Global research studies on “electronic journals” during 1990-2017: A scientometric study

Abstract

A quantitative and qualitative description of global research in “electronic journals” on a series of measures such as annual growth, global publications share, citations per paper, international collaborative papers, relative citation index, and activity index is presented. The study sourced data from SCOPUS database covering the period 1990-2017. Global research in the subject registered a fast 18.46 per cent publications growth, low-level citation rate of 5.28 citations per paper, and contributed just 26 highly cited papers during the period. The paper also describes the characteristics of highly cited papers in the subject. The study finds that the USA is the world leader with highest (45.28 %) global publications share in the subject, followed by U.K. (12.18 %), India (5.49 %), etc. Secondly, the distribution of research across contributing organisations is of most scattered type. For instance, top 20 organisations in the subject contributed just a small 16.58 per cent global publications share during the period. The study concludes that the ‘electronic journals’ as an area of research is still in its nascent stage of growth and development both in terms of quality and quantity of research.