The National Science Foundation (NSF)'s Division of Science Resource Statistics has reportedly produced a quantitative study of the trends and patterns of US journal articles from the past 15 years. The move follows the observation that the need for increased collaboration and research costs have resulted in a plateauing of the number of science and engineering journal articles from the US since the 1990s.
The first study of this three-part effort, 'Changing US Output of Scientific Articles 1988-2003', takes a quantitative look at the science and engineering article output of the world's four major scientific publishing centres - the US, the EU-15, Japan and East Asia. Also, this section looks at the breakdown of national publishing counts within different sectors in science and engineering.
The second article, 'The Changing Research and Publication Environment in American Research Universities', is a qualitative report. It comprises interviews with researchers and administrators across a wide spectrum of disciplines at nine major research universities in Massachusetts California, North Carolina and Illinois.
According to the study, while the number of journal articles published is an indicator of research output, it may be an admittedly imperfect one. There are many other ways scientists distribute research today, including databases and online archives. Although these modes of storing information are expensive to produce, they are very important and useful to researchers. Another large factor affecting research paper counts may be certain policies at research institutions. US researchers interviewed for the study see less of a focus on quantitative output measures at their universities than at institutions in other countries. The focus at US universities seems to be based more on quality, not quantity.
The NSF plans to release a third report in the series that will explore the inputs and outputs of research and funding. It hopes to determine which of these factors is most relevant to the overall trend towards the plateauing of journal article numbers in the US.
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