A leading author of meta-analysis does not have a dominant contribution to research based on the CJAL score:...

There have been nearly 200 thousand meta-analysis articles indexed by web of science (WoS) since 2013. To date, a bibliometric analysis of leading authors of meta-analyses that contribute to the field has not been conducted. Analyzing trend patterns in article citations and comparing individual research achievements (IRAs) are required following the extraction of meta-analysis articles. Using trend analysis, this study aims to verify the hypotheses that; The leading author has a dominant research achievement and; Recent articles that deserve worth reading can be identified.

In the WoS collection, we identified the top 20 authors with the most articles related to meta-analysis. Using coword analysis, 2882 articles were collected to cluster author collaborations and identify the top 3 authors with the highest weighted centrality degrees. Based on the CJAL (category, journal raking by impact factor, authorship, and L-index on article citation) score and absolute advantage coefficient (AAC), we compared the IRAs and identified the author who dominated the field significantly beyond the next 2 authors. In WoS collection, coword analysis was used to highlight the characteristics of research domains for the top authors contributing to meta-analyses. The selection of articles that deserve reading is based on a temporal heatmap.

The top 2 authors were Young-Ho Lee (South Korea), Patompong Ungprasert (U.S.), and Brendon Stubbs (US) with CJAL scores of 240.71, 230.99, and 240.71, respectively. Based on the weak dominance coefficient (AAC = 0.49 < 0.50), it is evident that the leading meta-analysis author does not possess a significant dominant position over the next 2 leading authors in IRAs. Coword analysis was used to illustrate the characteristics of the 3 authors research domains. The 3 articles worth reading were selected based on a trend analysis of the last 4 years using the temporal heatmap.

A coword analysis of meta-analysis studies identified 3 leading authors. There was no evidence that 1 author possessed a dominant position due to the lower AAC (=0.49 < 0.50) for the leading author. As we have demonstrated in this study, the CJAL score and the AAC can be applied to many bibliographical studies in the future.