Partition-based Field Normalization: An approach to highly specialized publication records

Abstract

Field normalized citation rates are well-established indicators for research\nperformance from the broadest aggregation levels such as countries, down to\ninstitutes and research teams. When applied to still more specialized\npublication sets at the level of individual scientists, also a more accurate\ndelimitation is required of the reference domain that provides the expectations\nto which a performance is compared. This necessity for sharper accuracy\nchallenges standard methodology based on predefined subject categories. This\npaper proposes a way to define a reference domain that is more strongly\ndelimited than in standard methodology, by building it up out of cells of the\npartition created by the pre-defined subject categories and their\nintersections. This partition approach can be applied to different existing\nfield normalization variants. The resulting reference domain lies between those\ngenerated by standard field normalization and journal normalization. Examples\nbased on fictive and real publication records illustrate how the potential\nimpact on results can exceed or be smaller than the effect of other currently\ndebated normalization variants, depending on the case studied. The proposed\nPartition-based Field Normalization is expected to offer advantages in\nparticular at the level of individual scientists and other very specific\npublication records, such as publication output from interdisciplinary\nresearch.\n