Use of H-Index and other bibliometric indicators to evaluate research productivity outcome on swine diseases
Díaz, Ivan (Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimentàries. Centre de Recerca en Sanitat Animal)
Cortey, Martí (Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimentàries. Centre de Recerca en Sanitat Animal)
Olvera, Àlex (Institut Germans Trias i Pujol. Institut de Recerca de la Sida IrsiCaixa)
Segalés Coma, Joaquim (Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimentàries. Centre de Recerca en Sanitat Animal)
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Sanitat i d'Anatomia Animals

Date:	2016
Abstract:	H-index is the most commonly applied tool to evaluate scientific productivity. In this study, the use of the H-index to evaluate scientific production in swine veterinary medicine was explored. A database of 137 pig infectious agents was constructed, including its taxonomic division, zoonotic potential, status as emerging pathogen and whether it was OIE-listed. The H-index and the total number of citations were calculated for those pathogens, the location of the affiliation of the first author of each paper included in the H-index core was registered and, for the ten pathogens with the highest H-index, evolution over time was measured. H-index values were compared to the M quotient, A-index, G-index, HG-index and the G/H ratio. H-indices were found to be severely affected by search accuracy and the database was hand curated. Swine pathogen H-indexes were highly dispersed ranging from 0 to 106 and were generally higher for pathogens causing endemic diseases in large pig producing countries. Indeed, the three top pathogens were Escherichia coli, Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus and Porcine circovirus type 2 with H-indices 106, 95 and 85, respectively. H-indices of viruses and bacteria were significantly higher (P 0. 001) than other pathogen types. Also, non-zoonotic pathogens had higher H-indices than zoonotic pathogens (p 0. 009) while no differences could be found for being listed by the OIE. For emerging diseases, only non-emerging viruses had higher H-index (p = 0. 02). The study of H-indexes over time revealed three general patterns and that they had increased mainly after the 1980's. As expected, there were strong geographic patterns in terms of authorship and North America (38%) and Europe (46%) coped the majority of the papers. Finally, in order to quantify the contribution of a subject to a specific field, a new index "Deciphering Citations Organized by Subject" (Dcos) is proposed.
Grants:	Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad AGL2014-61204-JIN
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Swine ; Bacterial pathogens ; Zoonotic pathogens ; Pathogens ; Viral pathogens ; Zoonoses ; Viral taxonomy ; Fungal pathogens
Published in:	PloS one, Vol. 11, Núm. 3 (March 2016) , e0149690, ISSN 1932-6203

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0149690
PMID: 26930283

21 p, 578.4 KB

The record appears in these collections:
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Health sciences and biosciences > Institut d'Investigació en Ciencies de la Salut Germans Trias i Pujol (IGTP)
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Health sciences and biosciences > Centre de Recerca en Sanitat Animal (CReSA-IRTA)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles