Abstract
Quantity and quality are Aristotelian categories. Ever since Galileo, the defining feature of Science is the accurate measure of quantity, e.g., time, length and mass, to begin with. Length and mass are size dependent. Quality remained an elusive category as it is a size-independent feature. It was Archimedes who first brought a revolution in physics by defining density as a size-independent attribute. A similar revolution was effected in the measurement of science when Eugene Garfield introduced the concept of the citation as a unit of measurement and from this, separated quantity (number of publications) from quality (impact). In this article, we interpret impact as a thermodynamic mean instead of a simplistic arithmetic mean. This opens up rich analogies with the conservation laws of mechanics and thermodynamic features linking disorder and unevenness to entropy. Also as in physics, considerations of dimensional homogeneity play a defining role. Without Garfield’s bold initiative, all this will have eluded us for some time.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abbas, A. M. (2011). Analysis of generalized impact factor and indices of journals. Journal of Information Processing Systems, 7, 341–354.
Abbas, A. M. (2012). Bounds and inequalities relating h-index, g-index, e-index and generalized impact factor: An improvement over existing models. PLoS ONE, 7, e33699.
Bensman, S. J. (2013). Eugene Garfield, Francis Narin, and PageRank: The Theoretical Bases of the Google Search Engine. arXiv:1312.3872 [cs.IR].
Bergstrom, C. T. (2007). Eigenfactor: Measuring the value and prestige of scholarly journals. College & Research Libraries News, 68(5), 314–316.
Bergstrom, C. T., West, J. D., & Wiseman, M. A. (2008). The Eigenfactor metrics. Journal of Neuroscience, 28(45), 11433–11434.
Bollen, J., Rodriguez, M. A., & Van de Sompel, H. (2006). Journal Status. Scientometrics, 69(3), 669–687.
Braun, T., Glänzel, W., & Schubert, A. (1989). World flash on basic research. Scientometrics, 15(1–2), 13–20.
Braun, T., Glänzel, W., & Schubert, A. (2006). A Hirsch-type index for journals. Scientometrics, 69(1), 169–173.
Brin, S., & Page, L. (1998). The anatomy of a large-scale hypertextual Web search engine. Computer Networks and ISDN Systems, 30(1–7), 107–117.
Campbell, S. R. (2004). On the concepts of quantity and quality in the history of western thought. In Philosophical Studies in Education SIG at the American Educational Research Association Annual Conference, San Diego, California.
Cronin, B. (1984). The citation process: The role and significance of citations in scientific communication. London: Taylor Graham.
Davis, P. M. (2008). Eigenfactor: Does the principle of repeated improvement result in better estimates than raw citation counts? Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 59(13), 2186–2188.
De Bellis, N. (2009). Bibliometrics and citation analysis: From the Science citation index to cybermetrics. Metuchen: Scarecrow Press Incorporated.
De Visscher, A. (2011). What does the g-index really measure? Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 62(11), 2290–2293.
Egghe, L. (2006a). An improvement of the h-index: The g-index. ISSI Newsletter, 2(1), 8–9.
Egghe, L. (2006b). Theory and practice of the g-index. Scientometrics, 69(1), 131–152.
Franceschini, F., & Maisano, D. (2010). Criticism on the hg-index. Scientometrics, 82(2), 391–400.
Garfield, E. (1955). Citation indexes to science: A new dimension in documentation through association of ideas. Science, 122(3159), 108–111.
Glänzel, W. (2006). On the h-index—A mathematical approach to a new measure of publication activity and citation impact. Scientometrics, 67(2), 315–321.
Hirsch, J. E. (2005). An index to quantify an individual’s research output. Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 102(46), 16569–16572.
Leydesdorff, L., & Bornmann, L. (2011). Integrated impact indicators (I3) compared with impact factors (IFs): An alternative design with policy implications. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 62(11), 2133–2146.
Pinski, G., & Narin, F. (1976). Citation influence for journal aggregates of scientific publications: Theory, with application to the literature of physics. Information Processing and Management, 12(5), 297–312.
Prathap, G. (2010). Is there a place for a mock h-index? Scientometrics, 84(1), 153–165.
Prathap, G. (2011a). The Energy–Exergy–Entropy (or EEE) sequences in bibliometric assessment. Scientometrics, 87(3), 515–524.
Prathap, G. (2011b). Quasity, when quantity has a quality all of its own—Toward a theory of performance. Scientometrics, 88(2), 555–562.
Price, D. J. S. (1963). Little science, big science. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-08562-1.
Price, D. J. S. (1965). Networks of scientific papers. Science, 149(3683), 510–515.
Ramanujacharyulu, C. (1964). Analysis of preferential experiments. Psychometrika, 29(3), 257–261.
Schubert, A. (2009). Transzlációs tudománymetria. Informatio Medicata Budapest.
SCImago. (2007). SJR—SCImago Journal & Country Rank. Retrieved July 21, 2015, from http://www.scimagojr.com.
Stevens, S. S. (1946). On the theory of scales of measurement. Science, 103(2684), 677–680.
Vinkler, P. (1988). Weighted impact of publications and relative contribution score. Two new indicators characterizing publication of countries. Scientometrics, 14(1–2), 161–163.
Yan, E., & Ding, Y. (2010). Weighted citation: An indicator of an article’s prestige. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 61(8), 1635–1643.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Prathap, G. Eugene Garfield: from the metrics of science to the science of metrics. Scientometrics 114, 637–650 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2525-5
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2525-5