Informal Collaborations in Chemistry Research: A Scientometric Analysis of Acknowledgements and Their Correlation with Citation Rates

Bahmani, Mehdi, Fahimifar, Sepideh and Noroozi Chakoli, AbdolReza Informal Collaborations in Chemistry Research: A Scientometric Analysis of Acknowledgements and Their Correlation with Citation Rates. Academic Librarianship and Information Research, 2024, vol. 58, n. 3, pp. 1-25. [Journal article (Paginated)]

[thumbnail of JLIB1013941758573000.pdf]
Preview
Text
JLIB1013941758573000.pdf - Published version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial.

Download (550kB) | Preview

English abstract

Objective: The purpose of this research was to investigate the types of informal collaborations within the acknowledgments section of articles in the field of chemistry. Method: This research is a quantitative study employing a scientometric approach and based on data mining techniques, utilizing library research and descriptive methods. The statistical population of the study consists of open-access research articles from the Web of Science database. The Stanford Named Entity Recognizer software was used for data mining and extraction of the acknowledgments section of the articles. Results: The research findings indicated that acknowledgments in chemistry articles, based on Hyland's three-level model of acknowledgment text structure, are dedicated to acts of thanking, acts of reflection, and acts of informing, respectively. Furthermore, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the University of California, Berkeley, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) were the organizations and universities that received the most acknowledgments. The citation rate is higher in articles that acknowledge more than two individuals (the average number of acknowledged individuals) compared to other articles. In addition, there was a significant relationship between the number of individuals acknowledged in an article and the number of citations the article received. Conclusions: Considering that acknowledgments can impact citation rates, raising awareness among individuals and persuading them of the importance of citation in shaping personal and institutional identity and branding can be effective by institutionalizing a sense of loyalty and gratitude. Moreover, perhaps one reason for the weak correlation between citation rates and acknowledgments is the lack of consistency in the names of individuals and organizations, as well as the location of acknowledgments in most articles, which is at the end of the article.

Item type: Journal article (Paginated)
Keywords: acknowledgement, citation, Stanford Named Entity Recognizer, chemistry articles Web of Science
Subjects: I. Information treatment for information services > IZ. None of these, but in this section.
Depositing user: Maliheh Dorkhosh
Date deposited: 18 Jul 2025 08:57
Last modified: 18 Jul 2025 08:57
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10760/47021

References

Afful, J. B. A. (2016). A genre study of undergraduate dissertation acknowledgements in a ghanaian

university. ESP Today, 4(2), 202–224.

Bordons, M., Morillo, F., Fernández, M. T., & Gómez, I. (2003). One step further in the production of

bibliometric indicators at the micro level: Differences by gender and professional category of

scientists. Scientometrics, 57(2), 159-173. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1024181400646

Claxton, L. D. (2005). Scientific authorship: Part 2. History, recurring issues, practices, and guidelines.

Mutation Research/Reviews in Mutation Research, 589(1), 31-45.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mrrev.2004.07.002

Costas, R., & Van Leeuwen, T. N. (2012). Approaching the “reward triangle”: General analysis of the

presence of funding acknowledgments and “peer interactive communication” in scientific

publications. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 63(8),

1647-1661. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.22692

Cronin, B. (1991). Let the credits roll: a preliminary examination of the role played by mentors and

trusted assessors in disciplinary formation. Journal of documentation, 47(3), 227-239.

https://doi.org/10.1108/eb026878

Cronin, B., McKenzie, G., & Stiffler, M. (1992). Patterns of acknowledgement. Journal of

Documentation, 48(2), 107-122. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb026893

Cronin, B., McKenzie, G., Rubio, L., & Weaver�Wozniak, S. (1993). Accounting for influence:

Acknowledgments in contemporary sociology. Journal of the American Society for Information

Science, 44(7), 406-412. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-4571(199308)44:7<406::AIDASI6>3.0.CO;2-8

Cronin, B., & Overfelt, K. (1994). The scholar's courtesy: A survey of acknowledgement behaviour.

Journal of Documentation, 50(3), 165-196. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb026929

Cronin, B. (1995). The scholar's courtesy: The role of acknowledgement in the primary communication

process. London: Taylor Graham

Cronin, B. (2001). Acknowledgement trends in the research literature of information science. Journal

of Documentation, 57(3), 427-433. https://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000007089

Cronin, B., & Overfelt, K. (1994). The scholar's courtesy: A survey of acknowledgement behaviour.

Journal of Documentation, 50(3), 165-196. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb026929

Cronin, B., & Shaw, D. (1999). Citation, funding acknowledgement and author nationality relationships

in four information science journals. Journal of Documentation, 55(4), 402-408.

https://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000007153

Davis, C. H., & Cronin, B. (1993). Acknowledgments and intellectual indebtedness: A bibliometric

conjecture. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 44(10), 590-592.

https://doi/10.5555/180473.180479

Desrochers, N., Paul-Hus, A., & Pecoskie, J. (2017). Five decades of gratitude: A meta-synthesis of

acknowledgments research. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology,

68(12), 2821–2833. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.23903

Ding, W. W., Murray, F., & Stuart, T. E. (2006). Gender differences in patenting in the academic life

sciences. Science, 313(5787), 665-667. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1124832

Falagas, M. E., Zarkali, A., Karageorgopoulos, D. E., Bardakas, V., & Mavros, M. N. (2013). The impact

of article length on the number of future citations: a bibliometric analysis of general medicine

journals. PLOS One, 8(2), e49476. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0049476

Giles, C. L., & Councill, I. G. (2004). Who gets acknowledged: Measuring scientific contributions

through automatic acknowledgment indexing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,

101(51), 17599-17604. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.040774310

Grassano, N., Rotolo, D., Hutton, J., Lang, F., & Hopkins, M. M. (2017). Funding data from publication

acknowledgments: Coverage, uses, and limitations. Journal of the Association for Information

Science and Technology, 68(4), 999-1017. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.23737

Hubbard, D. E., Laddusaw, S., Kitchens, J., & Kimball, R. (2018). Demonstrating library impact through

acknowledgment: an examination of acknowledgments in theses and dissertations. Journal of

Academic Librarianship, 44(3), 404–411. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2018.03.001

Hyland, K. (2003). Dissertation Acknowledgements: The anatomy of a cinderella genre. Written

Communication, 20(3), 242–268. https://doi.org/10.1177/0741088303257276

Hyland, K. 2004. Graduates' gratitude: The generic structure of dissertation acknowledgements. English

for Specific Purposes, 23(3),303-324. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0889-4906(03)00051-6

Kassirer, J. P., & Angell, M. (1991). On authorship and acknowledgments. New England Journal of

Medicine, 325(21),1510–1512. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJM199111213252112

Laudel, G.( 2002). What do we measure by co-authorships? Research Evaluation, 11(1), 3–15.

https://doi.org/10.3152/147154402781776961

Lee Pao, M. (1992). On the relationship of funding and research publications. Scientometrics, 24(1),

179. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02026480

Makarova, E., Aeschlimann, B., & Herzog, W. (2019). The gender gap in STEM fields: The impact of

the gender stereotype of math and science on secondary students' career aspirations. Frontiers in

Education,4(60),1-11. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2019.00060

McCain, K. W. (1991). Communication, competition, and secrecy: The production and dissemination

of research-related information in genetics. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 16(4), 491-516.

https://doi.org/10.1177/016224399101600404

McCain, K. W. (2018). Beyond Garfield’s Citation Index: an assessment of some issues in building a

personal name Acknowledgments Index. Scientometrics, 114(2), 605–631.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2598-1

Noruzi, A., & Mohammadi, M. (2012). Evaluating the reasons for acknowledgements in iranian library

and information science papers and identifying individuals and institutions involved in research.

Journal of Information Counseling, 2(1). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340777106 (in

Persian)

Noruzi Chakli, Abdolreza. (2011). Introduction to scientometrics (principles, concepts, relationships

and roots). SAMT; Shahed University, Printing and Publishing Center. (In Persian)

Paul-Hus, A., Desrochers, N., & Costas, R. (2016). Characterization, description, and considerations for

the use of funding acknowledgement data in Web of Science. Scientometrics, 108(1), 167–182.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-016-1953-y

Paul-Hus, A., Mongeon, P., Sainte-Marie, M., & Larivière, V. (2017). The sum of it all: Revealing

collaboration patterns by combining authorship and acknowledgements. Journal of Informetrics,

11(1), 80–87. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2016.11.005

Preston, A. E. (1994). Why have all the women gone? A study of exit of women from the science and

engineering professions. American Economic Review, 84(5),1446-1462.

Price, D. D. S. (1976). A general theory of bibliometric and other cumulative advantage processes.

Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 27(5), 292–306.

https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.4630270505

Rattan, G. K. (2013). Acknowledgement patterns in annals of library and information studies 1999-

2012. Library Philosophy and Practice. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/989/

Rigby, J. (2011). Systematic grant and funding body acknowledgement data for publications: New

dimensions and new controversies for research policy and evaluation. Research Evaluation, 20(5),

365–375. https://doi.org/10.3152/095820211X13164389670392

Rigby, J. (2012). Looking for the impact of peer review: Does count of funding acknowledgements

really predict research impact? Scientometrics, 94(1), 57–73. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-012-

0779-5

Salager-Meyer, F., Alcaraz-Ariza, M.A., Briceno, M.L., & Jabbour, G. 2011. Scholarly gratitude in five

geographical contexts: A diachronic and cross-generic approach of the acknowledgment paratext

in medical discourse (1950–2010). Scientometrics, 86(3),763–784. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-

010-0329-y

Tabibiji, Marjan. (2014). Investigation of evaluation resources in the acknowledgment section of

humanities and basic sciences books [Master's thesis, Kharazmi University, Faculty of Literature

and Foreign Languages].(In Persian)

Tang, L., Hu, G., & Liu, W. (2017). Funding acknowledgment analysis: Queries and caveats. Journal

of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 68(3), 790–794.

https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.23713

Tiew, W.S., & Sen, B.K. (2002). Acknowledgment patterns in research articles: A bibliometric study

based on Journal of Natural Rubber Research 1986–1997. Malaysian Journal of Library &

Information Science, 7(1), 43–56.

Weber, N. M., & Thomer, A. K. (2014). Paratexts and documentary practices: Text mining authorship

and acknowledgment from a bioinformatics corpus. In Examining Paratextual Theory and Its

Applications in Digital Culture, 84–109. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-6002-1.ch005

Yamashita, Y., & Yoshinaga, D. (2014). Influence of researchers’ international mobilities on

publication: a comparison of highly cited and uncited papers. Scientometrics, 101(2), 1475–1489.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-014-1384-6

Zare-ee, A., & Hejazi, Y. (2019). Acknowledgement structure in Persian and English theses and

dissertations: A contrastive genre analysis. Arab World English Journal, 10(1), 347–360.

https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3367651


Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item