Evaluation of Scientific Disciplines in Turkey: A Citation Analysis Study - Challenges of Information Management Beyond the Cloud - page 149

using citation analysis. It is also aimed to reveal differences in scientific disciplines
and sub-disciplines. To achieve these aims, Turkey-addressed publications placed in
Web of Science were analyzed.

2 Research Questions and Methodology

This paper seeks answers to the following research questions;

• Do the publication types differ for each discipline?

• Are there any differences between disciplines and sub-disciplines in terms of

average number of authors for each publication?

• Are there any differences between disciplines and sub-disciplines with

regard to single/multiple authorship?

• What is the citation half-life of publications in terms of their disciplines? Are

there any differences among disciplines and sub-disciplines?

• Which journals do the authors choose to publish in? Are the authors

discriminating to choose high-impact journals?

• What are the mostly cited journals and their impacts for each discipline? Is it

possible to draw a parallel between selected journals for publication and
mostly cited journals?

To answer these questions, 197,687 Turkey-addressed publications placed in Web
of Science between 1928 and 2009 were gathered. Data about authors, journals,
affiliations and countries were unified for the aim of accessing accurate data. Then,
data was divided into disciplines and sub-disciplines by using Web of Science subject
categories. Four different disciplines were determined for general comparisons: pure
sciences, social sciences, engineering and art & humanities. Furthermore, the
following were determined to be sub-disciplines: physics, chemistry, biology and
mathematics for pure sciences; history, economy, library and information science and
education for social sciences; chemical engineering, computer engineering, electrical
and electronic engineering for engineering; art, philosophy and humanities for arts
and humanities. 54,242 pure sciences, 2,846 social sciences, 11,042 engineering and
316 arts and humanities. Publications were closely evaluated to find out differences
between these disciplines.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to avoid inequality in the data on Web of Science
because of the distribution of journals in the disciplines. For example, there were
54,242 Turkey-addressed pure sciences publications indexed in Web of Science as
compared with only 316 in the arts and humanities. Also, because of the nature of the
content in the Web of Science , it was not surprising to that the most produced
publication type was articles. 77.2% of the documents produced by Turkey between
1928 and 2009 were found to be articles [4]. The main limitation for this study is
quantitative differences between disciplines and the content of Web of Science . To
avoid the limitation, each discipline was evaluated within itself and percentages were
emphasized. Also, instead of just articles, different types of publications were also
considered when comparing publication types for disciplines.