Annals of Library Science and Documentation 1986, 33( 1-2), 31-40

LITERATURE CONTRIBUTION IN JOURNAL OFENVIRONMENTAL BIOLOGY; A BIBLIOMETRIC STUDY

Analyses the literature contributed (132 items)to the journal of Environmental Biology, 1980-84 with regard to the nature and the time lagof the citing research papers. It also analysescountry-wise and institution-wise scattering ofthe contributions. The authorship and citationpatterns are also evaluated to ascertain thenature of research (solo/team) and the corejournals of the discipline. Gives a list of 21highly cited journals, cited at least 10 times.The Bradford's Law of Scattering is appliedto the literature of environmental biology.

INTRODUCTION

The credit for coining the term bibliometricswhich describes all studies seeking to quantifythe process of written communication goes toPritchard. He defined bibliometrics as "the ap-plication of mathematical model to bookand other media of communication." [1] Theapplication of bibliometric techniques' hasgained the importance and recognition in thefield of scientific literature. For the last twodecades, a number of bibliometric studieshave appeared in various, scientific disciplines.Hjerppe[2] has compiled a bibliography on the (v)subject, listing more than 1800 studies. In thecontext of Indian journals, attempts have beenmade to carryon bibliometric studies for theperiodicals like, journal of Geological Societyof India, Indian journal of Plant Physiology,Indian Phytopathology, journal of IndianChemical Society, Indian journal of Chemistry,and Indian journal 0/Physics. [3-8]

The McGraw Hill Dictionary of Scientificand Technical Terms[9] describes the environ-mental biology as synonymous to ecology. Thesubject, environmental biology in itself is

Vol 33 Nos 1-2 March-June 1986

NARENDRA KUMARINSDOCNew Delhi 110067

multidisciplinary in nature, covering a numberof subjects like pollution, ecology, toxicologyand allied subjects.

In the present study, an attempt has beenmade to analyse the patterns of research contri-bution in the periodical entitled journal ofEnvironmental Biology UEB). Such analysiswill be helpful to the concerned users andcontributors to recognise the information needs,requirements and national network of researchplanning in this discipline. The main purposeof the study is to find out the core journals,most frequently cited by the environmentalbiologists and also to gain information on:

(i) other types of documents cited by them,

(ii) the authorship patterns of contributions

(iii) the scattering of the literature in thesubject,

(iv) institutes engaged in the research ofenvironmental biology in the country,and

use of journals in the languages otherthan English.

MATERIALS & METHODS

As mentioned earlier, the journal of Environ-mental Biology has been selected for this study.It is a publication of the Academy of Environ-mental Biology, India. The journal is concernedwith toxicology and interrelations of organismsand their environment. JEB publishes originalresearch papers in English Ianrage , primarilydealing with the aspects 0 environmental

NARENDRA KUMAR

pollution in relation to men, animals and plants.The Academy of Environmental Biology, Indiawas established in 1978 and started to publishthe journal in 1980. The journal is publishedquarterly in January, April, July and October.Owing to its wide circulation and being a recen-tly started journal covering the literature of theburning topics like pollution, toxicology, etc.and also publishing the original research paperson these subjects, the journal has been selected.Some other factors that influenced the selectionof this particular journal are (i) it is a regularpublication of a learned academy of the coun-try, and (ii) it is also being covered by a numberof national and international indexing andabstracting services.

All the sixteen issues of the volumes 2-5(1981-84) and one issue published in October1980 as Vol. 1; issue 1 were scanned in the ori-ginal. The information regarding the bibliogra-phical descriptions of the research papers andreferences quoted to write these research papers,were recorded on +he 5"x8" slips. The problemof identification of journal titles were solved byusing the Ulrich's International PeriodicalsDirectory, Irregular Serials and CASSI; regardingthe abbreviations, help of the World List ofScientific Periodicals was taken.

RESULTS & DISCUSSION

Nature of the Contributions

A volume-wise analysis of the citing literature,i.e., research papers is presented in the Table1. The total number of citing research papersof the JEB published in the seventeen issuesof the journal came to 132 of which 113(83.6%) are main research papers and 19(14.4%)are short communications.

Among the contributions of the JEB, theaverage ratio of the main research papers andthe short communications is observed to be6: 1 and the same pattern is followed by the

Indian Journal of Plant Physiology. [4] How-ever, the analysis of the data reveals that thetrend of publication of JEB is less inclinedtowards the short communications.

Geographical Distribution of the Contributors

267 scientists contributed 132 research paperspublished in the JEB. The contribution ispredominantly made by the Indian scientiststo journals. Among 267' contributors, 19 areforeign scientists who have contributed 12papers (main research papers) which consti-

Table 1: Volume-wise Analysis of contributions

Year VolumeNo.

No. of MainRes. Papers

No. ofIssues

1980 1 1 7

1981 4 222

1982 3 4 23

1983 4 284

1984 45 33

Total 5 17 113

32

No. of Short TotalCommunications

%

1 6.078

3 18.9425

3 26 19.69

5 33 25.00

7 40 30.30

19 132 100.00

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eIT AnON ANALYSIS IN ENVIRONMENTAL BIOLOGY

tute 9.09 % contributions of the JEB. In anotherstudy the foreign scientists' contribution inIndian primary periodicals was recorded as5.4%. [101 Thus, it is seen that JEE is publishingmore contributions of the foreign scientists.of these 12 papers contributed by the

foreign scientists, 7 are from U.S.A. and oneeach from U.K., Sweden, West Indies, Romaniaand Nepal. It is observed here that most of theforeign contributions are from advanced coun-tries. Of the 12 papers contributed by the for-eign scientists, 8 papers are wholly prepared bythe foreign scientists (independently or jointly)and remaining four papers are prepared incollaboration with the Indian scientists. A de-tailed analysis is presented in Table 2.

Authorship Pattern

As the data reveals, team research is the trendof the present day and is dominant over soloresearch in the experimental sciences. The

number of contributors for a paper even inthe Journal of American Chemical Society[11] is as high as eight. Out of the 132 researchpapers, only 14 (10.61%)are single authored andthe remaining 118 (89.39%) are contributedby two and more than two authors. More than70% papers have been- contributed by two andthree authors.

Table 4 shows that most of the researchpapers are from universities, colleges and re-search labs/institutes which are engaged toprovide M. Phil. /Ph.D. degrees under theguidance of the supervisors. Generally, theresearch papers are the products of thesessubmitted for the degree, and are publishedunder the joint authorship of the supervisor(s)and the research scholar(s). Majority of foreigncontributions are from U.S.A. (58.33%). Outof 12 papers from foreign scientists, three arcsingle authored one each from U.S.A., U.K,and Romania and remaining 9 papers are ofjoint authorship, of which six from U.S.A.

Table 2: Distribution of the Contributors

Volume Number of papersby Indian Contri-Contributors

Number of papersby ForeignContributors

Number of papersby Indian &Foreign Contri-butors

Remarks

1 6 2

2 23a 2b-------------------------_._-------------------------------

3 23c 2d 1 First author isIndian--------------------------------------------------------~-

4

5

Note:a = Three papers are from two different

institutes. , f different iUne paper IS rom two 1 erent insti-tutions.Two papers are from two institutesand one paper is from three differentinstitutes.One paper is from two differentinstitutes.

b=

c=

d=

Vol 33 Nos 1-2 March-June 1986

3 First author ofthree papers areforeigners

e= Four papers are from two institutesand only one paper is from threedifferent institutes.Three papers are from two differentinstitutes.Two papers are from two differentinstitutes.

f=

g=

NARENDRA KUMAR

Table 3: Authorship Pattern of Contributions

No. of author(s)contributing apaper

No, of MainRes. papers

No. of Shortcornmuruca-tions

Total No. ofpapers

%

1

2

34568

14 1450 12 62

29 4 3312 2 145 52 1 31 1

10.6146.97

25.0010.613.732.270.76

TOTAL 113 19 132 100.00

Table 4: Institution-wise Distribution of Contributions

S.No. Organisation No. of Contri-buting organi-sations

No. of paperscontributed

%

1 Universities 32 73 55.30

2. Colleges 14 30 22.72

3. Research Labs/Institutions 12 23 17.43

4. Miscellaneous 5 6 4.55

Total 63

(two having two authors; another two papershaving six authors, and the hmaining twopapers having 3 and 4 authors) and one papereach from Sweden, Nepal and West Indieshaving 2,2 and 3 authors respectively.

There are only two scientists (S.R. Vermafrom Zoology Department of D.A.V. College,Muzzaffarnagar and R. Nagabhushanam, fromZoology Department, Marathwada University,Aurangabad) who have contributed to the jour-nal maximum, i.e. five times. Three authorscontributed four times and. 6, 49, and 207authors have contributed thrice, twice andonce respectively. This indicates that there isa visible scattering among the contributors.

34

132 100.00

Institu tion-wise Distribu tion of Contribu tions

The contribution to the journal (JEB) is comingfrom allover the country and it is also quiterich in respect of foreign contributions. As thedata reveal, there is also diversity among thecontributors of various organisations, indicatingthat the journal is well-recognised throughoutthe world. There are twenty papers which arecontributed by two differentorganisations andtwo papers by the contributors of three organi-sations, and remaining are from single organi-sation.

Here, the organisation of the first authoris considered for the institution-wise distribu-

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CITATION ANALYSIS IN ENVIRONMENTAL BIOLOGY

tion of the contributors. Table 4 shows that asignificant proportion of the contribution i.e.55.30% has come from 32 universities, 22.72%from 14 colleges affiliated to the universities,and 17.43% from 12 research labs/institutions.The remaining 4.55% contributions have comefrom a category of 5 miscellaneous organisa-tions. The main contributing organisations tothe journal which have contributed 3 andmore than 3 papers are given in the Table 5.

than a year and remaining 16(13%) papersexcept only one paper, had taken the time1-2 years for the acceptance. The time taken forpublication after the acceptance of the researchpaper is recorded upto 19 months. This timelag is critical, as most of the literature is ofephemeral type, i.e., short lived, and this delayin publishing the research papers should beavoided.

Citation Pattern

Time Lagc in Publishing The degree of sharing or transferring informa-tion and communication network established

The information regarding the date of receipt for a growing discipline can be analysed throughand acceptance for the publication is not men- the citation patterns in the writings of thattioned in nine papers (8 papers from Vol 1, discipline. [13] The citation pattern also depictsissue 1 and one paper from Vol 3, issue 3). diverse media for communication of scientificFor the remaining 123 papers, the average time research [14] .132 research papers under studytaken for their publication is seven months, with indicate that 1800 documents have been citedthe minimum and maximum time for the publi- with an average of 14.4 citations per paper. Butcation recorded being 25 days and 2 years & the citation rate of the main research papers is1 % months respectively. The 107 (87%) re- double in comparison to short communicationssearch papers were accepted in a period of less (Table 6).

Table 5: Institution Contributing three and more than three papers

S.No. Name of the Organisation----------------------------------------------------------

No. of papers contributed----------------------------------------------------------1. D.A.V. College, Muzaffarnagar 12

2. Marathwada University, Aurangabad 10

3. Sri Venkateshwara University, Tirupati 8

4. Industrial Toxicology Research Centre, Lucknow 8

5. Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana 5

6. Berhampur University, Berhampur 4

7. Rajasthan University, Jaipur 4

8. Andhra University, Waltair 4

9. Vikram University, Ujjain 3

10. Meerut University, Meerut 3---------------------------------------------------------

Table 6: Citation Pattern of the Research Papers

Main Res.Papers

Citations appendedto Main Res. Papers

Average

113 1661 14.7

Vol 33 Nos 1-2 March-j une 1986

Short Com-munications

CitationsAppended toShort Com-munications

Average

19 139 7.3

NARENDRA KUMAR

The citation ratio of journals to books is4 : 1. This shows that journals are the mainvehicles for the communication of scientificresearch.

A lot of literature, about 55%[15] in scienceand technology is being published in the langua-ges other than English have been noted heredue to the non-availability of such literature,and also because of the language barrier. Someof the non-English cited journals are Biokhimiya(Russian), Botanicheskii Zhurnal (Russian), Bio-logisches Zentralblatt (German), MunchenerMedizin isch Wocheschriff (Spanish), VigyanParishad Anusandhan Patrika (Hindi), RybnoeKhozyaistvo (Russian) Hikobia (Japanese), etc.

Bibliographical Forms of the Cited Documents

One of the objectives of this study was to findout the different bibliographical forms of thecited literature. The analysis of the same datareveals that 71. 78% of the total citations arefrom jourr-.ds , 17.56% from books, and the re-maining 10.66% cited documents are of variousbibliographical forms such as proceedings (con-ferences, seminars, symposia and workshopsetc.), reports (technical, projects, official,government and annual), theses (Ph.D., M.V.Sc.) and others. The 'others' category meetsa fraction, i.e., 0.94% of the information needsof the scientists of the subject, and includesmonograph, newsletters, encyclopaedias, treati-ses, standards, patents and atlases, etc.

From this, it is clear that about 90% of theinformation needs of the environmental biolo-gists are met by journals and books.

Bradford's Law of Scattering of Literature oflEB

The graphical and verbal interpretation of theBradford's law of scattering is being appliedto the literature of JEB. Table 8 representsthe journals arranged in decreasing frequencyof citations.

The 472 journals which have been refer-red to in the lEB (1980-84) yielded 1292citations. To testify the applicability of Brad-ford's law of scattering, a graph is plotted bytaking the cumulative number of citations R(n)on the ordinate against the logarithm of cumu-lative number of journals log (n) on the ab-scissa. It is observed that the resulting biblio-graph, initially starts with the rising as in expo-nential nature and than follows into a linearcurve, indicating the observance of Bradford'slaw of scattering.

Here, it is observed that an experimentalcurve (continuous line) is closel y associatedwith theoretical curve (dotted line). (Fig.1).

If Bradford's law is applicable to the dataof the lEB literature, it would also follow thealgebric interpretation of the Bradford's law ofscattering. For the algebric interpretation ofthe law, the citations have been arranged intothree zones with 431 citations each.

The scatter of lEB literature over Brad-ford's zones following the De Queriroz andLancaster, [16] is given in Table 9. The Brad-ford multiplier factor is calculated with theratio of journal titles of a zone and its succed-ing zone, as 3.5 and 3.6 for the zone 2 and zone

Table 7: Distribution of Citations based on the Bibliooraphical Forms

S.No. . Form of theDocument

Citations Percentage CumulativePercentage

1. Journals 1292 71.78 71.78

2. Books 316 17.18 89.34

3. Proceedings 106 5.89 95.23

4. Reports 42 2.33 97.56

5. Theses 27 1.50 99.06

6. Others 17 0.94 100.00

36 Ann Lib Sci Doc

CITATION ANALYSIS IN ENVIRONMENTAL BIOLOGY

Table 8: Distribution of Cited Journals by Decreasing Frequency of Citations, JEB, 1980-84

----------------------------------------------------------No. of Cumulative Log. of No. of Total Cumulative %ofCumula- %ofCumu-Journals No. of Curnula- Citations No. of No. of tive Citations lative

Journals tive No. Cita- Citations Journalsof Jour- tionsnals

----------------------------------------------------------1 1 0.00 47 47 47 3.63 0.212 3 0.48 29 58 105 8.04 0.631 4 0.60 26 26 131 10.15 0.841 5 0.70 25 25 156 12.07 1.051 6 0.78 24 24 180 1'5.47 1.262 8 0.90 20 40 220 17.02 1.671 9 0.95 17 17 237 18.26 1.901 10 1.00 15 15 252 19.50 2.112 12 1.08 14 28 280 21.67 2.541 13 1.11 13 13 293 22.68 2.753 16 1.20 12 36 329 25.46 3.362 18 1.26 11 22 351 27.16 3.813 21 1.32 10 30 381 29.48 4.456 27 1.43 9 54 435 34.44 5.725 32 1.51 8 40 475 36.76 6.78

11 43 1.63 7 77 552 42.72 9.119 52 1.71 6 54 606 46.90 11.22

15 67 1.83 5 75 681 52.71 14.1920 87 1.94 4 80 761 58.81 18.4335 122 2.05 3 105 866 67.01 25.8476 198 2.30 2 152 1018 78.71 41.95

274 472 2.67 1 274 1292 100.00 100.00----------------------------------------------------------

Table 9: Scattering of the citations in the Bradford zones

Zone Citations Journals Percentageof journals

percentage ofcitations

Bradford Multi-plier Factor

1

23

435431426

2795

350

5.7220.1274.16

33.6633.3632.98

3.53.6

Total 1292 472 100.00 100.00

3 respectively. It is almost the same. Thus,an approximately geometric series is represen-ted by the data of the JEB literature.

discipline. The sources of most frequent cita-tions in a journal provide an indication of theintra-journal communication network associatedwith the particular discipline or journal and thuscan give valuable -clues to the transfer andsharing of information within and betweendisciplines [12]. A total of 1292 journal cita-tions belonging to 472 primary journals shows

Core Journal

The analysis of citations is valuable in identi-fying the core journals in a particular field/

Vol 33 Nos 1-2 March-June 1986 37

NARENDRA KUMAR

the scattering of the subject literature into journals of the Bradford's core zone accountedvarious disciplines. A list of 21 most productive for 29.48% of the total ditations. (Table 10).

Table 10: List of More Productive Journals of the Core Zone

. **S.No. Rank Journal Title Year of Country ~o:'~of % of

---------~------------------~~~~---------~~~~~~--~~~~~----1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.9.

10.11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.21.

:w

1 Journal of BiologicalChemistryJournal of EconomicEntomology

Bulletin of EnvirnnmentalContamination & Toxicology

*Journal of Fisheries ResearchBoard Canada

Indian Journal of Experi-mental Biology

Biochemica et BiophysicaActa 1947

U.S.A. 47

U.S.A. 29

U.S.A 29

Canada 26

India 25

Netherland 24

U.S.A. ·20

U.S.A. 20

India 17

U.S.A. 15

India 14

Netherlands 14

U.S.A. 13

Canada 12

England 12

U.S.A. 12

India 11

U.S.A. 11

U.S.A. 10

U.S.A. 10

India 10

Note: ".Changed into Journal of Water pollution Control Federation* * Percentage of citations is out of 1292 citations

1905

2 1908

21966

31934

41963

5

6 American Fisheries Society,Transactions 1870

Water Research 19676

7 Indian Journal of EnvironmentalHealth 1959

Science 1880

Current Science 1932

Hydrobiologia 1948

Comparative Biochemistry &Physiology

Canadian Journal of Zoology

Nature

8

9

9

10

11

11

11

1960

1929

1869

12

12

13

13

13

Toxicology & AppliedPharmacology 1959

Geobios 1974

Sewage and Industrial Waste 1921

Marine Biology 1967

Plant Physiology 1926

Indian Academ.y of Science,Proceedings 1934

3.63

2.24

2.24

2.00

1.93

1.86

1.55

1.55

1.32

1.16

1.08

1.08

1.00

0.93

0.93

0.93

0.85

0.85

0.77

0.77

0.77

Ann Lib Sci Doc

CITATION ANALYSIS IN ENVIRONMENTAL BIOLOGY

From Table 10, it can be ascertained thatthe journal entitled Journal of Biological Chemi-stry is the most productive journal having beencited 47 times. There are 274 (57.80%) journalswhich have been cited only once and other76 (16.03%) twice. All these 21 highly citedjournals are in English language, originating fromU.S.A. (11), India (5), Netherlands (2), Canada(2), and England (1).

Self-Citation Pattern

Among the cited literature (1800) of 132research papers 181 (10%) are from the countri-butors' own literature/papers. An analysis of1292 journal citations collected from the

JEB source journal shows that there are onlyfive citations of the source journal. Thus, theself-citing rate of the JEB is very poor, i.e.0.39%. A number of factors may be responsi-ble for this poor self-citing rate of the source

journal, JEB such as,

i)ii)iii)iv)

Currently started journalNon-popularity of the journalQuality of the citing research papersTendency of the contributor(s) to citethe foreign literature.Lack of relevancy among the cit--ing research papers of the journal

(v)

CONCLUSIONS

The foregoing analysis of the Journal of En-vironmental Biology (1980-84) shows that thereis a gradual increase in the number of researchpapers published in the journal every yearand side by side the time lag is also increasing.This represents the growth of the literaturem the subject. If the research papers are publish-ed with a minimal time lag, it would be help-ful to avoid the duplication in research or inother words research-in-parallel and als.. accele-rate the research-in-series. A low cited journalcannot be a core journal of the subject, so forthe same it requires some improvements withregard to nature oCcontribution, time lag,quality of the research paperscetc. The hyper-bolic nature of the Bradford's bibliographrepresents the developed nature of the subject.The self-citing rate of the source journal is a 9.mirror that signified its image over the scienti-

Vol 33 Nos 1-2 Marchj une 1986

fie world. The citation patterns indicate that theliterature in the environmental biology is sowidely scattered that it requires to be coveredby indexing and abstracting services for the bib-liographical control.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I offer my grateful thanks to Mr. S.1. Islam,Senior Documentation Officer, INSOOC, NewDelhi for guidance, encouragement and valuableadvice.

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39

NARENDRA KUMAR

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1400

1200

800

////

//

.-. 1000~-~

40

600

400 Y1

200

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0.4 0.8 1.6 ~2.0 2.4 2.8Log. of Cumulative No. of Journals Log (n)

Fig. 1 : Bradford's Bibliograpli

Ann Lib Sci Doc