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An increasing citation black hole in ecology and evolution
Anthony R Rafferty1, Bob B M Wong1, David G Chapple1
1School of Biological Sciences, Monash University Clayton, Victoria, 3800, Australia.
Ecology and Evolution
|January 29, 2015
Summary
Citations in online supplementary material (OSM) are missed by search engines, affecting journal rankings. A significant increase in these "lost" citations necessitates solutions for accurate citation counting.
Area of Science:
- Bibliometrics
- Scholarly Communication
- Scientific Publishing
Background:
- Citations in online supplementary material (OSM) are not indexed by search engines.
- This invisibility impacts citation counts, journal performance metrics, and rankings.
- The practice of placing citations in OSM has increased over two decades.
Purpose of the Study:
- To quantify the proportion of citations lost due to their placement in OSM.
- To assess the trend of increasing invisible citations in scholarly literature.
Main Methods:
- Systematic survey of citation practices in four high-impact, society-run journals.
- Journals were selected from both Europe and North America.
- Analysis focused on citations present only in OSM for the year 2012.
Main Results:
- In 2012, 6% of all citations were exclusively in OSM and thus excluded from counts.
- A significant upward trend in the number of references invisible to citation services was observed over the past 20 years.
Conclusions:
- The growing trend of "lost" citations in OSM poses a significant challenge to accurate bibliometric assessment.
- Urgent solutions are needed, such as indexing OSM citations or integrating all references into the main text.
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