Comparison between Korean and foreign authors concerning the citation impact of Korean journals indexed in Scopus

Abstract

Purpose: An aim of this study is to analyze the citation impact of articles and reviews that were published in engineering, materials science, and medical journals in Korea over the 5-year period from 2012 to 2016 based on authors' countries. These three subject areas were selected to provide insights regarding citation impact because they are better represented than other subjects among the 248 Korean journals indexed by Scopus. Methods: We classified authors as Korean and foreign to assess and compare the citation impact of articles and reviews according to the authors' countries and evaluated whether bibliometric indicators, such as the number of authors and the view count, were associated with a higher citation impact. Results: We found that the citations count and publications in the top 10 citation percentile in these three subject areas were higher for reviews than for articles; further, the citation impact of articles and reviews by foreign authors was higher than that of articles and reviews by Korean authors. The number of authors had a weak relationship with citation impact based on the subject area, and the number of authors per review by foreign authors in materials science and medicine was negatively associated with citation impact. Moreover, the views count was found to be positively associated with the citation impact of publications in these three subject areas. Conclusion: Considering these findings, future research should explore more bibliometric indicators, subject areas, and countries in order to develop practical applications. The results of this study provide insights and statistical evidence indicating that journal publishers and editors in Korea should attempt to attract more publications by foreign authors and promote their publications to increase their visibility and likelihood of being cited.