Conference proceedings publications in bibliographic databases: a case study of countries in Southeast Asia

Scientometrics, vol. 126, pp. 355–387

Abstract

Abstract Leading citation databases have made concerted efforts to reflect academic conference contributions in the form of proceedings papers in their databases. We studied global trends and a regional case study to determine the relative representation of conference proceedings in the global scholarly literature using the Web of Science, Scopus, and Dimensions. We designed our case study of ten Southeast Asian countries to uncover conspicuous publishing patterns obscured by global average figures. As a result, we discovered that Indonesia alone has made a recent and remarkable shift towards conference proceedings publishing. This trend was not the result of expanding database coverage but may be linked to a rapid increase in conferences locally hosted in Indonesia. The conclusion suggests that conference proceedings are increasingly indexed by major databases, and that scholars might have found advantage in publishing conference papers that were quicker and easier to publish than journal articles or book chapters. Our study is relevant to policy makers in the area of research evaluation because it highlights potential changes in academic publishing behaviour by those being assessed.

Authors 1

1. Philip J. Purnell corresponding Aachen Centre for Science and Technology Studies

   Leiden University · United Arab Emirates University

   Affiliation as printed

   Centre for Science and Technology Studies, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

   United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, UAE

   Centre for Science and Technology Studies, Leiden University, P.O. Box 905, 2300 AX, Leiden, The Netherlands