Funding Acknowledgment Analysis: Queries and Caveats
Open accessAbstract
Thomson Reuters's Web of Science (WoS) began systematically collecting acknowledgment information in August 2008. Since then, bibliometric analysis of funding acknowledgment (FA) has been growing and has aroused intense interest and attention from both academia and policy makers. Examining the distribution of FA by citation index database, by language, and by acknowledgment type, we noted coverage limitations and potential biases in each analysis. We argue that despite its great value, bibliometric analysis of FA should be used with caution.
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The coverage of funding information in both databases, especially Scopus, may not be comprehensive enough for accurate and reliable analyses of funding trends in SSH and research with strong national orientation.
“the majority of authors agree that, in the meantime, in both DBs (especially in Scopus) the coverage of FI may not be comprehensive enough for accurate and reliable analyses of funding trends in SSH and in research with strong national orientation.”
From Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus: The Titans of Bibliographic Information in Today’s Academic World (2021) · cites this paper as [74]
WoS only records acknowledgments if they contain funding information.
“Firstly, since WoS only records acknowledgments if they contain funding information [74,76], WoS FI may not be suitable for broader explorations of other kind acknowledgements.”
From Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus: The Titans of Bibliographic Information in Today’s Academic World (2021) · cites this paper as [74]
WoS funding information may not be suitable for broader explorations of acknowledgements other than funding.
“Firstly, since WoS only records acknowledgments if they contain funding information [74,76], WoS FI may not be suitable for broader explorations of other kind acknowledgements.”
From Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus: The Titans of Bibliographic Information in Today’s Academic World (2021) · cites this paper as [74]
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Cites
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Self-citation
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Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus: The Titans of Bibliographic Information in Today’s Academic World
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The Data Source of This Study Is Web of Science Core Collection? Not Enough
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Self-citation
- Authors
- Tang, L., Hu, G., & Liu, W.
- Affiliations
- Fudan University (CN)
- Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (CN)
- Shanghai Jiao Tong University (CN)
- Corresponding author
- Tang, Li
- Hu, Guangyuan
- Liu, Weishu
- ORCID
- Liu, Weishu
- Venue
- Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2016-06-06
- Volume
- 68
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 790-794
- ISSN
- 2330-1635 (ISSN-L)
- 2330-1643
- OpenAlex
- W2227872244
- Cited by
- 81
- References
- 31
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 2
- FWCI
- 8.10
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- arxiv.org
- Locations
- Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (publishedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › scientometrics and bibliometrics research
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Web visibility and informetrics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Library Science and Information
- Keywords
- funding acknowledgment, bibliometric analysis, Web of Science, language bias, research funding
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