Scientometric assessment of engineering in Malaysians universities

Higher education research performance parameters classified by systems theory: antecedents for the development of assessment models

Purpose

This paper aims to identify and classify the parameters that construct the input, processes, output, productivity and outcome variables that affect performance. These parameters are used in the evaluation model to measure research performance in universities so that they can be used as the basis for making leadership policies both at the national and institutional levels.

Design/methodology/approach

The design of this research is a quantitative research method using a survey questionnaire that was sent to the heads of research institutions at universities in Indonesia. To obtain these parameters, a test for determining the value of the loading factor was used.

Findings

The authors found that input variable parameters consisted of 10 parameters; process variable consisted of 22 parameters; output variable parameters consisted of 8 parameters; productivity variable consisted of 4 parameters; and outcome variable parameters consisted of 10 parameters.

Originality/value

One approach to obtain parameters is through systems theory, where every element that makes up the organization contributes to the achievement of goals. This study attempted to develop parameters in the performance appraisal model of systems theory-based research institutions that are adapted to trends in the direction of research in universities. These parameters are based on aspects of input, process, output, productivity and outcome.

Medical negligence in healthcare organizations and its impact on patient safety and public health: a bibliometric study

Background: Medical negligence is an increasing public health concern among healthcare providers worldwide as it affects patient safety. It poses a significant risk of patient injury, disease, disability, or death. The WHO has recognized deficiencies in patient safety as a global healthcare issue to be addressed. This study aimed to analyze various components of medical negligence research literature. Methods: Bibliographic data visualizations tools like Biblioshiny (RStudio) and VOSviewer were used besides MS Excel to examine the types of documents, annual scientific production, top contributing authors and their impact, authorship patterns and collaboration, top contributing countries and organizations, most significant sources of publication, most cited documents, and most frequently used keywords. Bibliometric methods were used to analyze the bibliographic records of research output on medical negligence downloaded from the Web of Science Core Collection. Results: The annual productivity of medical negligence research was increasing gradually. The most productive period for medical negligence research was 2011-2020. Bird contributed the highest number of publications to medical negligence literature while Brennan emerged as the highly cited author. Single-authored publications on medical negligence were not highly cited. The United States was the highest contributing country and the University of South Florida was the highest contributing organization while Harvard University was a highly cited organization. Nine out of the top ten contributing organizations were academic institutions and most of them belonged to the United States. The most important sources of publication on this topic were The Lancet and British Medical Journal. Localio et al. was the most important research article on medical negligence research. Conclusion: Due to increasing attention on this topic, there was a sharp increase in the research output on medical negligence. This is of significance as the WHO set in motion a patient safety program almost two decades ago.

Factors influencing scholarly publication productivity: a systematic review

Purpose

The importance of scientific publications has enhanced the research activities at all aggregate levels. The purpose of this paper is to conduct an in-depth review of studies examined the factors that influence the publication productivity among researchers, institutions and countries.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper uses a systematic literature review approach that is based on relevant literature retrieved from two authentic and well-known databases named Web of Science and SCOPUS. Kitchenham protocol of systematic review was applied, and relevant studies were searched by selected keywords search. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were used to select high quality studies. A rigorous study selection procedure was designed.

Findings

Findings reveal that several factors play a significant role in the publication productivity growth. All of the identified factors were grouped into three categories. Most of the factors belong to personal category while two top dominant factors, funding and collaboration fall into situational category. Other most influential factors, time, academic rank and academic qualification are personal. Findings highlight that publication output at individual level is strongly influenced by personal factors while few environmental and situational factors also affect the number of publications. Publication productivity of institutes and countries is affected by environmental and situational factors.

Originality/value

This paper contributes by providing a detailed review to explore the influencing factors of scholarly publication of researchers, institutions and countries. This study will be supportive for researchers and policymakers for making strategies to stimulate the research publication practices at researchers, institutions and national level.

A theoretical model of the relationship between the h-index and other simple citation indicators

Of the existing theoretical formulas for the h-index, those recently suggested by Burrell (J Informetr 7:774-783, 2013b) and by Bertoli-Barsotti and Lando (J Informetr 9(4):762-776, 2015) have proved very effective in estimating the actual value of the h-index Hirsch (Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 102:16569-16572, 2005), at least at the level of the individual scientist. These approaches lead (or may lead) to two slightly different formulas, being based, respectively, on a "standard" and a "shifted" version of the geometric distribution. In this paper, we review the genesis of these two formulas-which we shall call the "basic" and "improved" Lambert-W formula for the h-index-and compare their effectiveness with that of a number of instances taken from the well-known Glänzel-Schubert class of models for the h-index (based, instead, on a Paretian model) by means of an empirical study. All the formulas considered in the comparison are "ready-to-use", i.e., functions of simple citation indicators such as: the total number of publications; the total number of citations; the total number of cited paper; the number of citations of the most cited paper. The empirical study is based on citation data obtained from two different sets of journals belonging to two different scientific fields: more specifically, 231 journals from the area of "Statistics and Mathematical Methods" and 100 journals from the area of "Economics, Econometrics and Finance", totaling almost 100,000 and 20,000 publications, respectively. The citation data refer to different publication/citation time windows, different types of "citable" documents, and alternative approaches to the analysis of the citation process ("prospective" and "retrospective"). We conclude that, especially in its improved version, the Lambert-W formula for the h-index provides a quite robust and effective ready-to-use rule that should be preferred to other known formulas if one's goal is (simply) to derive a reliable estimate of the h-index.