Citation Success: What does it mean & how do you achieve it?

1. Citation Success: What does it mean & how do you achieve it? Graham H. Pyke School of the Environment University of Technology Sydney

2. I dedicate this lecture to my parents, Tom and Margery Pyke

3. Citation Success:My message today • Citations matter, both to individuals and their institutions, hugely now & even more in future; • I have (credibly) worked out the ‘secrets’ to citation success; • I plan to provide some further guidance in the future.

4. However … • I am not claiming that counting citations is the only, or the best, thing to do • That might be a topic for some other occasion

5. What are citations? • A reference within a presentation (written or oral) to another presentation • Reference identifies author(s) & location of presentation • Points to another presentation that provides relevant material (supporting, inspiring, incorrect, disliked etc) => Importance of citations

6. Importance of Citations Citations are fundamentally important because …. • Each citation indicates an influence of the original presentation on another And hence • The accumulated number of citations to a particular presentation provides a measure of its total influence

7. Citations vs Contribution to literature Citations & Influence (i.e., Contribution, Impact etc) are generally correlated BUT • Specific to different areas (e.g., Ecology\ Environment vs Medicine) • Poorly correlated in some areas (e.g., Systematics\ Taxonomy)

8. Citations:Today’s focus vs Other things • Research (not other scholarly activities) • Publications of articles in journals and books (not other presentations) However … Much of what I have to say is relevant to all kinds of scholarly activity and presentation

9. Keeping count of citations: Initially a research tool • Eugene Garfield – from ~1960 • Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) • Scientific Citation Index (SCI) =>Later other citation indices • Current Contents • Tables of contents for journals (initially several hundred for biology & medicine) • Author contact details • Keyword index • ‘Citation Classics’ • Manual to computer-based

10. Counting Citations:Some basic issues • Publication venues • Date period for original published articles • Date period for citations =>Different approaches • Self-citations (author, institution, country) • Disambiguation of names (authors, journals, institutions) =>General approaches

11. Citation Information:What are the sources? • Scopus • Web of Knowledge (includes ISI indices & others) • Google Scholar • All scholarly publications • Time periods without limit =>Hence … • Includes highest % of published articles (~95% in my case vs ~60% for others) • Gives highest citation counts (~6500 in my case vs about ~5000 for the others)

12. Evaluations using Citations • Article • Journal • Author • Institution

13. Citation evaluation: Articles • Time course of citations • Evaluation criteria • Total • Immediacy • Recent • ‘Highly-cited’

14. Citation evaluation: Journals • Impact Factor = Average number of citations per recent article • Ranking • Authors & institutions target journals with highest impact factors • Very High ~20 Science Nature • High ~10 • Others

15. Citation evaluation: Authors • Total citations • Avg citations per published article • Hirst- or H-index = Number N such that author has published N articles with at least N citations each =>Total citations & H-index increasingly reported & used

16. Citation evaluation: Authors • Position • Tenure/ Promotion • Funding (e.g., grants)

17. Citation evaluation: Institutions • Indices & rankings influence student enrolments, funding, donations & bequests • Both international & national • They all include citations

18. Shanghai Jiao Tong Index(aka Academic Ranking of World Universities) • Innocent beginnings, now big business • Criteria: • Nobel Prizes/ Fields Medals (30%) • Highly-cited Researchers (20%) • Articles in Nature & Science (20%) • Science Citation Index & Social Sciences Citation Index (20%) • Per capita academic performance re citations (10%)

19. UTS & the SJT Index • UTS World Rank according to SJT : • Up till 2010 - >500 • 2011 - 487 • 2012 - 460 • Highly-cited authors

20. # highly-cited authors:Putting it in perspective • UTS 4 • Macquarie Uni 5 • Uni of Sydney 7 • Uni of Melb 10 • ANU 17 • Harvard / Stanford ~100

21. Citation Success:Who cares? • Universities • Other Agencies (e.g., Funding) • Colleagues • Individuals • Citations matter, for everyone, now and will matter increasingly in the future

22. Citations:A fundamental conclusion Both individual authors, and their institutions, will need to pay increasing attention to citations and adopt strategies aimed at enhancing them. Such strategies should reinforce one another.

23. Citations:A strategy for individual success? • The good news is that …. There is a strategy, suitable for anyone, that should lead to enhanced citation success

24. Citation Success: Why listen to me? • Relevant experience & achievements BUT … • Vaguely aware in past, but paid negligible attention • Thinking/ talking about it since Nov 2011 • Commenced analysing my own citations just a few days ago SO … • My past was independent of any consideration of citation success or how to achieve it

25. Citation Success: Why listen to me? • #’s Citations • ~ 6,500 in total • ‘ISI Highly-cited’ Author

26. Citation Success:Why listen to me? #’s citations per published article • Consistently high • H-index 34

27. Citation Success:Why listen to me? • Co-authored articles with other highly-cited authors • Four highly-cited authors • RicCharnov • Paul Ehrlich • Ron Pulliam • Nick Waser • Senior author for 3 of 4 articles (excl. book reviews etc)

28. Citation Success: Why listen to me? • Other ‘highly-cited’ authors as colleagues • Other Universities • UTS – • Geoff Anstis (Materials Science) • John Geweke (Economics/ Business) • Matt Wand (mathematics)

29. Citation Success:Why listen to me? • Personal experience • Comparing notes with others • Limited analysis All these lead to the same conclusions

30. Citations: The ‘secrets’ to success My ‘Secrets’ should lead to both: • Enhanced citation success • Enhanced contribution to literature My ‘Secrets’ are not profound (obvious, straightforward, universally applicable) and yet highly profound at the same time (rarely well adopted)

31. Citation Success:Format for what follows • For each ‘secret’ … • Recipe • Example from my research

32. Citation Success:Secret #1 - Recipe SIGNIFICANCE re issue or question (Prospective vs. retrospective) Choose an issue or question (prospective) or set your work within a context (retrospective) of high significance (i.e., importance, relevance, usefulness) … the higher the better … but need to credible

33. Citation Success:Secret #1 - Example • Question: Why do animals (& other organisms) forage (or feed) the way they do?

34. Citation Success:Secret #1 - Example Significant because … • All organisms ‘forage’; • Foraging is important to individual organisms; • Foraging often a major activity re time & energy; • Including foraging is necessary for understanding other phenomena & patterns (e.g., other aspects of behaviour, population dynamics, inter-species interactions, structure of communities, patterns of co-evolution).

35. Citation Success:Secret #2 - Recipe INFLUENCE of publication or presentation (Looking forward or looking back) Seek to have as much influence as possible, through changing how people think, what they say, and what they do.

36. Citation Success:Secret #2 - Example • Question: Why do animals (& other organisms) forage the way they do? • Approach advocated: Optimal Foraging Theory • Influence sought: Adopt the approach

37. Citation Success:Secret #3 - Recipe PRESENTATIONS (Looking backwards) Give presentations that are captivating, compelling & memorable.

38. Citation Success:Secret #3 - Example My publications re Optimal Foraging Theory This lecture?

39. Citation Success:Secret #4 - Recipe SUSTAIN the approach Don’t just do it; keep doing it.

40. Citation Success: Secret #4 - Example • My citations

41. Citation Success: Secret #4 - Example

42. Citation Success: The Secrets in Summary • SIPS … • Significance • Influence • Presentation • Sustained • Really … Approach or Mindset • What else …. Tools Mentoring or Advice

43. Citation Success:Tools #1 - Significance • Identify questions &/or issues • Hierarchy • Evaluate

44. Citation Success:Tools #1 - Example • Why do animals forage the way they do? • Do animals forage in ways that are consistent with Optimal Foraging Theory (OFT)? • Do bumblebees forage in ways that maximise Net Rate of Energy Intake? • Is the foraging behaviour of bumblebee species X, while taking nectar from flowers of plant sp Y, in location Z, consistent with this hypothesis? • Different aspects of foraging behaviour (e.g., choice, departure, movement)

45. Citation Success:Tools #1 - Significance • Evaluation criteria • Level • Interest • Achievable • Simple & Clear • Credible • Scoring system => Hierarchical Context with Significance Max at each Level

46. Citation Success:Tool #1 – The end result Issues/ questions of high significance to either pursue or use as context for work already undertaken

47. Citation Success:Tools #2 - Influence • Who? • What? • How?

48. Citation Success:Tools #2 - Example • Question: Why do organisms forage the way they do? • Who? All ecologists & behaviourists & ??

49. Citation Success:Tools #2 - Influence • Question: Why do organisms forage the way they do? • What influence? Adopt the OFT approach.

50. Citation Success:Tools #2 - Influence • Question: Why do organisms forage the way they do? • How? Review the literature, critically & constructively, & provide examples of successful application of OFT approach