Why ESI is unreliable in selecting highly cited papers?

Author(s):
Hu Z.; Tian W.; Xu S.; Wang X.; Li J.; Zhang C.
Published
2018
Publication type
Article in monograph or in proceedings

Abstract

Essential Science Indicators (ESI), a citation-based research analytic tool developed by Clarivate Analytics for identifying top-performing research, is becoming increasingly used in evaluating the impact of countries, institutes and scientists. Unfortunately, our study has proved that ESI indicators are not as reliable as they seem to be. Both the published month and the online-to-print delay are found to affect a paper’s probability to become a Highly Cited Paper. Specifically, papers published in earlier months of the year are more likely to accumulate enough citation counts to be able to rank the top 1% compared with those published in later months of the year. In addition, various online-to-print delays in different journals also affect the validity of HCP selections. Papers with longer online-to-print delays have longer citation time windows to be cited.

Scientometrics
Date issued
2018-09-11
Publisher
Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS)
Is part of
STI 2018 Conference Proceedings (2018), p. 93-100
hdl
1887/65238