How is science cited on the Web? A classification of google unique Web citations

  • Authors:

  • Kayvan Kousha;Mike Thelwall

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Library and Information Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran and School of Computing and Information Technology, University of Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton WV1 1ST, United Kin ...;School of Computing and Information Technology, University of Wolverhampton, Wulfruna Street, Wolverhampton WV1 1ST, United Kingdom

  • Venue:
  • Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
  • Year:
  • 2007

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Abstract

Although the analysis of citations in the scholarly literatureis now an established and relatively well understood part ofinformation science, not enough is known about citations that canbe found on the Web. In particular, are there new Web types, and ifso, are these trivial or potentially useful for studying orevaluating research communication? We sought evidence based upon asample of 1,577 Web citations of the URLs or titles of researcharticles in 64 open-access journals from biology, physics,chemistry, and computing. Only 25% represented intellectual impact,from references of Web documents (23%) and other informal scholarlysources (2%). Many of the Web/URL citations were created forgeneral or subject-specific navigation (45%) or for self-publicity(22%). Additional analyses revealed significant disciplinarydifferences in the types of Google unique Web/URL citations as wellas some characteristics of scientific open-access publishing on theWeb. We conclude that the Web provides access to a new anddifferent type of citation information, one that may thereforeenable us to measure different aspects of research, and theresearch process in particular; but to obtain good information, thedifferent types should be separated. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals,Inc.