Informetrics
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Informetrics is the study of quantitative aspects of information, it is an extension and evolution of traditional
bibliometrics Bibliometrics is the use of statistical methods to analyse books, articles and other publications, especially in regard with scientific contents. Bibliometric methods are frequently used in the field of library and information science. Biblio ...
and
scientometrics Scientometrics is the field of study which concerns itself with measuring and analysing scholarly literature. Scientometrics is a sub-field of informetrics. Major research issues include the measurement of the impact of research papers and academi ...
. Informetrics uses bibliometrics and scientometrics methods to study mainly the problems of literature information management and evaluation of science and technology. Informetrics is an independent discipline that uses quantitative methods from
mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
and
statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ''wikt:Statistik#German, Statistik'', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of ...
to study the process, phenomena, and law of informetrics. Informetrics has gained more attention as it is a common scientific method for academic evaluation, research hotspots in discipline, and trend analysis. Informetrics includes the production,
dissemination To disseminate (from lat. ''disseminare'' "scattering seeds"), in the field of communication, is to broadcast a message to the public without direct feedback from the audience. Meaning Dissemination takes on the theory of the traditional view ...
, and use of all forms of information, regardless of its form or origin. Informetrics encompasses the following fields: * Scientometrics, which studies quantitative aspects of science *
Webometrics The science of webometrics (also cybermetrics) tries to measure the World Wide Web to get knowledge about the number and types of hyperlinks, structure of the World Wide Web and using patterns. According to Björneborn and Ingwersen, the definiti ...
, which studies quantitative aspects of the
World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web se ...
* Bibliometrics, which studies quantitative aspects of ''recorded'' information * Cybermetrics, which is similar to
webometrics The science of webometrics (also cybermetrics) tries to measure the World Wide Web to get knowledge about the number and types of hyperlinks, structure of the World Wide Web and using patterns. According to Björneborn and Ingwersen, the definiti ...
, but broadens its definition to include electronic resources


Origin and Development

The term informetrics ( French: ''Informetrie'') was coined by German scholars Otto Nacke in 1979, and came from the German word 'informetrie’. The corresponding English terminology soon appeared in the subsequent literature. In September 1980, Professor Otto Nacke introduced the term 'informetrics' at the first seminar on Informetrics in Frankfurt, Germany. Later, Committee on Informetrics has established through The International Federation for Information and Documentation (FID). In 1987, informetrics started to be officially recognized by the international information community and several foreign information scientists. In 1988, a
First International Conference on Bibliometrics and Theoretical Aspects of Information Retrieval
Brooks suggested bibliometrics and scientometrics can be included in the field of informetrics. In 1990, Leo Egghe and
Ronald Rousseau Ronald Rousseau ( Antwerp, 1949) is a Belgian mathematician and information scientist. He has obtained an international reputation for his research on indicators and citation analysis in the fields of bibliometrics and scientometrics. Education ...
proposed the formation of the discipline of informetrics: statistical bibliography (1923) to bibliometrics and scientometrics (1969) and then to informetrics (1979). In 1993, '
the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics (ISSI)
'' was founded at the International Conference on Bibliometrics, Informetrics and Scientometrics in Berlin, and the first one was held in Belgium and organized by Leo Egghe and Ronald Rousseau. The society was formally incorporated in 1994 in the Netherlands and plays a significant role in the development of informetrics. The ISSI aims to promote the "exchange and communication of professional information in the fields of scientometrics and informetrics, including improve standards, theory and practice, as well as promote research, education and training". In addition, to "engage in relevant public conversation and policy discussions". In the western world, 20th century's Informetrics is mostly based on
Lotka's law Lotka's law, named after Alfred J. Lotka, is one of a variety of special applications of Zipf's law. It describes the frequency of publication by authors in any given field. It states that the number of authors making x contributions in a give ...
, named after
Alfred J. Lotka Alfred James Lotka (March 2, 1880 – December 5, 1949) was a US mathematician, physical chemist, and statistician, famous for his work in population dynamics and energetics. An American biophysicist, Lotka is best known for his propos ...
, Zipf's law, named after George Kingsley Zipf,
Bradford's law Bradford's law is a pattern first described by Samuel C. Bradford in 1934 that estimates the exponentially diminishing returns of searching for references in science journals. One formulation is that if journals in a field are sorted by number of ...
named after Samuel C. Bradford and on the work of
Derek J. de Solla Price Derek John de Solla Price (22 January 1922 – 3 September 1983) was a British physicist, historian of science, and information scientist. He was known for his investigation of the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient Greek planetary computer, an ...
,
Gerard Salton Gerard A. "Gerry" Salton (8 March 1927 in Nuremberg – 28 August 1995) was a Professor of Computer Science at Cornell University. Salton was perhaps the leading computer scientist working in the field of information retrieval during his time, an ...
, Leo Egghe,
Ronald Rousseau Ronald Rousseau ( Antwerp, 1949) is a Belgian mathematician and information scientist. He has obtained an international reputation for his research on indicators and citation analysis in the fields of bibliometrics and scientometrics. Education ...
,
Tibor Braun Tibor is a masculine given name found throughout Europe. There are several explanations for the origin of the name: * from Latin name Tiberius, which means "from Tiber", Tiber being a river in Rome. * in old Slavic languages, Tibor means "sacred pl ...
, Olle Persson, Peter Ingwersen, Manfred Bonitz, and
Eugene Garfield Eugene Eli Garfield (September 16, 1925 – February 26, 2017) was an American linguist and businessman, one of the founders of bibliometrics and scientometrics. He helped to create ''Current Contents'', ''Science Citation Index'' (SCI), ''Journ ...
.


Difference Between Informetrics, Bibliometrics and Scientometrics

Since the 1960s, three similar terms have emerged in the fields of
library science Library science (often termed library studies, bibliothecography, and library economy) is an interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary field that applies the practices, perspectives, and tools of management, information technology, education, and ...
,
philology Philology () is the study of language in oral and writing, written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defin ...
and
science of science Metascience (also known as meta-research) is the use of scientific methodology to study science itself. Metascience seeks to increase the quality of scientific research while reducing inefficiency. It is also known as "''research on research''" ...
, they are bibliometrics, scientometrics and informetrics, representing three very similar quantitative sub-disciplines. The three metrics terms can be confusing and often misused. Informetrics and bibliometrics interpenetrate each other but have different aspects in research object, research scope, and measuring unit. Informetrics and scientometrics are very different in their research purpose and research object, as well as the research scope and application. Bibliometrics is categorised under the field of library science, it uses mathematical and statistical methods to describe, evaluate, and predict the current status and trends of science and technology. Also to study the "distribution structure, quantitative relationship, change law and quantitative management of literature information, quantitative relationships, patterns and quantitative management of literature and information". The term was first used by
Alan Pritchard Alan Stewart Pritchard (born 24 August 1943) is an English footballer, who played as an inside forward in the Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional association football, football clubs from England ...
in 1969 in his paper ''Statistical Bibliography or Bibliometrics?''. Scientometrics is a branch of science that quantitatively evaluates and predicts the process and management of scientific activities in order to reveal their development patterns and trends. The definition of scientometrics was described by
Derek De Solla Price Derek John de Solla Price (22 January 1922 – 3 September 1983) was a British physicist, historian of science, and information scientist. He was known for his investigation of the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient Greek planetary computer, and ...
in his book ''Science to Science'' as the “quantitative study of science, communication in science, and science policy”.


Links between the three metrics terms

The most prominent connection between the three metrics terms is in their research objects. Since all three disciplines use literature information as their research object, therefore, they have some similarities and overlaps in their research methods and fields. Moreover, they all use mathematical methods as the basic research methods and they all apply the three basic laws, Bradford's law, Lotka's law and Zipf's law.


Distinctions between the three metrics terms

The distinction between the three metrics terms can tell from their research object and research purpose. The research of bibliometrics focuses on the analysis of "scientific output in the form of articles, publications, citations, and others". Scientometrics is to measure the basic characteristics and laws of scientific activities. Where informetrics is to investigate information sources and information distribution process.


Concept and System Structure


Purpose of Informetrics Research

The main purpose of informetrics is to use its theocratical research to solve the methodological issues in the research process, and to discover and reveal the basic laws of information distribution through the study of information process and phenomenon. In this way, makes information management more scientific and provides a quantitative basis for information services and information management decisions. For informetrics, it is necessary to bring quantitative analysis methods to further reveal the structure of information units and the "quantitative change law of literature information”. Further to this, to improve the scientific accuracy of information science from a theoretical point of view. At the same time, to better solve the basic contradictions in the information service, overcome the information crisis, and make the information management work more effective to serve science and technology, economic and social development. Quantitative analysis of bibliographic data was pioneered by
Robert K. Merton Robert King Merton (born Meyer Robert Schkolnick; July 4, 1910 – February 23, 2003) was an American sociologist who is considered a founding father of modern sociology, and a major contributor to the subfield of criminology. He served as th ...
in an article called ''Science, Technology, and Society in Seventeenth Century England'' and originally published by Merton in 1938.


The Significance of Informetrics Research

The significance of informetrics research is to summarize various
empirical law Scientific laws or laws of science are statements, based on reproducibility, repeated experiments or observations, that describe or prediction, predict a range of natural phenomena. The term ''law'' has diverse usage in many cases (approximate, a ...
s from the theoretical point of view, at the same time test and modify the various empirical laws in the new information unit conditions, and explore its new applicability, therefore, the scientific nature of information science can be improved, but also to provide theoretical guidance for practical work.


The Objects of Informetrics Research

The object of informetrics is broader than the field of bibliometrics and scientometrics, including "messages, data, events, objects, text, and documents”. Informetrics is often used to inform policies and decisions across a broad range of fields, such as
economy An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the ...
,
politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...
,
technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...
and social spheres that "influence the flow and use patterns of information". Tague-Sutcliffe describes the following uses of informetrics: *
Citation analysis Citation analysis is the examination of the frequency, patterns, and graphs of citations in documents. It uses the directed graph of citations — links from one document to another document — to reveal properties of the documents. A t ...
; * Characteristics of authors; * Use of recorded information; * Obsolescence of the literature; * Concomitant growth of new concepts; * Characteristics of publication sources; * Definition and measurement o information; * Growth of subject literature, databases, libraries; * Types and characteristics of retrieval performance measures; * Statistical aspects of language, word, and phrase frequencies.


Basic Laws

In the field of informetrics research, there are many outstanding contributors in the discipline with a solid knowledge of quantitative research methods. In the early 20th century, several scientists contributed empirical applications that have become the three basic laws of informetrics,
Bradford's law Bradford's law is a pattern first described by Samuel C. Bradford in 1934 that estimates the exponentially diminishing returns of searching for references in science journals. One formulation is that if journals in a field are sorted by number of ...
,
Lotka's law Lotka's law, named after Alfred J. Lotka, is one of a variety of special applications of Zipf's law. It describes the frequency of publication by authors in any given field. It states that the number of authors making x contributions in a give ...
, and Zipf's law, which promote the development of informetrics.


Bradford's Law

The British
documentalist A documentalist is a professional, trained in documentation science and specializing in assisting researchers in their search for scientific and technical documentation. With the development of bibliographical databases such as MEDLINE, documentali ...
and
librarian A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library providing access to information, and sometimes social or technical programming, or instruction on information literacy to users. The role of the librarian has changed much over time, ...
Samuel C. Bradford Samuel Clement Bradford (10 January 1878 in London – 13 November 1948) was a British mathematician, librarian and documentalist at the Science Museum in London. He developed " Bradford's law" (or the "law of scattering") regarding differences ...
first discovered the law of concentration and scattering of literature, and in 1934, it has been described as Bradford's l''aw of scattering''. It reveals the law of concentration and scattering of
scientific papers : ''For a broader class of literature, see Academic publishing.'' Scientific literature comprises scholarly publications that report original empirical and theoretical work in the natural and social sciences. Within an academic field, scienti ...
in journals in a quantitative way, which is the most basic law and an important part of bibliometrics, as well as informetrics and its research still has important irreplaceable theoretical value and practical significance. Bradford found a pattern in the distribution of disciplinary literature among journals, papers from one discipline often appear in journals of another discipline. Eventually, there is a pattern for a large number of papers in a given discipline to be concentrated in a certain number of journals, while the others are scattered in a large number of other related journals. He ranked journals by the number of papers published in a particular discipline, "in their descending order of productivity", then can dividing articles into three different zones, first is the nuclear zone with high productivity; "the second zone moderately productive zone; and the third as the low productive zone". In summary, Bradford's law described the relationship between the number of journals and papers.


Lotka's Law

Lotka's law is an
empirical law Scientific laws or laws of science are statements, based on reproducibility, repeated experiments or observations, that describe or prediction, predict a range of natural phenomena. The term ''law'' has diverse usage in many cases (approximate, a ...
describing the productivity of science, also known as the
inverse square law In science, an inverse-square law is any scientific law stating that a specified physical quantity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the source of that physical quantity. The fundamental cause for this can be understoo ...
, pioneered by the American
statistician A statistician is a person who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors. It is common to combine statistical knowledge with expertise in other subjects, and statisticians may wor ...
Alfred J. Lotka Alfred James Lotka (March 2, 1880 – December 5, 1949) was a US mathematician, physical chemist, and statistician, famous for his work in population dynamics and energetics. An American biophysicist, Lotka is best known for his propos ...
in 1926. It reveals scientific productivity and the quantitative relationship between authors and papers. Lotka's law is mainly used to predict the number of authors and papers in a specific discipline, to grasp the trend of the growth of literature, thus, facilitating scientific management of literature information.


Zipf's Law

Zipf's law is proposed by
linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
George Kingsley Zipf George Kingsley Zipf (; January 7, 1902 – September 25, 1950), was an American linguist and philologist who studied statistical occurrences in different languages.. Zipf earned his bachelors, masters, and doctoral degrees from Harvard Universi ...
in 1949, it is obtained from the statistics of natural language vocabulary. It is a summary of the "literature vocabulary frequency distribution rule". The frequency of different words has a certain statistical regularity. Zipf's law has significant use in the fields of library information, information resources management, science and technology management.


Informetrics Education in Library and Information Science (LIS)

Informetrics course is usually offered to
undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-lev ...
and
post-graduate Postgraduate or graduate education refers to academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate ( bachelor's) degree. The organization and stru ...
students. Only a few Universities offer informetrics as an independent course, such as China, Germany and Japan, most Universities include informetrics in the department of
library and information science Library and information science(s) or studies (LIS) is an interdisciplinary field of study that deals generally with organization, access, collection, and protection/regulation of information, whether in physical (e.g. art, legal proceedings, e ...
. In fact, many challenges and the need for improvements have been shown in informetrics education across the world. Constant examination and adjustment in Informetrics education are needed as the rapid evolvement of information technologies in the field of LIS, for example, the emergence of webometrics/cybermetrics. On the other hand, technological development has become a challenge that affects the learning environment of informetrics education, for example, the shortage of research expertise in the informetrics field, and the insufficient skills of research specialists and data collection tools. Moreover, most countries have limited resources in informetrics education, as some Universities only offer the course if there is a demand among students. Although many countries do not offer informetrics education, it is still important and necessary to maintain and continue further development in the field of informetrics as it is useful in
science policy Science policy is concerned with the allocation of resources for the conduct of science towards the goal of best serving the public interest. Topics include the funding of science, the careers of scientists, and the translation of scientific disc ...
and management, as well as plays an essential role in the domain of research evaluation. Informetrics education can provide an in-depth understanding of "information user communities and the boundaries of specific fields". As science and technology are continuously innovating and developing, using the methods and applications of informetrics allows for "research monitoring and evaluation purpose in an objective way". Moreover, informetrics research is benefited almost all scientific fields, as it is multidisciplinary.


Future Development

With the advent of digitalization and the development of technologies, virtual libraries and
online journal An academic journal or scholarly journal is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as permanent and transparent forums for the presentation, scrutiny, and d ...
s have become the main way for researchers and scholars to access
scientific literature : ''For a broader class of literature, see Academic publishing.'' Scientific literature comprises scholarly publications that report original empirical and theoretical work in the natural and social sciences. Within an academic field, scient ...
information, which has made the measurement and evaluation of web-based literature information more important. Webometrics/cybermetrics is the expansion of informetrics and bibliometrics, that has great theoretical significance and broad application prospects. Network and information are the relationships of inheritance and development, hence, webometrics/cybermetrics as a new sub-discipline under the field of informetrics has rapidly developed to adapt to the network environment. Webometrics/cybermetrics is a discipline in science that integrates bibliometrics, informetrics, statistical methods, and
computer technology Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, e ...
to measure and analyze information and documents on the web, which covers "quantitative aspects of both the construction side and the usage side of the Web". The concept of webometrics was introduced in 1997 by T.C. Almind and P. Ingwersen and became a research hotspot in 1999. In 2000, scientists began to explore the disciplinary system and theoretical framework of webometrics and conducted meaningful application research. Its research areas include
link analysis In network theory, link analysis is a data-analysis technique used to evaluate relationships (connections) between nodes. Relationships may be identified among various types of nodes (objects), including organizations, people and transactions. Li ...
,
search engine A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...
s and web citation analysis.


See also

*
Content analysis Content analysis is the study of documents and communication artifacts, which might be texts of various formats, pictures, audio or video. Social scientists use content analysis to examine patterns in communication in a replicable and systematic ...
* Data mining *
Diplomatics Diplomatics (in American English, and in most anglophone countries), or diplomatic (in British English), is a scholarly discipline centred on the critical analysis of documents: especially, historical documents. It focuses on the conventions, p ...
* '' Journal of Informetrics'' *
Library collection development Library collection development is the process of systematically building the collection of a particular library to meet the information needs of the library users (a service population) in a timely and economical manner using information resources ...


References


External links


International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics website

''Quantitative Science Studies'' E-ISSN 2641-3337
{{Authority control Information science