Breaking down the relationship between disruption scores and citation counts
2024

Disruption Scores and Citation Counts in Research

Sample size: 1890640 publication Evidence: high

Author Information

Author(s): Li Mingtang, Livan Giacomo, Righi Simone

Primary Institution: University College London

Hypothesis

Are disruptive papers highly cited, and are highly cited papers disruptive?

Conclusion

The study finds that highly disruptive papers tend to receive more citations, but highly cited papers are not necessarily disruptive.

Supporting Evidence

  • Highly disruptive papers tend to receive a higher number of citations than average.
  • Most cited papers do not tend to be particularly disruptive.
  • The correlation between disruption and citations varies across different percentiles of papers.

Takeaway

This study looks at how disruptive research papers are recognized by citations, finding that the most disruptive papers get more citations, but the most cited papers aren't always disruptive.

Methodology

The study analyzes disruption scores and citation counts from two large datasets of publications in Computer Science and Physics, using correlation analysis.

Potential Biases

Potential biases in disruption scores due to varying citation behaviors over time.

Limitations

The study cannot publicly share the Web of Science data due to contractual obligations.

Participant Demographics

The analysis includes researchers from Computer Science and Physics with active publication records.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1371/journal.pone.0313268

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