Page 30 - Becoming Metric Wise

19
Scientific Research and Communication

Discovery: the h-index (see Section 7.3);
Discoverer: Hirsch (2005);
Category of discovery: charge.
• Problem: finding a regularity in the scattering of scientific knowledge
about a topic;
Discovery: Bradford’s law of scattering (see Subsection 9.3.2);
Discoverer: Bradford (1934);
Category of discovery: chance (because he was actually searching for a
way to compile a complete bibliography).
• Problem: proving the mathematical equivalence of the bibliometric laws;
Discovery: a mathematical proof (see Subsection 9.3.2);
Discoverer: Egghe (1985, 1990, 2005), based on partial work and sug-
gestions of others, such as Fairthorne (1969), Yablonsky (1980), and
Bookstein (1976, 1979, 1984);
Category of discovery: challenge.
• Problem: explanation of the ubiquity of Lotka’s law (power laws);
Discovery: success-breeds-success (see Subsection 9.3.2);
Discoverer: de Solla Price (1976);
Category of discovery: charge, as it was an application of Simon’s
work (Simon, 1957) and the Yule process (Yule, 1925).
• Problem: a representation of relations between scientific authors;
Discovery: author cocitation analysis (see Subsection 5.10.3);
Discoverers: White and Griffith (1981);
Category of discovery: charge.
• Problem: structure of inlinks on the Web
Discovery: it follows a power law (5Lotka’s law);
Discoverer: Rousseau (1997b, small sample); Michalis, Petros, and
Christos Faloutsos (1999, large scale);
Category of discovery: chance (Rousseau); charge (or chance?)
(Faloutsos).
Besides through discoveries, applied fields such as scientometrics make
progress through developments such as, e.g., the Social SCI which was
developed based on the SCI.

2.2.2 Replication Research
We add a few words on the opposite of scientific discoveries, namely
replication research. First we make a distinction between replication and
validation studies. A replication study in the proper sense means that one