Evolution and effect of meeting abstracts in JCR journals

Abstract

The purpose of the present study is to analyse the presence and evolution in the last 13 years of the document type “Meeting Abstract” in the database where they are best represented, i.e. in the Web of Science Core Collection. We have also studied in which categories and in which type of journals they have a significant presence.

Frequency analyses of meeting abstracts (absolute and ratios) were performed on years, indexes, categories and topics variables, and the Impact Factor was calculated without the citations obtained by the meeting abstracts.

The results obtained show that in disciplines such as Clinical Medicine, Neuroscience & Behavior. and Biology & Biochemistry, they play a very important role due to both their number and the number of attracted citations, and that they are regularly published in top journals, including Q1 according to the Journal of Citation Reports. Our results also corroborate the hypothesis that they inflate the Impact Factor and therefore are one of the reasons for the high absolute values of this indicator in categories like Oncology and Hematology.

This study is of great relevance for researchers and policymakers, because it helps to identify in which disciplines Meeting Abstracts have relevance and they should be considered for the calculation of indicators in bibliometric practices, and opens the door to research into their relationship with other documentary typologies within the social processes of scientific communication in different sciences.