The dynamics of publication and citation networks in academia

Abstract

In academia, one of the problems with publications can be summarized as "90% of the citations are received by 10% of the publications". Ineffective scientific policies drive problematic initiatives for doing spurious publications and sustaining the existing situation. Operationalizing award and punishment systems by counting publications and citations, at least needs closer attention. In this thesis I analyze three aspects of scientific publication and citation dynamics. Firstly, historical data analysis shows that average publication sta-tistics and tendencies are different in different fields. In terms of co-authorship and net-work structures, at least in two exemplary fields, system dynamics and operations research, it is shown that they are substantially different. Moreover, publication and citation network data show certain sub-group formations in citation networks, but further investigations on whether there is an effect of social relationships on publication-citation networks show no evidence on the existence of such an effect in exemplary fields. Second part of the thesis, a system dynamic model, describes how academicians in a complex environment behave un-der two opposite pressures, publication and citation pressures. Intellectual skill levels and reputation are two important decisive factors on the success of publications. Last part of the analysis, agent based model, shows that different initial conditions of a field have a substantial effect on the emerging network structure among academicians. Young scholars, who try to enter into fields which are filled by senior authors, have difficulties in receiving enough citation, compared to the ones who are trying to enter into fields with junior aca-demicians. This suggests that young scholars in different fields with different seniorities are not in the same situation and comparing the research performances of young researchers by just publication and citation numbers may not be valid and fair.