[Bibliometry of collaboration and impact of the Revista de Biología Tropical (Web of Science 2003-2012)]. / Bibliometría de la colaboración e impacto de la Revista de Biología Tropical (Web of Science 2003-2012).

The activity analysis of a scientific journal is relevant to know the evolution of its characteristics over time. In this paper, results of a bibliometric study of the Revista de Biología Tropical/International Journal of Tropical Biology and Conservation (Costa Rica) are presented. The goal of this study was to describe the main characteristics of its scientific production, and analyze its level of collaboration and its impact between the years 2003-2012. Data was derived from the Web of Science (Thomson-Reuters), and the relationship among authors and coauthors, institutions and countries, and their links with the citations received were analyzed for that period. Descriptive statistics about production (number of documents per year, institution and country), collaboration (authorship index, collaboration among institutions and countries) and impact (IF, position in JCR and number of citations received) were collected. Results showed that the journal has published 1 473 papers in this period, in similar proportions English and Spanish. Mexico, Costa Rica, Venezuela and Colombia are the most common countries of origin, with the Universidad of Costa Rica, Universidad Autónoma de Mexico and the University of Puerto Rico as the most common leader institutions. Collaboration between authors, institutions and countries has shown an increasing trend over the last decade. The co-author index was 3.07 per document, 63 % of publications included 2 or more institutions, and 22 % of the papers were product of international collaboration. The most common collaboration link was between Costa Rica and the United States of America. The impact factor has been oscillating during this last decade, reaching a maximum in 2012 (IF JCR = 0.553). Besides, 10 % of the most cited papers concentrated half of the citations received by the journal, and have a very high number of citations, compared with the journal mean. The main countries that cite the journal were USA, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Costa Rica. Data showed an increasing collaboration between authors, institutions and countries, and a direct relationship between the increase of this collaboration and the received impact.

Highly Cited Papers at the Spanish Domestic Level.

This paper presents a methodological proposal based on the identification of highly cited papers (HCPs) at domestic-level in the Spanish Public University System (SUPE), in order to find the most outstanding publications in the local context. The principal aim is to detect different activity and impact profiles among Spanish universities and differentiate those institutions that play a more significant role. To determine which and how many are the highly cited papers at the domestic level (HCP-DL) collected in the Web of Science, three citation thresholds (1, 5, and 10%) were established. Thematic classification in Incites/Essential Science Indicators areas is used. The results show a preponderance of HCPs in the field of Space Science, while the polytechnic universities have high visibility in the Computer Science area. It has been observed that the presence of HCPs in a given area is involved with universities specialized in teaching and research activities. In absolute terms, the big non-specialized universities are major producers of HCPs and hold the leading positions in our results. However, when efficiency is analyzed in relative terms, some small, specialized universities reveal themselves to be more efficient at producing HCPs (% of HCPs or citations per HCP). We think that this methodology, due to its simplicity, its ease of calculation, and the knowledge it provides, can be very useful to analyze the national systems of any country, in order to know the impact and visibility of the research carried out in its scientific institutions or research areas.

Peer Review in Law Journals.

The field of law has retained its distinctiveness regarding peer review to this day, and reviews are often conducted without following standardized rules and principles. External and independent evaluation of submissions has recently become adopted by European law journals, and peer review procedures are still poorly defined, investigated, and attuned to the legal science publishing landscape. The aim of our study was to gain a better insight into current editorial policies on peer review in law journals by exploring editorial documents (instructions, guidelines, policies) issued by 119 Croatian, Italian, and Spanish law journals. We relied on automatic content analysis of 135 publicly available documents collected from the journal websites to analyze the basic features of the peer review processes, manuscript evaluation criteria, and related ethical issues using WordStat8. Differences in covered topics between the countries were compared using the chi-square test. Our findings reveal that most law journals have adopted a traditional approach, in which the editorial board manages mostly anonymized peer review (104, 77%) engaging independent/external reviewers (65, 48%). Submissions are evaluated according to their originality and relevance (113, 84%), quality of writing and presentation (94, 70%), comprehensiveness of literature references (93, 69%), and adequacy of methods (57, 42%). The main ethical issues related to peer review addressed by these journals are reviewer's competing interests (42, 31%), plagiarism (35, 26%), and biases (30, 22%). We observed statistically significant differences between countries in mentioning key concepts such as "Peer review ethics", "Reviewer", "Transparency of identities", "Publication type", and "Research misconduct". Spanish journals favor reviewers' "Independence" and "Competence" and "Anonymized" peer review process. Also, some manuscript types popular in one country are rarely mentioned in other countries. Even though peer review is equally conventional in all three countries, high transparency in Croatian law journals, respect for research integrity in Spanish ones, and diversity and inclusion in Italian are promising indicators of future development.

Trends in scientific activity addressing transmissible spongiform encephalopathies: a bibliometric study covering the period 1973-2002.

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study is to analyse the trends in scientific research on transmissible spongiform encephalopathies by applying bibliometric tools to the scientific literature published between 1973 and 2002. METHODS: The data for the study were obtained from Medline database, in order to determine the volume of scientific output in the above period, the countries involved, the type of document and the trends in the subject matters addressed. The period 1973-2002 was divided in three sub-periods. RESULTS: We observed a significant growth in scientific production. The percentage of increase is 871.7 from 1973 to 2002. This is more evident since 1991 and particularly in the 1996-2001 period. The countries found to have the highest output were the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, France and Germany. The evolution in the subject matters was almost constant in the three sub-periods in which the study was divided. In the first and second sub-periods, the subject matters of greatest interest were more general, i.e Nervous system or Nervous system diseases, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Scrapie, and Chemicals and Drugs, but in the last sub-period, some changes were observed because the Prion-related matters had the greatest presence. Collaboration among authors is small from 1973 to 1992, but increases notably in the third sub-period, and also the number of authors and clusters formed. Some of the authors, like Gajdusek or Prusiner, appear in the whole period. CONCLUSION: The study reveals a very high increase in scientific production. It is related also with the beginnings of research on bovine spongiform encephalopathy and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, with the establishment of progressive collaboration relationships and a reflection of public health concerns about this problem.

Bibliometría de la colaboración e impacto de la Revista de Biología Tropical(Web of Science 2003-2012) / Bibliometry of collaboration and impact of the Revista de Biología Tropical (Web of Science 2003-2012)

ResumenEl estudio de la actividad de una revista resulta esencial para conocer la evolución de sus características a lo largo del tiempo. En este trabajo se realiza un análisis bibliométrico de la Revista de Biología Tropical, utilizando como fuente la base de datos Web of Science (ThomsonReuters), entre los años 2003-2012. El objetivo del trabajo es describir las principales características de la producción de la revista y analizar el desarrollo de la colaboración y el impacto en la última década. Se estudia la colaboración entre autores, instituciones y países y su vinculación con las citas recibidas. Se han obtenido indicadores de producción (número de documentos por año, institución y país), colaboración (índice de co-autoría, colaboración entre centros y países) e impacto (factor de impacto, posición en el Journal Citation Report, citas recibidas). Los resultados muestran que en el período estudiado la revista ha publicado 1 473 artículos. Predominan los documentos en inglés y español -por partes iguales- y los principales países de procedencia son México, Costa Rica, Venezuela y Colombia. La Universidad de Costa Rica es la institución que produce la mayor parte de los artículos, con un 17 % de los documentos, seguida de la Universidad Autónoma de México y la Universidad de Puerto Rico. Se evidencia que la colaboración entre autores, instituciones y países ha crecido constantemente en la última década. El índice de coautoría ha sido de 3.07 autores por documento. Un 63 % de las publicaciones se han realizado en colaboración entre 2 o más instituciones y un 22 % en colaboración internacional. Las relaciones de colaboración más frecuentes se producen entre Costa Rica y Estados Unidos. En cuanto al impacto de la revista, dentro de la categoría Biology el factor de impacto ha tenido oscilaciones, alcanzando su máximo valor en 2012 (FI JCR = 0.553). Se ha detectado que el 10 % de los documentos más citados concentra la mitad de las citas recibidas por la revista y tienen un porcentaje de colaboración internacional muy superior a la media de la revista. Los principales países usuarios fueron Estados Unidos, Brasil, México, Argentina y Costa Rica, de quienes proviene la mayor citación de la revista. Los datos muestran una tendencia creciente a la colaboración entre autores, instituciones y países y una relación directa entre el incremento de esta colaboración y el impacto recibido.

Abstract:The activity analysis of a scientific journal is relevant to know the evolution of its characteristics over time. In this paper, results of a bibliometric study of the Revista de Biología Tropical/International Journal of Tropical Biology and Conservation (Costa Rica) are presented. The goal of this study was to describe the main characteristics of its scientific production, and analyze its level of collaboration and its impact between the years 2003-2012. Data was derived from the Web of Science (Thomson-Reuters), and the relationship among authors and coauthors, institutions and countries, and their links with the citations received were analyzed for that period. Descriptive statistics about production (number of documents per year, institution and country), collaboration (authorship index, collaboration among institutions and countries) and impact (IF, position in JCR and number of citations received) were collected. Results showed that the journal has published 1 473 papers in this period, in similar proportions English and Spanish. Mexico, Costa Rica, Venezuela and Colombia are the most common countries of origin, with the Universidad of Costa Rica, Universidad Autónoma de Mexico and the University of Puerto Rico as the most common leader institutions. Collaboration between authors, institutions and countries has shown an increasing trend over the last decade. The co-author index was 3.07 per document, 63 % of publications included 2 or more institutions, and 22 % of the papers were product of international collaboration. The most common collaboration link was between Costa Rica and the United States of America. The impact factor has been oscillating during this last decade, reaching a maximum in 2012 (IF JCR = 0.553). Besides, 10 % of the most cited papers concentrated half of the citations received by the journal, and have a very high number of citations, compared with the journal mean. The main countries that cite the journal were USA, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Costa Rica. Data showed an increasing collaboration between authors, institutions and countries, and a direct relationship between the increase of this collaboration and the received impact.

Desarrollo de indicadores para los nuevos hábitos de información y comunicación científica / Development of indicators for the new habits of scientific communication and information

En la actualidad estamos asistiendo a la aparición de una nueva dinámica en la producción y difusión de los conocimientos científicos, muchos de ellos basados en la tendencia creciente en la colaboración y el uso de los nuevos entornos tecnológicos. Para determinar estos cambios hemos analizado su impacto en las publicaciones científicas españolas incluidas en la Web of Science. En este sentido, a través de técnicas bibliométricas, se estudió el aumento de los índices de coautoría en varias áreas y disciplinas, detectando el número medio de autores por documento, así como los valores atípicos. También se analizó el impacto "social" de las publicaciones a través del uso de indicadores altmétricos. Para ello se estudia el caso de publicaciones sobre medicina interna. Los resultados obtenidos destacan la importancia de desarrollar indicadores más apropiados para evaluar los nuevos hábitos de la comunicación y la información científica

Nowadays we are witnessing the appearance of new dynamics in the production and dissemination of scientific knowledge, many of them based on the growing trend in collaboration and the use of new technological environments. In order to determine these changes, we've analyzed their impact on Spanish scientific publications included in the Web of Science. In this sense, through bibliometric techniques, we've studied the increase in the co-authorship indexes in several areas and disciplines, detecting the average number of authors per document, as well as the outliers. The "social" impact of publications through the use of altmetric indicators it was also analyzed. For this, the case of publications on Internal Medicine it was studied. The results highlight the importance of developing more appropriate indicators to evaluate the new habits of communication and scientific information

La actividad científica española en ciencias médicas en el período 1991-1999 / The Spanish scientific activity in medical sciences from 1991 to 1999

Se estudia el colectivo de investigadores españoles en ciencias médicas. Se emplearon indicadores bibliométricos unidimensionales y relacionales con el fin de analizar los trabajos publicados por los investigadores procesados en la base de datos MEDLINE durante el período 1991-1999. Los resultados indican que la producción científica española en ciencias médicas ha aumentado en más del 70(por ciento). Asimismo, su peso respecto a la producción mundial se incrementó del 1,4(por ciento) al 2(por ciento). La Biología-Bioquímica, la Medicina general, las neurociencias y la Nefrología-Urología son las temáticas en las que se han publicado más documentos. También se ha observado un aumento en el tamaño de los grupos de investigación, así como del índice de coautoría de 4,58 a 5,09 autores/documento. El tipo de documento más utilizado para difundir las investigaciones es el artículo de revista; de las 17 revistas más productivas, 15 son españolas. Los indicadores relacionales utilizados, basados en el análisis de correspondencias, revelan una clara diferenciación entre los sectores institucionales en función de las temáticas en que trabajan sus investigadores. Los hospitales muestran su preferencia por áreas de tipo clínico mientras que las universidades, por las de investigación básica. La actividad científica en el área de ciencias médicas ha experimentado un cambio notable en España, es el sector sanitario, que realiza investigación de tipo aplicado, el de mayor actividad investigadora

La actividad científica española en ciencias médicas en el período 1991-1999 / The Spanish scientific activity in medical sciences from 1991 to 1999

Se estudia el colectivo de investigadores españoles en ciencias médicas. Se emplearon indicadores bibliométricos unidimensionales y relacionales con el fin de analizar los trabajos publicados por los investigadores procesados en la base de datos MEDLINE durante el período 1991-1999. Los resultados indican que la producción científica española en ciencias médicas ha aumentado en más del 70(por ciento). Asimismo, su peso respecto a la producción mundial se incrementó del 1,4(por ciento) al 2(por ciento). La Biología-Bioquímica, la Medicina general, las neurociencias y la Nefrología-Urología son las temáticas en las que se han publicado más documentos. También se ha observado un aumento en el tamaño de los grupos de investigación, así como del índice de coautoría de 4,58 a 5,09 autores/documento. El tipo de documento más utilizado para difundir las investigaciones es el artículo de revista; de las 17 revistas más productivas, 15 son españolas. Los indicadores relacionales utilizados, basados en el análisis de correspondencias, revelan una clara diferenciación entre los sectores institucionales en función de las temáticas en que trabajan sus investigadores. Los hospitales muestran su preferencia por áreas de tipo clínico mientras que las universidades, por las de investigación básica. La actividad científica en el área de ciencias médicas ha experimentado un cambio notable en España, es el sector sanitario, que realiza investigación de tipo aplicado, el de mayor actividad investigadora(AU)