There were several comments, even declarations (DORA for example), questioning the value of citation as indicator of resech quality.
In wich circumstances id nuber of ciation acceptable indicator and when is withouth a value?
The number of citations reflects the level of interest in this topic, rather than the level of research quality.
I agree that high citation number reflects high level of interest in the field, but also quality of presentation of the subject and of course research background of the author(s).
There are scientific fields with only small number of researcher - in contrast to the fields where hundreds of thousands reseaches are involved. Is it possible to compare reseachers from such different fileds?
To objectify the conclusions, it is necessary to develop a quotation coefficient.
It can represent the ratio of the total number of researchers in a given field to the number of citations.
Apparently, it should contain an amendment for a little-spread topics, similar to the Yeats amendment for small samples.
There are many papers which are of not good quality but still have a good citation number. In contrast, there are many papers of good quality but have not a good citation number!
Obviously, if a reasonable number of citations of a paper comes from the papers published in well reputed journals then this number would be a good indicator of research quality.
Number of citation is not an indicator of best researcher but it indicate that, that work done by researcher is good.
There is a similar question and more answers in the following url:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Does_citation_number_of_author_publications_indicated_his_her_publication_quality
( Does citation number of author publications indicated his/her publication quality?)
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Citations