Multi-query center: Longitudinal data

Publish or Perish tutorial

Anne-Wil Harzing - Sat 6 Feb 2016 16:10 (updated Thu 2 Jun 2022 10:48)

Note: This tutorial was originally written for Publish or Perish version 4 and all screenshots come from this version. Later versions of Publish or Perish show the multi-query center at the top of every screen for easier access. Its basic functions are similar to PoP4, however.

The Publish or Perish Multi-query center is also very useful if you want to run the same query periodically to compare metrics over time.

Copy queries before re-running them

In order to ensure you keep the results of older queries intact, you need to copy the query and run the copied query again. If you run the original query again, the old results will be replaced by the new data.

Worked example: longitudinal author search

I have a folder in which I keep monthly queries for my own name since May 2013. Longitudinal results for individuals might be important to establish progress for a tenure, promotion, or grant application.

Longitudinal searches for growth of research area

However, longitudinal searches can also serve many other purposes, such as the growth of publications in a particular research area or the development of impact of particular journals over time.

Longitudinal data illustrate differences in research metrics

Longitudinal data also allow us to illustrate the features of different research metrics. In the author example above, you can clearly see how the number of citations increases quite rapidly. In contrast, the h-index, the g-index and the hI,norm increase at a slow but steady rate. The number of citations per year also increases, but takes a small dip every January when the year is increased by 1.

hI,annual metrics tends to be fairly stable over time

In contrast, the hI,annual is quite stable over time, dipping every January when the year is increased by 1, gradually rising again over the year as the hI,norm increases and then dipping again in January. This show clearly that it is very hard to substantially increase the hI,annual and that even maintaining it needs a steady increase in the hI,norm to counteract the natural decline over the years.

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The development of the Publish or Perish software is a volunteering effort that has been ongoing since 2006. Download and use of Publish or Perish is and will remain free (gratis), but your support toward the costs of hosting, bandwidth, and software development are appreciated. Your support helps further development of Publish or Perish for new data sources and additional features.

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PS: If you are using Publish or Perish on a regular basis, please take 5 minutes to provide me with some feedback.