Health Care Data Base Bibliographic

Whats are Bibliometrics

    Bibliometrics
is broadly defined as the application of mathematical and statistical methods
to published scientific literature in a disciplinary field (Pritchard, 1969).
Bibliometric research methods are based on a literary model of science. 

    Using
bibliometrics, information scientists assume that published research documents
reflect new knowledge in a scientific field and that references in these
reports represent relationships among scientists and their work.

How Bibliometrics Is Beneficial 

    Bibliometrics
is a useful research methodology for describing and visually representing the
communication structure of a scientific field. It has been used successfully to
evaluate such things as emergence, change, and communication networks in
specialty areas. 

    Bibliometric methods have been helpful in identifying the
foundational fields (ie, other scientific fields) that have driven the genesis
of a new scientific field. They also can be used to identify prominent
scientists or documents that have influenced the intellectual development of a
scientific field. 

    Thus, bibliometric studies may provide insights into the
historical and sociological evolution of nursing science as well as the design
of information retrieval systems in nursing.

Use of Bibliometrics In Nursing Research 

    Research
questions addressed by bibliometric studies generally fall into one of four
categories: 

(a) characterization of a scholarly community.

(b) evolution of a
scholarly community

(c) evaluation of scholarly contributions.

(d)
diffusion of ideas from within and across disciplines ( Borgman , 1990). 

    Citation data are often used in bibliometric studies and are generally
collected from bibliographies, abstracting and indexing services, citation
indexes, and primary journals. 

    Typically, the references of research journal
articles are analyzed in bibliometric studies. Bibliographic attributes such as
authors, citations, and textual content are used as variables in bibliometric
research.

Citation And Bibliometrics

    Citation
analysis is the best-known bibliometric strategy. It is a set of strategies for
studying relationships among cited and citing literature in a scientific field.
Bibliographic coupling and co-citation analysis use citation analysis to
demonstrate linkage of citation data. 

    In bibliographic coupling, the focus is
on the citing literature; that is, the number of references two articles have
in common reflects the similarity of their subject matter. In co-citation
analysis the focus is on the cited literature, that is, the number of times two
documents are cited together in the reference lists of later publications. 

    Sets
of co-cited document pairs may be grouped together and mapped, using graphical
display techniques such as cluster analysis and multidimensional scaling. The
unit of analysis for co-citation analysis studies can also be journals (journal
co-citation analysis) or authors (author co-citation analysis). 

    Co-word
analysis is another bibliometric strategy based on the analysis of
co-occurrence of keywords used to index documents or articles. This method is
useful for mapping content in a research field or for tracing the evolution of
networks of problems in a disciplinary field.

Bibliometrics As A Practical And Applicable System 

    Bibliometric
strategies are practical and may be applied to citation data that are readily
accessible on citation indexes and online electronic databases. No subjective
judgments are made by the researcher about what literature best defines a
scientific field or specialty area. 

    It is the scholars themselves who publish
in the scientific literature that determine mine the intellectual base of the
specialty area. However, citation data can portray only what the scientific
community in a field of study has recognized by way of publication. In
addition, bibliometrics does not have a theory that integrates the methods and
techniques used in the analysis of citations. 

    There fore, it is important that
the investigator clearly delimit the specialty area to be investigated, be
familiar with the field of interest, and interpret citation data in conjunction
with other sources of information relevant to the area of interest.