Identifying Experts and Reviewers via Citation Analysis
The latest update to “PURE suggest” (v0.8.0), introduces new features that expand its utility, enabling users to gain insights into the principal authors within a given literature collection.
Use Cases
Anyone who has served on an editorial board can attest to the difficulty of finding suitable reviewers for publications. One common strategy is to examine the references provided by the authors and identify the most frequently cited authors. However, manually sifting through these references can be a tedious process that often fails to provide a comprehensive overview. There’s a tendency to gravitate towards familiar, prominent names, but these individuals are regularly inundated with review requests and may not be available.
This scenario is not unique to the search for publication reviewers. Similar challenges arise when seeking experts for various purposes, such as inviting a keynote speaker for a conference, identifying a potential thesis supervisor, and so on. The risk here is the inadvertent exclusion of less well-known but equally competent individuals in favor of more recognized experts.
The New Author List Feature
“PURE suggest” now offers a more data-driven approach to identifying potential experts and uncovering hidden connections within the academic landscape. By harnessing the power of citation analysis, the tool ensures a more balanced and inclusive consideration of qualified individuals. It allows users to rapidly compile a collection of pertinent literature by adding publications to a selected list. The novel feature is its ability to display the most frequently cited authors from the selected publications. This feature can be accessed by clicking on the authors icon located at the top of the selected publications list.
The resulting list ranks authors from the most frequently included to the least, providing a snapshot of their influence within the selected literature. It offers brief statistics on the number of publications and the time range they span. The tool maps user-provided boost keywords to the authors, helping to identify their specific areas of expertise. A list of co-authors is also provided, offering insights into collaborative relationships.
Additionally, we have implemented simple heuristics to disambiguate author names that may appear in different spellings, ensuring they do not appear as separate entries.
Identifying an Expert: A Step-by-Step Guide
Utilizing the new feature in “PURE suggest”, we propose the following workflow for identifying an expert in a specific area:
- Search and Select Central Publications: Begin by searching for and selecting key publications related to the paper under review or a specific topic of interest.
- Define Keywords: Establish boost keywords to guide the search in a desired direction. These should be closely related to the topic of interest.
- Expand the Collection: Gradually expand the collection by adding a few more publications until you have a list of approximately 15 to 30 relevant publications.
- Open the Author List: Access the author list and review the most frequently selected authors. Here are a few things to consider:
a) Latest Publication Year: The year of the most recent publication may indicate whether the author is still active in the field.
b) Keyword Matches: Matching keywords can help determine the author’s specific subtopic of expertise.
c) Co-authors: The list of co-authors can reveal clusters of collaboration, providing alternative candidates with similar expertise.
d) Check for Potential Conflicts: If you are searching for reviewers, cross-check the co-author list of each potential candidate with the list of authors to avoid any conflicts of interest.
This might sound like some effort, but typically only takes a few minutes, while at the same time ensuring a more balanced and inclusive consideration of qualified individuals.
