Disruptive papers published in Scientometrics: meaningful results by using an improved variant of the disruption index originally proposed by Wu, Wang, and Evans (2019)

Abstract

Wu et al. (Nature 566:378–382, 2019) introduced a new indicator measuring disruption (DI1). Bornmann et al. (Do disruption index indicators measure what they propose to measure? The comparison of several indicator variants with assessments by peers, 2019. https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.08775) compared variants of the disruption index and pointed to DI5 as an interesting variant. The calculation of a field-specific version of DI5 (focusing on disruptiveness within the same field) for Scientometrics papers in the current study reveals that the variant is possibly able to identify landmark papers in scientometrics. This result is in contrast to the Scientometrics analysis previously published by Bornmann and Tekles (Scientometrics 120(1):331–336, 2019) based on the original disruption index (DI1).