Page 99 - DLIS405_INFORMATION_STORAGE_AND_RETRIEVAL

Information Storage and Retrieval

Notes Citation data have long been used to rank journals within particular subject areas, usually based on
the ISI Impact Factor. The impact factor is simply a numerical ratio of the total number of citations
a journal receives in ISI Source Journals in one year to the total number of “citable” articles it
published in the previous two years. It is a useful way to see how journals perform in relation to
others in the same subject area. It is not useful in comparing journals across subject areas, and the
number taken out of this context is essentially meaningless.
For example, Journal A has an impact factor of 4.327, and Journal B has an impact factor of 1.045. Is
Journal A “better” than Journal B? You could conceivably make that argument, if you first accept
the notion that quality equates with citedness, AND if journals A and B are both in the same field.
But if A is in Biochemistry, and B is in Clinical Pharmacy, no such judgment can be made, as citation
behavior varies considerably from field to field.
Impact factor can also vary based on the number and types of articles a journal publishes. Review
articles tend to be more heavily cited than full papers or communications, so journals and annuals
that publish mostly reviews will often have high impact factors. Journals that publish only a few
articles in a given year may also have disproportionately high impact factors. Similarly, one very
highly cited paper can skew a journal’s impact factor significantly.
Impact factors for journals covered by ISI are published annually in an electronic compilation called
Journal Citation Reports. All ISI Source Journals are ranked within one or more relevant subject
categories, such as CHEMISTRY, ORGANIC or SPECTROSCOPY. You can also compile customized
lists. JCR also contains data on historical trends, immediacy index, cited half-life, etc.

Citation Analysis

While citation indexes were originally designed for information retrieval purposes, they are
increasingly used for bibliometrics and other studies involving research evaluation. Citation data is
also the basis of the popular journal impact factor.
Legal citation analysis is a citation analysis technique for analyzing legal documents to facilitate the
understanding of the inter-related regulatory compliance documents by the exploration the citations
that connect provisions to other provisions within the same document or between different
documents. Legal citation analysis uses a citation graph extracted from a regulatory document.

Self Assessment

State whether the following statements are true or false:
4. Derived indexing terms are terms occurring in the text to be indexed.
5. Assigned indexing is a powerful yet affordable solution for keyword indexing.
6. The first citation indices were legal citators such as shepard’s citations (1873).
7. The first automated citation indexing was done by Citeseer in 1987.
8. Impact factors for journals covered by ISI are published annually in an electronic compilation
called Journal Citation Reports.

9.10 Summary

• Derived Indexing solely relies on information which is manifest in the document, without
attempting to add to this from indexer’s own knowledge or other sources.
• There are 3 basic categories for alphabetizing names: Personal Names, Business or Company
Names, and Government Names.
• In alphabetizing, it is important to remember that nothing comes before something.

94 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY