NWB2023_Metrics, research quality and the research process: an exploration of their interrelations

A recurrent topic in the bibliometric literature is what influence the citation rate of articles. Various factors have been shown to be influential or covary with citation counts, such as the number of authors and international co-authorship. However, most of the literature has focused on dimensions that can be analyzed using bibliometric data only.

In this presentation, we aim to provide a fresh perspective on this issue by exploring whether specific procedural features of the research process play a role. By doing so, we hope to shed new light on the factors that influence how much an article is cited and how the authors consider the quality of their papers.

We examine the following features, drawing on the authors own assessments of their papers: the time spent to produce the article; the use of facilities, research infrastructure, and scientific equipment; the collection of new data or observations; the interdisciplinarity of the research; and the potential presentation of unambiguous results or findings. Furthermore, in our analysis, we also incorporate various bibliometric measures that have been previously identified as influential. By including these measures, we can control for their effects and isolate the independent contributions of the procedural features of the research process on citation scores and quality dimensions of the research.

The presentation is based on a survey sent out to 1,250 researchers, with a response rate of 47%, and the final sample consisting of 592 individuals, each with three publications included.