manufacture and sell to vaccine in rest of the world. The need for such PPPs for finding solutions for HIV/AIDS and other diseases of poor from the Indian context will be discussed.

 

 

A Structural Analysis of Collaboration between European Research Institutes Based on their Research Profiles

 

B Thijs 1, W Glänzel 1,2

 

1 Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Steunpunt O&O Statistieken, Leuven (Belgium)
2 Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Institute for Science Policy Research, Budapest (Hungary)

 

The comparative analysis of the research performance of research institutions is often faced with the problem of their different profiles. Research profiles have their own characteristics in terms of publication activity, citation impact and scientific collaboration. In an earlier study (Thijs & Glänzel, 2007) we have developed the methodology for classifying likewise research institutes by groups according to their research profiles. institutional level. Based on the classification of European universities and non-university research institutes by eight clusters we could analyse the research performance and dynamics of each cluster. In the present study we will study collaboration characteristics of these clusters; in particular, we will analyse collaboration patterns both within profile clusters and among them.
These results show clearly that specialised institutes are more likely to collaborate with large multidisciplinary institutes than to collaborate with more likewise institutes. This link can be described as a complementary link between two or more institutes with other specialisations. It seems that these complementary links result in a higher output of papers than a link between more likewise institutes. Geo- and space sciences form a remarkable exception to this rule. Here, intra-cluster collaboration is stronger than inter-cluster co-operation. The clusters Biology and Agriculture do not show any strong affinity to their own nor to other clusters. According to our expectations, we find only weak links between clusters with natural and technical sciences profile with the biology/agriculture and medical sciences groups. The question arises to what extent inter-cluster collaboration is correlated with cluster migration. In the paper by Thijs & Glänzel (2007) had been found that the clusters GRM and SPM form ‘complementary’ clusters. Migration between these clusters was considerable, and was found quite natural. The relatively strong link between the two ‘complementary’ medical clusters seems to be natural, too. On the other hand, a similar trend of migration was found for the other two ‘complementary’ clusters BIO and AGR as well. However, the latter phenomenon is not in line with the less significant collaboration patterns between these groups (see Table 3). The question of whether which part changes in intra- and inter-cluster collaboration play in group dynamics might, therefore, be a task for future research. 

 

 

Collaborative Research Networks of Japanese Universities: Bibliometric Trends

 

Yuan Sun 1

 

1 National Institute of Informatics (NII), 2-1-2 Hitotsubashi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101-8430, Japan

 

 

Recently industry has shown a large expectation in partnerships with universities in Japan. Since around 2000, the government has taken various approaches to promote industry-university collaborations, and universities also make various efforts to act in response to all kind of needs for the collaborations with industry. However, our data revealed that there were some gaps in perception of the research collaborations between universities and industry. Research linkage with university has become more and more important for industry and its proportion is increasing year by year, but the same can not be said on the university side. In this study, we take a look at the situation, trends and characteristics of research collaboration in Japan broadly, especially focusing on university-industry collaboration and the increasing international collaboration.

 

 

Evaluation Indicators for an Abstracting Journal –  A Case Study of Indian Science Abstracts (ISA)

 

R K Verma* 1 , R K Kamble 2

1 Scientist & Editor, Indian Science Abstracts, NISCAIR, 14 Satsang Vihar Marg, New Delhi-110 067
E-mail-rkverma@niscair.res.in
2 Scientist & Associate Editor, Indian Science Abstracts, NISCAIR, 14 Satsang Vihar Marg, New Delhi-110 067 E-mail-rahul@niscair.res.in

 

 

Journals play a significant role in dissemination of S&T information. Journals are being published in different fields with some “quality journals” and other with less significant. Quality of a journal is a multifaceted notion. Journals can be evaluated on the basis of different purposes and hence, the result of such evaluation exercises can be quite different depending on the indicator(s) used. Hence, it becomes an important issue to evaluate a journal on the basis of various indicators to determine its quality. A range of different evaluation indicators has been developed for primary journals viz. impact factor, journal ranking however, with less emphasis on abstracting journals (abstracting/indexing journals) evaluation indicators. Indian Science Abstracts being a abstracting journal has been playing a significant role in dissemination of S&T information. This study is focused on the evaluation indicators for Indian Science Abstracts. Different types of evaluation indicators under ‘Process’ and ‘Outcome’ viz., coverage period, types of index, keywords per abstracts, number of journals covered, number of abstracts published, subscriber growth, online visitors and searchable database have been discussed. Concludes that a continued review of evaluation indicators is essential to ensure continuous quality enhancement of service.

 

 

How do Small Software Firms Survive in India?

 

P. Vigneswara Ilavarasan

 

 Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110 016 India, E-mail: vignesh@hss.iitd.ac.in    http://web.iitd.ac.in/~vignesh

 

Despite the larger amount of literature on Indian software industry, existing knowledge about small software firms is minimal. Based on 173 semi-structured interviews with software entrepreneurs and other players in the information technology industry in India, the paper examined how small software firms are surviving in India. We observed that presence of smaller players in Indian IT industry appears as a ‘hygiene factor’ (absence may be recognized greatly than presence) in the total eco system. Small firms are ‘poor imitators’ of larger service companies and operate on export-services mode. They serve as a ‘training ground’ for larger firms and help in deepening the labour pool of the industry. Small firms access the global market opportunities through personal networks of the founders initially, and use other lower cost mechanisms in the later stages.
Present paper examines how small software firms are surviving in India. This examination is relevant, as Indian software industry works on different mode when compared to the information technology (IT) industry in the developed world. We do not know what Indian small software firms are doing, whether they resemble the small product firms in the developed countries or compete with domestic larger firms with similar services. Existing research is inadequate to answer these questions, and the present paper fills the gap.
Despite the larger amount of literature on Indian software industry, existing knowledge about small software firms is minimal. Based on literature survey and secondary data analysis of the membership details provided in the Indian IT Software and Services Directory 2003 by NASSCOM, we delineated the following hypothesis for empirical examination: Small software firms in India thrive by using larger firms as intermediary institution to access global market opportunities. Based on 173 semi structured interviews, we observed that small firms use larger firms in a negligible amount as intermediary institutions to access global market opportunities. The extant inter firm collaborations between small firms and others are few, and restricted to provision of short-term manpower consultancy services to the larger players. In general, alliances are not preferred as both small and larger firms are competing for same market opportunities. Trade associations help in knowledge diffusion among its members and do not generate business for small firms. Small firms do not operate in a niche, high-technology domain that is essential to partner with venture capitalists, who are known for connecting market opportunities and technological capabilities.Small firms start by executing contracts originated from founders’ personal networks that are gained during earlier professional experiences. In later stages, global market opportunities are accessed through various mechanisms like contracting individuals or small firms in abroad as business associates or trade partners; keeping a co-founder in abroad for marketing; and establishing a very small marketing team with size of one or two. The successful transition from personal network based marketing to other mechanisms is a major differentiator among small firms. Most of the small firms operate on export-service mode like their larger counterparts, and ‘poor imitators’ of larger service companies. They cater to the needs of the foreign customers who are either too small for the larger players or who consider cost of services by the larger players as very expensive. Presence of smaller players in Indian ICT industry appears as a ‘hygiene factor’ (absence may be recognized greatly than presence) in the total eco system. Small firms work as a ‘training ground’ for larger firms and help in deepening the labour pool available in the industry.

 

 

Subject-wise Information Needs of ICAR : An Analytical  Study

 

P Visakhi 1, Ramesh Kundra 2

 

1 Librarian. IASRI, ICAR, Library Avenue, New Delhi, E-mail: visakhi@iasri.res.in
2 Scientist, NISTDAS, CSIR, PUSA,New Delhi

 

Introduction :

Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) is the major agricultural scientific organization in the country and unique in having concurrent responsibility for research, education and extension. It works under Department of Agricultural Research and Education ( DARE), Ministry of Agriculture, Govt. of India.  To fulfill its objectives of encompassing the full spectrum of research activities of agriculture, the ICAR has, over the years, established a network of 52 Central Research Institutes, 6 National Bureaus, 10 Project Directorates, 27 National Research Centers, 90 Coordinated Research Projects and 8 Trainers Training Centres, 261 Krishi Vigyan Kendras Deemed Universities 5 employing about 6000 scientists and students These are distributed throughout the country and provide the foundation material to meet the agricultural research needs of the country The ICAR has also sponsored and supported a large number of research projects, located with the SAUs and State Government, to research into farming systems in an integrated manner (Srivatava and Srivastava ) Majority of users need resources in print but  services in electronic format.

 

 

Materials Science Research in India: A Quantitative Study, 1993-01

 

Rajpal Walke 1, S M Dhawan 2 ,D K Tewari 3, B M Gupta 4

 

1, 2 & 3 National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi
4 National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies, New Delhi

 

 

Describes the importance of materials science and the current efforts in India in R&D. Discusses the status of materials science research output in India during 1993-01, with a view to analyze its publication size and growth, media of communication, strong and weak areas of research, quality of research output, nature of collaboration, and institutional productivity and quality.

 

 

Designing a possible new patent classification approach based on the SRR’s colon classification scheme

 

R D Sathish Kumar 1 , S Maheswaran 2, K R Sridharan 3

 

 

This paper proposes a new approach to design a new patent classification scheme. Various classification systems exist and most have been designed so that each technical aspect of an invention to which a patent document relates can be used for classifying as a whole. A patent document may contain several technical aspects of an invention, and therefore be allocated many classification symbols.  The existing schemes such as IPC and USPC are too general to meet the needs and demands of specific industries/technology areas. In addition, some patents are placed in inappropriate categories, making it difficult for enterprises to carry out R&D planning, technology positioning, patent strategy-making and technology forecasting in a self contained exhaustive manner. Due to explosion of technological innovation, technologies are evolving by hybridization, agglomeration and cluster of multi subjects and also by their application to various  multi-disciplinary fields. Therefore, there is strong need to modify patent classification system which will make search more reliable meaningful and comprehensive. A faceted classification, proposed to be adopted in this paper, differs from the traditional one in that it does not assign fixed slots to subjects in sequence, but uses clearly defined, mutually exclusive, and collectively exhaustive aspects, properties, or characteristics of a class or specific subject.

 

 

  

Concentration without collaboration – a regional perspective on the emergence of nanotechnology

 

Martin Meyer

Previous research indicated that research and development activity in nanoscience and nanotechnology is concentrated on a comparatively small number of regions. Policies in a range of countries have supported the creation of regional nanotechnology clusters. However, more recent work seems to suggest, at least for a number of cases, that networks of collaboration among nanotechnology firms are technologically driven rather than localised in individual regions. In other words, even though one can trace regional concentration of scientific and technological activity in this emergent area, collaboration at the regional level is not as forthcoming as one may have thought. This study seeks to explore some of the reasons for this situation and draws on a multi-method approach, examining bibliometric, patent and firm-level data. Our observations suggest that nanotechnology is still an area of loosely coupled, inter-related and overlapping rather than broadly converging technologies. One can still track quite distinct technological clusters. While a considerable number of nanotechnology firms cater to a range of markets, only very few firms could be identified that integrate nano-scale technologies. Before the background of these findings, the apparent paradox of strong regional concentration of R&D activity without a corresponding intensity of collaboration within the region seems less surprising.

 

 

Analysis of effective factors of publishing papers in ISI  magazines by the Isfahan School of Medical Science faculties

Rasool Nouri 1, Farshid Danesh 2
 

One of the reliable tools in the evaluation of science and research efficiencies is the level of using ISI data bases. This fact, allows many research centers and universities to increase both the quality and the quantity of their  papers, articles, reports, etc., in this data base in order to achieve higher scientific and research reputations. Some of the faculties within the Isfahan School of Medical Science have adopted special approaches which have helped them publish their works in the aforementioned data base. The names of these faculties have been indexed in the "Web of Science" as the authors of at least one scientific paper or article. This research presents these approaches. In  this work, we have used a questionnaire which its stability has been approved by "Alpha KRONBakh 7.2". The total number of published papers by the Isfahan School of Medical Science faculties in 2000-2005 in the "Web of science" data base is 204. While the Isfahan School of Medical Science has 628 faculties, only 7.8% of the them have published research articles or papers in ISI data base. There are several effective factors which have helped the faculties and researchers publish their research: English proficiency, applying proper research and statistics approaches, encouraging methods applied by the university, proficient knowledge of scientific centers and their resources and data bases.

 

 

How Innovative are Indian Universities? : An examination based on Patenting Activity

 

Sujit Bhattacharya

 

National Institute of Science Technology and Development, Studies (NISTADS), Pusa gate, K.S. Krishnan Marg, New Delhi – India, sujit@nistads.res.in; sujit_academic@yahoo.com

 

The genesis of many of the new technologies can be traced to the innovation work in universities. The embedded technology is commonly protected by patents as they provide exclusive monopoly and also protects them from plausible infringement. The universities are particularly active in the OECD countries in this regard. Biotechnology and ICT have emerged as key areas where universities in the OECD countries are playing the most active role. The innovation activities of universities in these countries have been extensively studied. However, there are only a few studies that have examined the innovation activity of universities in developing countries. The present article attempts to fill this gap by examining the innovation activity of Indian universities by examining their patenting activity. The patents granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office and the Indian Patent Office to Indian Universities during the period 1990-2002 are examined. The overall trends, main areas of their patenting, collaboration etc are uncovered by this analysis. To properly assess the results that emerge from this analysis international patenting trends by universities, the role of government in fostering this type of innovation and to what extent the Indian government has played a role are also investigated.

 

 

The survey of effective factors on publishing scientific articles in ISI journals written by the academic members of Isfahan University of  Medical Sciences.

 

Rasool Nouri1, Farshid Danesh2

 

1 Academic members of  Isfahan University of Medical Sciences

 

Nowadays the usage of the ISI databases is one of the important methods for assessment of scientific activities, thus scientific centers specially universities have policies to improve quality and quantity of  their researchers' works in the ISI journals and in this way, increase their validity in the scientific national and international societies. The propose of this research is to determine the factors which enabled some academic members of  Isfahan University of  Medical Sciences to publish their works in such journals. The research population included that academic members whom their names as main author for at least one article have indexed during 2000-2005 in the Web of Science. The required data were collected with a questionnaire that devised for this study, the validity and the reliability were accepted. Based on the finding of this research during 2000-2005 whole of  the academic members have 204 articles in Web of Science. At the time of surveying this research 7.8 percent of academic members could publish their articles in ISI journals. Some of the important factors that influenced publishing of researchers' scientific articles in ISI journals are familiarity with ISI and its products, encouragements of university, gaining proficiency in English, research methods, statistics and data bases.

 

 

 

Mapping the Indian Scientific Diaspora: Initial Attempts and Problems

 

Aparna Basu

 

We briefly review some of our initial attempts at mapping the population of scientific researchers of Indian origin working abroad and publishing from outside India. The increasing levels of migration of highly educated Indians who are absorbed in scientific research around the world has given rise to a diaspora, that is a potential resource for the country. Ideally one should try to map individuals, their disciplines, publication profiles in time, etc. However there are a number of significant problems that are encountered during this bibliometric exercise which are discussed here.

 

Modeling the Growth of South African and Indian Medical Literature: A comparison of AIDS literature.

 

Suresh Kumar 1 ,Ramesh Kundra 2

 

National Institute of Science Technology & Development Studies, K.S. Krishan Marg, New Delhi 110012 India  

 

The growth in science can be described in three models: (i) the rate at which the number of scientists increases; (ii) amount of money being spent on scientific research; and; (iii) the rate at which scientific literature is increasing - all devoting different aspects of science output. All the three have good correlation and hence have an overall impact on the growth of science. But the growth of science described in terms of scientific literature published through formal and informal channels of communication has received considerable attention as there has been a flood of papers on the ‘growth of scientific information and communication’1. All these studies have noted the difficulties in measuring scientific output as there are considerable variations, and all are not amenable to quantitative analysis. Many sociologists and science historians have reported the magnitude and direction of scientific growth. Price suggested the application of models to study the growth of science, one such attempt that provides meaningful measures of growth overtime, as growth studies are based on time-series data. Recent attempts have been made to examine the growth of specialities rather than science as a totality. In this study we examine and compare the growth of medical science in South Africa and India.
In terms of medical literature output a sharp contrast exists between South Africa and India, as a result of the large medical infrastructure and geographical size of India. One may wonder for such a comparison. But South Africa and India face one of the world’s worst AIDS epidemics in their continents that led to the selection and its comparison.

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