A28. Rice,
R. E., Borgman, C., Bednarski, D. & Hart, P. (1989).
Journal-to-journal
citation data: Issues of reliability and validity. Scientometrics,
15(3-4), 257-282.
Citation analysis is a useful method for studying a wide range of
topics in bibliometrics and the sociology of science. However, many
challenges
have been made to the validity and reliability of the underlying
assumptions,
the data, and the methods used in citation studies. This article
addresses
these issues in three parts. First is a brief review of validity and
reliability
issues in citation research. Next we explore measurement error in a
principal
source of journal-to-journal citation data, the Institute for
Scientific
Information's Journal Citation Reports. Possible sources of
measurement
error include discrepancies between citing and cited data, changed or
deleted
journal titles, aberrant abbreviations, and listing algorithms. The
last
section is a detailed description of ways to overcome some of the
measurement
errors. The data and examples are drawn from a journal-to -journal
citation
study in the fields of Communication, Information Science, and Library
Science.
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