Paradigm Shifts in Vascular Surgery: Analysis of the Top 100 Innovative and Disruptive Academic Publications

BACKGROUND

Disruption score (DS) is a novel bibliometric created to identify research that shifts paradigms, which may be overlooked by citation count (CC). We analyzed the most disruptive, compared to the most cited, literature in vascular surgery, and hypothesized that DS and CC would not correlate.

METHODS

A PubMed search identified vascular surgery publications from 1954 to 2014. The publications were linked to the iCite NIH tool and DS algorithm to identify the top 100 studies by CC and DS, respectively. The publications were reviewed for study focus, design, and contribution, and subsequently compared.

RESULTS

A total of 56,640 publications were identified. The top 100 DS papers were frequently published in J Vasc Sur (43%) and Eur J Vasc Endovasc Surg (13%). The top 100 CC papers were frequently published in N Engl J Med (32%) and J Vasc Sur (20%). The most cited article is the fifth most disruptive; the most disruptive article is not in the top 100 cited papers. The DS papers had a higher mean DS than the CC papers (.17 vs .0001, P < .0001). The CC papers had a higher mean CC than the DS papers (866 vs 188, P < .0001). DS and CC are weakly correlated metrics (r = .22, P = .03).

DISCUSSION

DS was weakly correlated with CC and captured a unique subset of literature that created paradigm shifts in vascular surgery. DS should be utilized as an adjunct to CC to avoid overlooking impactful research and influential researchers, and to measure true academic productivity.

Characteristics of the least-cited and most-cited articles in ophthalmology journals: A pilot study

BACKGROUND

Limited research has examined differences between uncited papers and their most-cited counterparts. By comparing characteristics of each cohort, it is possible to better determine factors associated with increased citation count in the ophthalmology literature.

METHODS

We initially identified all research articles published in six popular general ophthalmology journals (Ophthalmology, JAMA Ophthalmology, Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, American Journal of Ophthalmology, British Journal of Ophthalmology, and Graefe's Archive for Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology) between 2001 and 2011. Forty-nine articles were identified as having accrued zero citations as of March 2021 and were compared with an equivalent number of articles with the highest number of citations published in the same journals and time period. Significance (p < 0.05) for comparisons was determined using the Mann-Whitney U test and Fisher's exact test.

RESULTS

Compared to the least-cited articles, the most-cited articles were significantly more likely to be clinical, multi-institutional, and multi-national in scope, report a statistically significant result, have a conflict of interest, state a funding source, and have higher sample sizes. These publications had significantly more words in the abstract and manuscript and more references. Overall, the first authors of the most-cited articles were significantly more likely to be female and report greater prior research productivity, as assessed by the relative citation ratio (RCR).

CONCLUSION

Considering a small number of articles were uncited at least a decade after publication, it appears most research is useful for future investigations. However, there remain distinct differences between uncited articles and their most-cited equivalents in ophthalmology.

A Bibliometric Analysis of 4 Major Foot and Ankle Surgery Journals

Research publication is a central to the scientific process and comprehensive bibliometric analysis is a leading way to better understand trends within research. Currently, there are limited bibliometric analyses of literature pertaining to foot and ankle surgery. This study aims to quantify the volume of research and investigate what may affect publication and citation. Journals associated with the 3 major orthopedic foot and ankle societies (Foot & Ankle International[FAI], Foot and Ankle Surgery, and The Foot) and one podiatric college (Journal of Foot and Ankle Surgery®) were evaluated from January 2009 to December 2018 using Scopus (Elsevier, Amsterdam, the Netherlands). Descriptive statistics were used to summarize article characteristics and regression modeling was used to determine factors associated with a country's current and future productivity and an article's citation rate. A total of 4994 articles were published over the 10-year period, with the largest contributor of publications being the United States of America (USA), who produced 2096 (41.8%) publications. Regression analysis found no association between a country's productivity and gross domestic product or population. There was no significant relationship between a country's baseline publication rate and future publication rate. The variables significantly associated with an increased citation count were; the number of years since publication, the number of authors, publication in FAI and if the article was a review. To our knowledge this is the largest bibliometric analysis of foot and ankle publications. The majority of research is being produced by the USA, but there are numerous complex factors associated with citation and publication rates. Further research is required to fully assess these factors and characterize the state of foot and ankle surgery research.

Citations and metrics of journals discontinued from Scopus for publication concerns: the GhoS(t)copus Project

Background: Scopus is a leading bibliometric database. It contains a large part of the articles cited in peer-reviewed publications . The journals included in Scopus are periodically re-evaluated to ensure they meet indexing criteria and some journals might be discontinued for 'publication concerns'. Previously published articles may remain indexed and can be cited. Their metrics have yet to be studied. This study aimed  to evaluate the main features and metrics of journals discontinued from Scopus for publication concerns, before and after their discontinuation, and to determine the extent of predatory journals among the discontinued journals.

Methods: We surveyed the list of discontinued journals from Scopus (July 2019). Data regarding metrics, citations and indexing were extracted from Scopus or other scientific databases, for the journals discontinued for publication concerns. 

Results: A total of 317 journals were evaluated. Ninety-three percent of the journals (294/317) declared they published using an Open Access model. The subject areas with the greatest number of discontinued journals were  Medicine (52/317; 16%),  Agriculture and Biological Science (34/317; 11%), and  Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics (31/317; 10%). The mean number of citations per year after discontinuation was significantly higher than before (median of difference 16.89 citations, p<0.0001), and so was the number of citations per document (median of difference 0.42 citations, p<0.0001). Twenty-two percent (72/317) were included in the Cabell’s blacklist. The DOAJ currently included only 9 journals while 61 were previously included and discontinued, most for 'suspected editorial misconduct by the publisher'.

Conclusions: Journals discontinued for 'publication concerns' continue to be cited despite discontinuation and predatory behaviour seemed common. These citations may influence scholars’ metrics prompting artificial career advancements, bonus systems and promotion. Countermeasures should be taken urgently to ensure the reliability of Scopus metrics for the purpose of scientific assessment of scholarly publishing at both journal- and author-level.

Can altmetrics predict future citation counts in critical care medicine publications?

Introduction

Social media is increasingly used in the dissemination of medical research. Traditional measures of the impact of a paper do not account for this. Altmetrics are a measure of the dissemination of a publication via social media websites. The purpose of this study is to ascertain if the altmetric attention score of an article is a reliable measure of the impact it has in the field of critical care medicine. To this end, we investigated if a correlation exists between future citation count and altmetric attention score.

Methods

The top nine journals by impact factor in the field of critical care medicine were identified for 2014 and 2015. The 100 most cited articles from these journals were recorded to form the Scientific Impact Group, i.e. those with the greatest impact on the scientific community. The altmetric attention score was recorded for each article. The top 100 articles by altmetric attention score were also identified to form the Media Impact Group, i.e. those that generated the most online attention. Their citation counts' were recorded. Statistical analysis was performed on each group to identify a correlation between altmetric attention score and citation count.

Results

There was a moderately positive correlation in the Scientific Impact Group, with a Spearman r score of 0.4336 (P = 0.0001). A weakly positive correlation was found in the Media Impact Group, with a Spearman r score of 0.3033 (P = 0.002).

Conclusions

There is a positive correlation between traditional bibliographic metrics and altmetrics in the field of critical care medicine. Highly cited papers are more likely to generate online attention. However, papers that generate a lot of online attention are less likely to have a high citation count. Therefore, altmetric attention score is not a reliable predictor of future citation count in critical care medicine.

Trends in the quality of work presented at the society of british neurological surgeons meetings: 1975 to 2010

BACKGROUND

The quality of scientific publications in clinical journals is well studied but the quality of work presented at medical conferences less so.

AIMS

To describe trends in the quality of presentations at the Society of British Neurological Surgeons [SBNS] conference between 1975 and 2010 and the factors associated with higher quality work in order to consider what might improve publication rates.

METHODS

Analysis was conducted in 5-year time periods (i.e. 1975-1979, 1985-1989, 1995-1999, 2005-2009). Published abstracts were used to identify conference presentations. Quality metrics included level of evidence of the presentation and eventual publication within 5 years. Publication 5-year citation count and destination journal impact factor were further used to assess publication quality. Statistical analysis was carried out using SPSS.

RESULTS

Of the 1711 presentations in total, 479 (28%) were published. The British Journal of Neurosurgery (93, 19%) was the favoured destination. Although the total number of publications has increased, given the increase in the number of presentations, the proportion of work published has decreased (80/179; 45% in the 1970s to 113/721; 16% in the 2000s). The growth in the impact factor of published work was better than that found in leading neurosurgical journals, but lower than for leading medical journals. In a multivariate model, presentations using a higher level of evidence increased the likelihood of publication (AOR 6.7 95% CI 3.7, 12.1), whilst presenting at conferences after the 1970s reduced the likelihood of publication; 1985-1989 (AOR 0.3, 95% CI 0.2, 0.4), 1995-1999 (0.4, 95% CI 0.3, 0.7) and 2005-2009 (0.1, 95% CI 0.1, 0.2).

CONCLUSION

SBNS conferences today contain more presentations and yield more publications than ever before. However, the increased volume may dilute the quality of work presented.