Applied Engineering in Agriculture: A five-year (2004-2008) citation study
Manjunath B. Hadimani1 and Iqbalahmad U. Rajgoli2
1Assistant Librarian, University of Agricultural Sciences Raichur Campus, Raichur, Karnataka, India Email: manjuhadimani@gmail.com
2Senior Scientific Assistant – A, Library, ISRO HQ., Antariksh Bhavan New BEL Road, Bangalore, Karnataka, India Email: iqbal786@isro.gov.in
Analyses 10553 citations appended to 538 papers published during 2004–2008 in the journal Applied Engineering in Agriculture. On average, there were approximately 20 citations per paper. Out of 10553 citations appended, 2263 (21.44%) citations appeared in the year 2006 closely followed by 2231 (21.14%) citations in the year 2005. Out of 1775 authors who contributed a total of 538 papers, 1376 (77.52%) were affiliated to institutions located in USA. Also examines year-wise distribution of papers, authorship pattern, length of papers, degree of collaboration among authors, year-wise appearance of citations, form-wise distribution of resources used by the authors and ranked list of authors by geographical location.
Introduction
The term bibliometrics coined by Alan Pritchard in the late 1960s, stresses the method of undertaking the counting of books, articles, publications, citations etc., and in general any statistically significant manifestation of recorded information regardless of disciplinary bounds1. Bibliometric studies can be applied to any discipline to find out trends and growth of the literature2 and to portray the quality, maturity and productivity of the journal3. Bibliometric studies are now being used for a variety of purposes like determination of various scientific indicators, evaluation of scientific output, selection of journals for the libraries, forecasting the research potential of a particular field and so on4. There are many bibliometric studies available in the literature including several studies published in Indian journals on single journals5-15. However, there are no studies carried out so far on the journal Applied Engineering in Agriculture.
The journal Applied Engineering in Agriculture is a bi-monthly peer reviewed publication published by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineering (ASABE). ASABE is an educational and scientific society dedicated to the advancement of engineering applicable to agriculture, food and biological
systems. This journal emphasises the practical applications of leading-edge research in every area of engineering for agriculture, food and other biological systems. Applied Engineering in Agriculture is indexed and abstracted in AGRICOLA, CAB International Abstracts, Cambridge Scientific Abstracts, EiCompendex and Environmental Periodical Bibliography. The journal’s home page is http:/
/www.asabe.org/pubs/applied.html . Objectives of the study
• To know year-wise distribution of papers;
• To know the average length of papers;
• To study the authorship pattern;
• To study collaborative publications in the journal;
• To calculate degree of collaboration among co- authors;
• To know year-wise citations to the publications;
• To study different types of resources used by the authors; and
• To study distribution of authors by geographical location.
Methodology
The data required for the study was collected from the print version of the journal for the period 2004-2008. The
references appended to each paper were carefully scanned and tabulated. Following sections discuss the analysis of the data collected and presented under different table headings as per the objectives of the study.
Results and discussion
Distribution of contributions
Table 1 shows volume-wise break-up of papers alongwith number of contributions that varies from year to year.
In the year 2005, highest number of 128 (23.79%) papers were published and in the year 2007 minimum number of 98 (18.22%) papers have been published. In all, 538 research articles were published during 2004–2008.
Table 1 –– Volume of distribution of contributions Year Vol. no. Issues Total publications %
2004 20 6 104 19.33
2005 21 6 128 23.79
2006 22 6 109 20.26
2007 23 6 98 18.22
2008 24 6 99 18.40
5 Years 5 Vols. 30 538 100.00
Table 2 –– Length of the papers
No. of pages 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Total %
0-5 31 29 20 12 20 112 20.82
6-10 63 87 75 79 66 370 68.77
11-15 9 10 13 7 12 51 9.48
>=16 1 2 1 0 1 05 0.93
Table 3 –– Authorship pattern
No. of authors 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Total %
Single 12 12 10 10 7 51 9.48
Two 21 35 17 16 20 109 20.26
Three 28 31 36 33 22 150 27.88
Four 27 29 26 20 26 128 23.79
>4 16 21 20 19 24 100 18.59
Length of papers
Table 2 shows that 370 papers had length in the range of 6-10 pages and at the same time it can be noted that 5 papers had length of more than or equal to 16 pages.
Authorship pattern
Table 3 presents data on authorship of the papers. It is found from Table 3 that out of 538 papers, the number of three authored papers is the highest and it accounts for 27.88%. The number of four authored papers is 128 (23.79%) followed by two authored papers, i.e., 109 (20.26%).
Degree of Collaboration
In order to calculate the degree of collaboration among the authors, formula given by Subramanyam
16was used which is expressed mathematically as:
Degree of Collaboration, DC = Nm/(Nm+Ns)
Where Nm = No. of Multi-author publications during a specific period in a discipline
Ns = No. of single-authored publications in a discipline during a given period of time
Table 5 –– Degree of Collaboration among different categories of authors
Degree of Degree of Degree of Degree of
Year collaboration of collaboration collaboration collaboration
two-author publications of three-author of four-author of five or more author publications publications publications
2004 0.2 0.27 0.26 0.15
2005 0.27 0.24 0.23 0.16
2006 0.16 0.33 0.24 0.18
2007 0.16 0.34 0.2 0.19
2008 0.2 0.22 0.26 0.24
Table 4 –– Degree of collaboration among co-authors
Year No. of % Degree of
co-author collaboration
publications
2004 92 88.46 0.88
2005 116 90.63 0.91
2006 99 90.83 0.91
2007 88 89.80 0.90
2008 92 92.93 0.93
Table 4 reveals that the value of the highest Degree of Collaboration (DC) was 0.93 during the period 2008. It is interesting to note that the Degree of Collaboration for the years 2005 and 2006 is 0.91. The Degree of Collaboration among three authors was 0.34 and the minimum was 0.15 among the multiple-authored publications as shown in Table 5.
Year-wise appearance of citations
During the period under study (2004–2008), in all 10553 citations are found appended to 538 papers. Table 6 presents year-wise appearance of citations. From Table 6, it can be noted that the highest number of citations appeared in the year 2006, i.e., 21.44% of the total number of citations contributed which is closely followed by 2231 citations (21.14%) that appeared in the year 2005. The year 2004 recorded least number of citations, i.e., 1803 (17.09%).
Distribution of citations
The data presented in Table 7 shows the details of number of references that appeared at the end of papers
during the years 2004–2008. From Table 7 it is revealed that all the 538 papers published have references. The maximum number of references per article is 11-15 (23.79%) closely followed by 16-20 (21.38%) and minimum is between 0-5 (3.53%) of the total number of contributions. There are 48 (8.92%) papers having more than 36 citations.
Types of resources
The various types of resources used by the authors are tabulated in Table 8 giving year-wise break-up of the resources. Among the cited references, 55.04% are journals and 26.11% are books followed by webpages (4.85%). The authors have preferred journals for current (latest) information. Webpages (4.85%) are also increasingly been cited by authors. The remaining resources in the form of dissertations/thesis, technical reviews, patents, specifications, standards, maps, encyclopedias and manuals have least attracted the attention of the authors.
Geographical location of authors
Table 9 gives list of countries from where articles have been published in the journal during the period 2004- 2008. Total 1775 authors have contributed 538 papers during the period 2004-2008. Table 9 reveals that 77.52%
of authors have the affiliation belonging to USA leaving other countries far behind. India stands sixth with 0.85%
contribution. Other minimal contributions were from Thailand, France, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, i.e., 0.06 only.
Conclusion
On an average, each issue of the journal Applied Engineering in Agriculture published 18 papers.
Maximum numbers of papers have been written by three authors which shows that the collaborative research practice in engineering is applicable to agriculture, food and biological systems. Journal articles are the most cited documents, followed by books, webpages and conference proceedings respectively. There is considerable increase in the citation of webpages each year. Though the journal is popular among the researchers in USA, 22.48% of papers have been contributed by researchers from other parts of the world which makes it an international journal.
Applied Engineering in Agriculture is indexed and
Table 7 –– Distribution of citations
No. of citations 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Total %
0-5 4 7 2 5 1 19 3.53
6-10 23 21 18 10 11 83 15.43
11-15 31 33 21 22 21 128 23.79
16-20 18 32 21 18 26 115 21.38
21-25 7 15 19 18 16 75 13.94
26-30 8 6 12 13 8 47 8.74
31-35 5 7 6 2 3 23 4.28
>=36 8 7 10 10 13 48 8.92
Table 8 –– Types of resources used by the authors
Resource type 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Total %
Journals 896 1269 1152 1183 1308 5808 55.04
Books 545 573 667 479 491 2755 26.11
WebPages 47 93 125 111 136 512 4.85
Conference Proceedings 73 74 69 60 51 327 3.10
Standards 46 49 42 41 84 262 2.48
Reports 49 41 46 25 44 205 1.94
Dissertations/ Thesis 23 32 50 41 29 175 1.66
Symposium 38 32 39 24 32 165 1.56
User’s Guide 17 16 12 14 14 73 0.69
Personal Communication 16 10 20 19 4 69 0.65
Patents 16 17 18 2 11 64 0.61
Manuals 12 9 14 13 13 61 0.58
Workshops 11 12 7 12 4 46 0.44
Maps 13 - 1 - - 14 0.13
Technical Reviews 1 3 1 1 1 7 0.07
Encyclopedias - 1 - 1 5 7 0.07
Specifications - - - 3 - 3 0.03
Total 1803 2231 2263 2029 2227 10553 100.01
Table 6 –– Year-wise appearance of citations
Year No. of citations %
2004 1803 17.09
2005 2231 21.14
2006 2263 21.44
2007 2029 19.23
2008 2227 21.10
Total 10553 100.00
abstracted in host of databases which gives fair chance for research articles published in the journal to be used and cited. This study has highlighted the variety of bibliometric measures that can be used to understand the characteristics or portrait of the journal which in turn reflect the characteristics of the literature and the communication behaviour.
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Table 9 –– Distribution of authors by geographical location
Country 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Total %
USA 282 333 273 248 240 1376 77.52
Canada 12 26 27 11 20 96 5.41
Spain 11 13 10 6 4 44 2.48
China - 7 13 4 6 30 1.69
Turkey - 5 3 6 11 25 1.41
Italy 5 3 7 3 3 21 1.18
Japan - - 3 3 14 20 1.13
New Mexico 5 2 1 5 7 20 1.13
India 7 2 - 3 3 15 0.85
Israel - 3 4 8 - 15 0.85
Brazil 2 - 4 2 5 13 0.73
Australia - 2 6 1 - 9 0.51
Denmark - 4 5 - - 9 0.51
Taiwan 2 - - - 6 8 0.45
Ireland - - - 8 - 8 0.45
Korea 1 2 3 - - 6 0.34
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