The General Growth Tendency: A tool to improve publication trend reporting by removing record inflation bias and enabling quantitative trend analysis.

ABSTRACT: The trend of the number of publications on a research field is often used to quantify research interest and effort, but this measure is biased by general publication record inflation. This study introduces a novel metric as an unbiased and quantitative tool for trend analysis and bibliometrics. The metric was used to reanalyze reported publication trends and perform in-depth trend analyses on patent groups and a broad range of field in the life-sciences. The analyses confirmed that inflation bias frequently results in the incorrect identification of field-specific increased growth. It was shown that the metric enables a more detailed, quantitative and robust trend analysis of peer reviewed publications and patents. Some examples of the metric's uses are quantifying inflation-corrected grow

SUBMITTER: Nelis JLD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9122180 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature