Syllabus

Session 1 - Introduction to Bibliometric Methodologies & Indicators

  • Introduction to the course
  • Bibliometrics Definitions, Uses & Limitations
    • Defining bibliometrics
    • Bibliometrics indicators & analysis
    • Limitations of bibliometrics
  • Citation Analysis
    • Citation analysis & limitations
    • Non-normalized citation indicators
      • number of publications
      • number of citations
      • citation rate

Session 1 Slides:

Session 1 Exercises & Videos

  1. Go to https://notebooks.azure.com and click Sign In to create an account. If you have an existing account with Microsoft or Outlook, you may use it.
  2. While signed into your account, go to https://notebooks.azure.com/clarke-iakovakis/projects/intro-to-bibliometrics
  3. Click the Clone button in the upper right corner and clone this project. This will create a duplicate of the project in your own Azure Notebooks projects
  4. Click on Getting Started with Jupyter Notebooks and R.ipynb
  5. Watch the video below to use this notebook. This will introduce you to the Azure Notebooks environment and some basics of using R.

Session 2 - Citation Metrics and Bibliometric Data Sources

  • Normalized citation indicators
    • Citation normalization
    • Field normalized citation impact
    • Field classification
    • Relative Citation Ratio
    • Percentiles
  • Journal-based indicators
    • Journal Impact Factor
    • CiteScore
    • H-index
    • Pushback and limitations
  • Data sources
    • Web of Science & Scopus
    • Dimensions
    • Google Scholar
    • Open Citations Corpus
    • Publish or Perish

Session 2 Slides

Session 2 Exercises and Video

  1. Open the Bibliometrics Lesson 1.ipynb file in your Azure Notebook
  2. Read the entire document and execute all the code chunks. Watch the below video for help.

Session 3 - Network Analysis

  • Bibliographic Network Analysis Concepts
  • Bibliographic Network Analysis Tools
  • Centrality, Connectedness, & Clustering

Session 3 Slides

Session 3 Exercises and Video

Network Analysis

  1. Navigate to https://notebooks.azure.com/clarke-iakovakis/projects/intro-to-bibliometrics-network and clone the notebook into your Azure Notebooks environment.
  2. homework01.ipynb is a notebook designed to help you build intuition around centrality measures.
  3. homework02.ipynb is a notebook designed to introduce you to some network functions using the bibliometrix package in R.

VOSviewer

  1. Complete steps 1-5 Exercise 1 from Session 2, “Getting article data with Dimensions” at https://notebooks.azure.com/clarke-iakovakis/projects/intro-to-bibliometrics/html/Bibliometrics%20Lesson%201.ipynb
  2. Click Export for Bibliometric Mapping and click Export. You will get an email when the export is ready for download. At that point, in Dimensions, click your name in the right hand corner and click Export Center. Click Download to download the file to your computer.
  3. Download VOSviewer at https://www.vosviewer.com/download, or launch it in your browser using the Web start option on that page
  4. In VOS Viewer, Go to File > Map > Create
  5. Choose Create a map based on bibliographic data
  6. Choose Read data from bibliographic database files
  7. Click the Dimensions tab and upload the file you downloaded in step 2. Note that this file is also available in the Azure Notebooks for this session at https://notebooks.azure.com/clarke-iakovakis/projects/intro-to-bibliometrics-network, called dimensions_network.csv
  8. To create a Journal co-citation network:
    • Under Type of Analysis, click Co-citation
    • Under Unit of Analysis, click Cited sources
    • Under Counting Method, click Fractional counting
    • Choose 30 for the Minimum number of citations of a source. This means that a journal will not be included unless it has at least 30 items pointing to it in this set of results. Click Next.
    • Choose the maximum number of sources to be selected allowable. Click Next.
    • Review the sources, citations, and total link strength. Click Finish.
    • It may warn you that some of the items in the network are not connected to each other. Click Yes to show the largest set of connecting items.
    • Play around with the various settings on the right side of the page.
  9. Experiment with the other types of visualizations and units of analysis.
  10. Read Brett Williams, “Dimensions & VOSViewer Bibliometrics in the Reference Interview,” code4lib 47, https://journal.code4lib.org/articles/14964 with screenshots of this process and suggestions for incorporating it into library reference work.

Session 4 - Eigenfactor Metrics, Altmetrics, Metrics in Evaluation, & Next Steps

  • Eigenfactor Metrics
  • Altmetrics
  • Metrics in Evaluation & Next Steps

Session 4 Slides

rlang issues in Azure Notebooks

Given that Azure Notebooks is going away, and the bibliometrix package is so much more powerful in R Studio, it is my strong recommendation that if you want to explore this further, you follow Option 2 below. I have not found a satisfactory solution to the namespace issue.

Migrating files from Azure Notebooks

As you likely noticed in Azure Notebooks, the project is ending in October. Therefore if you want to save the notebooks and run them, you will need to download the files and install some software on your computer.

First, download the project files from Azure. Naviate to your project home in Azure Notebooks (e.g. https://notebooks.azure.com/clarke-iakovakis/projects/intro-to-bibliometrics). Click Download Project. Create a new folder on your computer called intro_to_bibliometris. Save the zip file to that folder and unzip the file. Do this for the other Azure Notebook we used in Session 3 (e.g. https://notebooks.azure.com/clarke-iakovakis/projects/intro-to-bibliometrics-network).

These are also archived on GitHub:

Option 1: Using Anaconda to open the IPYNB files.

This step will allow you to open and execute the IPYNB files essentially just as they looked in Azure.

  1. Download and install Anaconda: https://docs.anaconda.com/anaconda/install/
  2. Go to https://www.r-project.org/ to download R. Click on CRAN (Comprehensive R Archive Network) under Download, and scroll down to your country. Select the download link corresponding to the city that is geographically closest to you. Open the file and install.
  3. Install IR kernel:
    • On PC, search for Anaconda Prompt in your computer, right click, and run As Adminstrator. In the prompt, type conda install -c r r-irkernel. During the installation process, Anaconda might ask if you want to proceed ([y]/n)?` Just type ‘y’.
    • On Mac, open terminal. Enter conda config --add channels r then conda install --yes r-irkernel
  4. Following these instructions, open Anaconda and select Environments to create an new environment. Click Create.
  5. In Name, type intro_to_bibliometrics. Next to Packages, select Python 3.7 and R. Select r from the dropdown menu. Click Create.
  6. Click the arrow next to intro_to_bibliometrics and select Open with Jupyter Notebook. It will open in a web browser.
  7. Navigate to the folder you saved the Azure Notebooks in. You can now open the following IPYNB files and execute the code as you did previously:

From intro_to_bibliometrics

  • Getting Started with Jupyter Notebooks and R.ipynb
  • Bibliometrics Lesson 1.ipynb

From intro_to_bibliometrics_network

  • homework02.ipynb

Note that the homework01.ipynb file is written in Python, not R. To open it, you do not need to create a new environment. Instead, do the following:

  1. Open Anaconda. Under Jupyter Notebooks, click Launch. It will open in a web browser.
  2. Navigage to the folder you saved the Azure Notebooks in. You can now open homework01.ipynb and execute the code as you did previously.

Option 2: Using R and R Studio to open Bibliometrics Lesson 1 and homework02 Rmd files.

This step will allow you to open and execute the Rmd (R Markdown) files in the R Studio environment. While the contents of the files are precisely the same, you will execute the code within R Studio rather than Jupyter Notebooks.

  1. Go to https://www.r-project.org/ to download R. Click on CRAN (Comprehensive R Archive Network) under Download, and scroll down to your country. Select the download link corresponding to the city that is geographically closest to you. Open the file and install.
  2. Go to https://www.rstudio.com/products/RStudio/#Desktop to download the RStudio desktop software. Open the file and install.
  3. Download the following Rmd files. Navigate to the page, then press Ctrl + S to save the file. Save each into their respective directories (i.e. save bibliometrics_lesson_1.Rmd into the intro_to_bibliometrics folder, and save homework02.Rmd into the intro_to_bibliometrics_network folder. This will ensure the data loads properly.)