A presentation by James Hardcastle at the South African Research: Funder and Policy-maker Rundtable at the CSIR in Pretoria on 20 October 2015.

1. Research trends

2. World research trends
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40% 1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
PercentageofGlobalResearchOutput
USA
China
UK
Germany
Japan
Africa
Data: Thomson Reuters Web of Science

3. South African research output
0.0%
0.1%
0.2%
0.3%
0.4%
0.5%
0.6%
0.7%
0.8%
0.9%
PercentageofWorldResearch
Data: Thomson Reuters Web of Science

4. South African Research Trends
0.0%
0.1%
0.2%
0.3%
0.4%
0.5%
0.6%
0.7%
0.8%
0.9%
PercentageofWorldResearch
Data: Thomson Reuters Web of Science

5. South African Open Access
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
PercentageofContentPublishedinFullOA
Journal
Brazil
South Africa
China
India
Russia
Data: Thomson Reuters Web of Science

6. South African highly cited
research
Data: Thomson Reuters Web of Science
0.0%
0.2%
0.4%
0.6%
0.8%
1.0%
1.2%
1.4%
1.6%
1.8%
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Percernageof"HighlyCited"Output
South Africa
China
Russia
India
Brazil

8. Impact Factors?

9. “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good
measure.”
-Goodhart’s Law
Image : © Ciara McDonnell CC BY

10. Publish good papers.

11. Publish papers in good journals.

12. Publish as many shorter papers as possible in high
impact factor journals regardless of whether or not it’s
the best venue for the research.

13. Image : © Thomas Anderson CC-BY
Metrics in the networked age

14. Image : © NapInterrupted CC-BY

15. Do we need filters?
-
50,000
100,000
150,000
200,000
250,000
-
200,000
400,000
600,000
800,000
1,000,000
1,200,000
1,400,000
1,600,000
1900
1905
1910
1915
1920
1925
1930
1935
1940
1945
1950
1955
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
ArticlesandReviews(SocialScience)
ArticlesandReviews(Science)
Science Citation Index Social Science Citation Index
Data: Thomson Reuters Web of Science

16. Image : © Jason Howie CC-BY

17. Image : © Randel Monroe CC-BY-NC

18. Image : © Julien Haler CC-BY

19. Image: © Carlos José CC BY

20. Abuse of metrics
Image: © HeatSync Labs CC BY

21. • MAP OF SOUTH AFRICA
the South African context

22. South African Journals
• Ulrich’s lists 214 journals published from South
Africa
• DHET lists 273 accredited journals for 2015.

23. South African Journals
Based on Ulrich’s data
• 115 are tracked in altmetric.com
• 105 index in Scopus
• 64 Web of Science
• 41 are in no A&I services.

25. Internet Usage
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
UK USA Russia Brazil South Africa China India
InternetPenetration
Data: Live Internet Stats

26. • Currently tracked news items