A Study of Citing Patterns of Korean Scientists on Korean Journals

Abstract

A large and reliable citation database is necessary to identify and analyze citation behavior of Korean researchers in science and technology. Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI) built the Korea Science Citation Database (KSCD), and have provided Korea Science Citation Index (KSCI) and Korea Journal Citation Reports (KJCR) services. In this article, citing behavior of Korean scientists on Korean journals was examined by using the KSCD that covers 459 Korean core journals. This research dealt with (1) statistical numeric information of journals in KSCD, (2) analysis of document types cited, (3) ratio of domestic to international documents cited and ratio of citing different disciplines, (4) analysis on immediacy index, peak time, and half-life of cited documents, and (5) analysis on impact of journals based on KJCR citation indicators. From this research, we could find the immediacy citation rate (average 2.36%), peak-time (average 1.7 years) and half-life (average 5.2 years) of cited journals in Korea. We also found that the average journal self-citation rate is more than 50% in every field. In sum, citing behavior of Korean scientists on Korean journals was comprehensively identified from this research.