Correlation analysis for comparison of the citation impact of journals, magazines, and conferences in computer science

Purpose – In many research areas, there are a variety of different types of academic publications, including journals, magazines and conferences, which provide outlets for researchers to present their findings. Generally speaking, although there are differences in the reviewing criteria and publication processes of different publication types, in the same research area, there is certainly overlap in terms of the problems addressed and the audience for different publication types. Therefore, the research impacts of different publication types in the same research area should be moderately or highly correlated. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – To prove this hypothesis, the authors examine the correlation coefficient of citation impacts for different types of publications, in seven research areas of computer science, from 2000 to 2013. In particular, four related citation statistics are examined for each publication type, which are average citations per paper, average citations per year, average annual increase in individual h-index, and h-index. Findings – The analysis results show only a partial correlation in terms of several specific citation measures for different publication types in the same research area. Moreover, the level of correlation of the citation impact between different publication types is different, depending on the research area. Originality/value – The contribution of this paper is to investigate whether the research impact of different types of publications in the same area is correlated. The findings can help guide researchers and academics choose the most appropriate publication outlets.