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The term "metaverse" first appeared in Neal Stephenson's 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash. It was defined as a virtual environment shared through the Internet in which avatars represent people in three dimensions, and users can build what they wish. Since the publication of Stephenson's novel, technological advances have enabled the creation of several metaverses for widespread usages, such as virtual world platforms like World of Warcraft and Second Life. This paper aims to review studies on the metaverse using bibliometric analysis. The findings include a summary of the most important scientific articles and journals in the subject area and the most prolific and prominent authors, organisations, and nations. Furthermore, keyword co-occurrence analysis revealed the core research clusters and their sub-themes, allowing for more pertinent debates and viewpoints on crucial areas for future research. Finally, the implications for theory and practice have been addressed, offering a comprehensive overview of expected metaverse impacts on industry and society.

Highly cited papers serve as a proxy for excellence. In this paper, we identify Malaysia's highly-cited papers and explore the characteristics of these papers. The research question posed is "What characterizes Malaysian highly cited papers?" This study adopts the definition by Thomson Reuters Essential Science Indicator, i.e. the highly cited papers are papers that received enough citations to be placed in the top 1 percent of the academic field of each 22 subject areas based on a highly cited threshold for the field and publication year. As a small scientific nation, Malaysia has a rather limited number of papers being highly cited, and we observed nine characteristics of highly cited papers based on 708 datasets obtained from the Web of Science. Malaysian highly cited papers are largely represented by articles, but reviews have higher impact. Typically, these papers have a low self-cited index and they are published in the First Quartile of the science discipline publications. The papers are mainly the outcome of national funded research; involve multiple co-authorship and international collaboration; affiliated to Malaysian research universities and Malaysian authors often play a dominant role as first or reprint authors. Partnership with scientists from Iran, Australia and UK may increase markedly the possibility of a Malaysian paper becoming highly cited. This investigation has shown that these are the characteristics of Malaysian highly cited papers, but to what extent can these be used as indicators need further investigation and discussions among the scientific community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citations between scientific papers and related bibliometric indices, such as the h -index for authors and the impact factor for journals, are being increasingly used – often in controversial ways – as quantitative tools for research evaluation. Yet, a fundamental research question remains still open: to which extent do quantitative metrics capture the significance of scientific works? We analyze the network of citations among the 449,935 papers published by the American Physical Society (APS) journals between 1893 and 2009, and focus on the comparison of metrics built on the citation count with network-based metrics. We contrast five article-level metrics with respect to the rankings that they assign to a set of fundamental papers, called Milestone Letters, carefully selected by the APS editors for “making long-lived contributions to physics, either by announcing significant discoveries, or by initiating new areas of research”. A new metric, which combines PageRank centrality with the explicit requirement that paper score is not biased by paper age, is the best-performing metric overall in identifying the Milestone Letters. The lack of time bias in the new metric makes it also possible to use it to compare papers of different age on the same scale. We find that network-based metrics identify the Milestone Letters better than metrics based on the citation count, which suggests that the structure of the citation network contains information that can be used to improve the ranking of scientific publications. The methods and results presented here are relevant for all evolving systems where network centrality metrics are applied, for example the World Wide Web and online social networks. An interactive Web platform where it is possible to view the ranking of the APS papers by rescaled PageRank is available at the address http://www.sciencenow.info . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the so-called abnormal phenomenon of delayed recognition in bibliometrics and focuses on the first step in quantitatively measuring this phenomenon. As bibliometric analysis of a paper’s recognition and influence is an uncertain and extended process, proper calculation of delayed recognition and “sleeping beauty” publications has limitations in current scientometric studies, such as restricted application indicators, scope, and complex calculation methods. This study suggests a solution for depicting the citation delay phenomenon of individual papers that avoids dividing them into different periods, is applicable to all papers with various types of citation curves, and is easy to calculate. Notably, this approach advocates using an uneven weighted summation based on earlier and later citation years when analyzing an individual paper’s citation data. It demonstrates that the intrinsic relation between two independent indicators of citation delay and Gs index is based on the same logic of applying uneven weights to sum up yearly citations. This paper also recommends that simultaneous application of the new indicator D a and final citation numbers can efficiently identify those delayed recognition papers, and that the criterion for selecting papers can be adjusted by the value of a . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to explore up to seven parameters related to the methodological quality and reproducibility of thematic bibliometric research published in the two most productive journals in bibliometrics, Sustainability (a journal outside the discipline) and Scientometrics, the flagship journal in the field. The study identifies the need for developing tailored tools for improving the quality of thematic bibliometric analyses, and presents a framework that can guide the development of such tools. A total of 508 papers are analysed, 77% of Sustainability, and 23% published in Scientometrics, for the 2019-2021 period. An average of 2.6 shortcomings per paper was found for the whole sample, with an almost identical number of flaws in both journals. Sustainability has more flaws than Scientometrics in four of the seven parameters studied, while Scientometrics has more shortcomings in the remaining three variables. The first limitation of this work is that it is a study of two scientific journals, so the results cannot be directly extrapolated to the set of thematic bibliometric analyses published in journals from all fields. We propose the adoption of protocols, guidelines, and other similar tools, adapted to bibliometric practice, which could increase the thoroughness, transparency, and reproducibility of this type of research. These results show considerable room for improvement in terms of the adequate use and breakdown of methodological procedures in thematic bibliometric research, both in journals in the Information Science area and journals outside the discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of retracted papers from Chinese university-affiliated hospitals is increasing, which has raised much concern. The aim of this study is to analyze the retracted papers from university-affiliated hospitals in mainland China from 2000 to 2021. Data for 1,031 retracted papers were identified from the Web of Science Core collection database. The information of the hospitals involved was obtained from their official websites. We analyzed the chronological changes, journal distribution, discipline distribution and retraction reasons for the retracted papers. The grade and geographic locations of the hospitals involved were explored as well. We found a rapid increase in the number of retracted papers, while the retraction time interval is decreasing. The main reasons for retraction are plagiarism/self-plagiarism (n=255), invalid data/images/conclusions (n=212), fake peer review (n=175) and honesty error(n=163). The disciplines are mainly distributed in oncology (n=320), pharmacology & pharmacy (n=198) and research & experimental medicine (n=166). About 43.8% of the retracted papers were from hospitals affiliated with prestigious universities. This study fails to differentiate between retractions due to honest error and retractions due to research misconduct. We believe that there is a fundamental difference between honest error retractions and misconduct retractions. Another limitation is that authors of the retracted papers have not been analyzed in this study. This study provides a reference for addressing research misconduct in Chinese university-affiliated hospitals. It is our recommendation that universities and hospitals should educate all their staff about the basic norms of research integrity, punish authors of scientific misconduct retracted papers, and reform the unreasonable evaluation system. Based on the analysis of retracted papers, this study further analyzes the characteristics of institutions of retracted papers, which may deepen the research on retracted papers and provide a new perspective to understand the retraction phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For data information scientists, librarians and academics alike, it is a worrisome sign when information or a file opaquely disappears from the body of scientific literature, even more so when it carries a digital object identifier (DOI). This is because the DOI typically offers a published paper a form of digital permanence. Preprints are being increasingly fused into the publication stream, serving as a prelude to submission to a peer-reviewed journal. One of the main preprint servers is Elsevier's SSRN. This paper, a rare case study, describes three preprints by the same authors related to peer review that were withdrawn (i.e., retracted). Apart from a short notice with identical text ("This paper has been removed from SSRN at the request of the author, SSRN, or the rights holder"), no date of the withdrawals and no explanation were publicly provided. Following queries to the authors and SSRN, the three preprints were reinstated around February 2023. Finally, the original title of two of the preprints was manipulated in the reinstated preprints. This historical case study not only highlights the risks of opaque preprint withdrawals, but also the ease with which information on preprint servers (in this case SSRN) can be modified and/or manipulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: Over the last few decades, gut microbiota research has been the focus of intense research and this field has become particularly important. This research aimed to provide a quantitative evaluation of the 100 most-cited articles on gut microbiota and IBS and highlight the most important advances in this field. Methods: The database Web of Science Core Collection was used to download the bibliometric information the top 100 most-cited papers. Microsoft Excel 2021, CiteSpace, VOSviewer, R software, and an online analytical platform (https://bibliometric.com/) were was applied to perform bibliometric analysis of these papers. Results: The total citation frequency in the top 100 article ranged from 274 to 2324, with an average citation of 556.57. A total of 24 countries/regions made contributions to the top 100 cited papers, and USA, Ireland, and China were the most top three productive countries. Cryan JF was the most frequently nominated author, and of the top 100 articles, 20 listed his name. Top-cited papers mainly came from the Gastroenterology (n = 13, citations = 6373) and Gut (n = 9, citations = 3903). There was a significant citation path, indicating publications in molecular/biology/immunology primarily cited journals in molecular/biology/genetics fields. Keywords analysis suggested that the main topics on gut microbiota and IBS were mechanisms of microbiome in brain-gut axis." Behavior" was the keyword with the strongest burst strength (2.36), followed by "anxiety like behavior" (2.24), "intestinal microbiota" (2.19), and "chain fatty acid" (1.99), and "maternal separation" (1.95). Conclusion: This study identified and provided the bibliometric information of the top 100 cited publications related to gut microbiota and IBS. The results provided a general overview of this topic and might help researchers to better understand the evolution, Influential findings and hotspots in researching gut microbiota and IBS, thus providing new perspectives and novel research ideas in this specific area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the COVID-19 pandemic prevails, research related to COVID-19 has spread beyond medicine, health science, and biology to almost all academic fields. Library and information science is one of the most active fields that publish COVID-19-related research papers. This study examined 696 research papers related to COVID-19 whose journal being categorized as "information science & library science" by Web of Science. The result of bibliometric analysis showed that the publications were active and on the rise. Most papers were published in English and produced in the United States. According to the keyword clustering map produced by semantic network analysis, two fields, bibliometrics and health communication, were publishing research papers related to COVID-19 most actively. Moreover, the most productive journal was a library and information science journal focusing on health informatics. Additionally, a tendency was found that researchers preferred to publish on journals with high impact factors. Compared with non-COVID-19-related research papers, there was a significant decrease of "time for acceptance" of COVID-19-related papers, and the proportion of open access was relatively high. Confronting the global crisis of COVID-19, the library and information science field also made efforts and challenges to resolve the slow peer-review, delayed publishing, and high paywalls, which have been recognized as a "chronic diseases" of the academic publishing ecosystem. It is expected that these endeavors can serve as a turning point to reconsider and innovate the traditional research-publishing lifecycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blended learning is a set of pedagogical strategies and practices that are closely related to the emergence of new technologies in society and in higher education. They are characterized by a combination of face-to-face and online learning that integrates a variety of materials in the teaching and learning process. The aim of our research was to analyze scientific production on this topic using two prestigious international databases: Scopus and Web of Science (WOS). A bibliometric study was conducted on 508 papers, and content analysis was performed on 119 openly accessible publications. Results show that blended learning is being applied in all scientific and professional spheres. This learning model is praised for its positive impact on motivation and learning effectiveness, as well as for promoting student autonomy. With respect to content, it is worth noting that many authors observe that methodological success is related to cultural context and access to devices and materials. Furthermore, it is suggested that greater methodological diversity is preferable to a single hegemonic approach. In short, the present paper contributes to the educational community by shedding light on how blended learning is being implemented and its impact on higher education.

Quantum physics is an essential field of science education research, which reflects the high relevance of research on quantum physics and its technologies all around the globe. In this paper, we report on a bibliometric analysis of the science education research community's scientific output in the area of quantum physics in the period from 2000 to 2021. A total of 1520 articles published in peer-reviewed physics and science education journals were retrieved from Web of Science and Scopus databases to conduct bibliometric analysis. This study aims to provide an overview of quantum physics education research in terms of scientific production, preferred publication venues, most involved researchers and countries (including collaborations), and research topics. The main findings point to a continuous increase in research output in the field of quantum physics education over the last two decades. Furthermore, they indicate a shift regarding the research foci. While formerly mainly papers on the teaching of quantum physics content were published, recently, an increase in the relevancy of empirical studies on the teaching and learning of quantum physics can be observed.

The growth in education, research, and development in developing economies cannot be compared with their developed counterparts. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), which have played a key role in nations' socio-economic development, can leverage developing economies. The International Journal of Education and Development using Information and Communication Technology (IJEDICT) emerged to promote research and development using ICT in developing nations. The emergence has, over the years, churned out significant scientific publications. This review intends to commemorate the late IJEDICT founding editor and investigate the contribution of academic papers published in the journal to develop education using ICT in developing countries and the thematic growth of the publication forum. The paper presents a bibliometric content analysis of 692 studies published in IJEDICT from inception, 2005 until January 2021. Findings from this review suggest useful implications for researchers, ICT managers, institutions, policymakers, and nations.

In this paper, we use the field of Health and Physical Education (H/PE) to explain the limitations, nuances, and inconsistencies of three global, digitally available, and regularly updated systems: library holdings, metrics, and altmetrics. We understand these systems through the analogy of seeing different vistas of a landscape when driving a car: looking in the rear-view mirror (i.e. library holdings as past indicators of quality) and out the side windows (i.e. metrics and altmetrics as current indicators). Before examining these measures, we acknowledge the neoliberal audit culture and outline our understanding of the H/PE 'field'. To identify H/PE journals, we searched databases, websites, and literature, generating a list of 202 potentially relevant journals. After three rounds of refinement, 13 journals remained that: (1) focused on health and/or physical education as a school subject (including H/PE teacher education), (2) had official metrics, and (3) self-identified as 'Social Sciences-Education' and had more than 20% of the papers in the last two volumes focus on H/PE. For each of these journals, we provide the WorldCat library holdings, metrics (i.e. Journal Impact Factor, Journal h-index, CiteScore, SCImago Journal Rank, and Source Normalized Impact per Paper), and altmetrics. We explain how to understand these measures, as well as their contested, problematic and, often, confusing dimensions. Overall, we argue that it is crucial for scholars to understand these measures so that they can critically reflect on how measurement shapes their research and professional lives.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) plays an increasingly important role in language education; however, the trends, research issues, and applications of AI in language learning remain largely under-investigated. Accordingly, the present paper, using bibliometric analysis, investigates these issues via a review of 516 papers published between 2000 and 2019, focusing on how AI was integrated into language education. Findings revealed that the frequency of studies on AI-enhanced language education increased over the period. The USA and Arizona State University were the most active country and institution, respectively. The 10 most popular topics were: (1) automated writing evaluation; (2) intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) for reading and writing; (3) automated error detection; (4) computer-mediated communication; (5) personalized systems for language learning; (6) natural language and vocabulary learning; (7) web resources and web-based systems for language learning; (8) ITS for writing in English for specific purposes; (9) intelligent tutoring and assessment systems for pronunciation and speech training; and (10) affective states and emotions. The results also indicated that AI was frequently used to assist students in learning writing, reading, vocabulary, grammar, speaking, and listening. Natural language processing, automated speech recognition, and learner profiling were commonly applied to develop automated writing evaluation, personalized learning, and intelligent tutoring systems.

Compare is a leading journal in the comparative and international education research field. To assess this journal's productivity and influence, we conducted a bibliometric analysis of 428 papers published in Compare between 2010 and 2019. The findings show that in the past decade, Compare experienced significant growth in the number of publications and citations. This growth primarily stemmed from England, which yielded over half of the top 20 most productive authors and institutions. Among the numerous research topics discussed in Compare, the disciplinary development of comparative and international education, the internationalisation of education, gender studies in education, and citizenship education were the most frequently addressed. A detailed analysis of these four topics reveals that despite having published many papers falling within the scope of international education, Compare is encouraged to publish more papers about this subfield in the post-COVID-19 era.

A major admissions reform was carried out in Finnish higher education at the end of the last decade. This paper focuses on three main policy papers connected to the reform and examines the use and production of evidence therein. Drawing on bibliometric research and research on educational policy, we aim to provide insight into how to utilize citation analysis when examining evidence in educational policymaking. In the three policy papers, domestic legislature was cited the most frequently, and research from higher education institutions was cited the least. Affirmational citations were the most prominent; perfunctory, assumptive, conceptual, persuasive, contrastive, and negational citations were found to a lesser extent. When cross-examined in relation to citation types, sources were mostly cited as affirmational, with the exception of research from higher education institutions, which was cited as conceptual information. We also found that the writers cited their own previously written ministry-affiliated policy brief as central information in one of the policy papers connected to the reform. Our study is in line with the earlier literature showing that certain sources, such as domestic publications, are favoured over others. It also illustrates the different citation strategies experts employ to substantiate and legitimize educational policymaking.

The term "gamification" was introduced in 2002 and used in business education to enhance the teaching and learning process and connect students with the real world of business. This research aims to review gamification in business education using visualizing bibliometric networks analysis. A total of 343 Scopus-indexed research papers published from 2012 to 2022 were analyzed related to the use of gamification in business education, both teaching and learning, as well as training. In addition, the analysis of research papers also covers the use of gamification in teaching business-related subjects in other specializations.

The purpose of this paper was to verify the use of organisational culture and strategic management in the public sector, specifically in school management. To do this, a systematic literature was used. As a result, we presented a survey of the papers on the state of the art of the subject and analysed the heterogeneity of the returned papers. In addition, we analysed 348 papers presenting the search strings on the Web of Science and Scopus, the increase in the theme in recent years, the number of authors, the countries of the researchers, the research approaches, and the word cloud of returned themes. We also made a preliminary bibliometric analysis. We concluded the importance of a systematic review to point out a research gap and provided a systematic review protocol for the area and related research.

This paper is a bibliometric overview and evaluation of peer-reviewed articles on governance in higher education. The study uses meta-data from the Scopus journal repository, retrieved using relevant keywords. We analyse the data in VOSviewer software. A content analysis of selected papers is undertaken to comprehend the thematic focus of the knowledge domain. Results show that the field of this research topic has grown exponentially both qualitatively and quantitatively. The conceptual dynamics of the literature unfold the multidimensionality of the topic of this inquiry. Our significant contributions are the scholarly audit of higher education governance research and the identification of several structured research questions for future investigations. This is a maiden attempt to employ bibliometric and content analysis for science mapping and qualitative review in the topic of inquiry.

Purpose: This research study aims to capture the movement of research focus and to highlight notable authors, journals and documents on teachers' satisfaction from 1956 to 2022. Design/methodology/approach: This paper analyzed the bibliographic metadata associated with 720 Clarivate Web of Science indexed articles on this topic, using descriptive, co-occurrence and thematic analyses. Findings: The study first identified the growth trajectory of literature on this topic over time and found a steady increasement since 2016. The findings also revealed four sub-topics that scholars often investigate when studying teachers' satisfaction, which are: leadership, engagement, self-efficacy and retention, as well as the scholars' research focus on those sub-topics across different periods. In recent years, scholars have been paying more attention to exploring the influence of various leadership styles and teachers' professional identities on job satisfaction. Originality/value: This paper is the first bibliometric review on this topic. The results of this study showed that there was little collaboration between authors across countries and territories. Therefore, there is a considerable demand for comparative studies on this topic, which can expose untapped insights from various cultures and societies. Finally, by featuring the most influential authors, documents and journals on teachers' satisfaction, this work might serve as an introduction for scholars who are new to this topic.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been widely explored across the world over the past decades. A particularly emerging topic is the application of AI in e-learning (AIeL) to improve the effectiveness of teaching and learning in precision education. This study aims to systematically review publication patterns for AIeL research with a focus on leading journals, countries, disciplines, and applications. In addition, a co-citation network analysis was conducted to explore the invisible relationships among the core papers of AIeL to reveal directions for future research. The analysis is based on a total of 86 core AIeL papers accompanied by 1149 citations in follow-up studies obtained from the Web of Science. It was found that a majority of AIeL studies focused on the development and applications of intelligent tutoring systems, followed by using AI to facilitate assessment and evaluation in e-learning contexts. For field researchers, the visualized network diagram serves as a map to explore the invisible relationships among the core AIeL research, providing a structural understanding of AI-supported research in e-learning contexts. A further investigation of the follow-up studies behind the highly co-cited links revealed the extended research directions from the AIeL mainstreams, such as adaptive learning-based evaluation environments. Implications are discussed.

Purpose: Employability has long been a concern of scholars because of its complicated nature and changes in the requirements in labor markets to meet the new requirements of the Industrial Revolution 4.0 and globalization. However, there has not yet been much systematic investigation of the existing literature tracing the trends, changes and developments in employability research. This paper aims to fill this void by analyzing data obtained from the Scopus dataset from 1972 to 2019. Design/methodology/approach: A total of 1,703 Scopus-indexed articles were filtered from 7,885 documents. The results reflect a rapidly emerging literature on employability, given the worldwide interest in this topic. Using descriptive statistics and bibliometric analyses, the review identified trends in employability research, whose impact has been sustained for several decades. Findings: With science mapping, the conceptual structure of scientific disciplines was visualized, highlighting three main schools of thought including employers' requirements and higher education institutions' preparation; the antecedents of employability; and the role of work-integrated learning in enhancing employability. Originality/value: The paper calls for more integrative research focusing on personal agency with the development of career paths inside organizations as well as for a more focus on a multilevel perspective exploring both individuals' and organizations' perceptions.

With the continuous reform of the education curriculum, the focus of the curriculum is to provide personal and social needs-related knowledge. In the teaching process for this type of knowledge, the cultivation of students' higher-order thinking has aroused widespread concern in the education field. In this paper, CiteSpace and HistCite bibliometric methods are utilized to analyse the higher-order thinking literature in the core collection of Web of Science. Through an analysis of the number of articles, the research topic words and the countries from which the papers were sent, the overall characteristics of international higher-order thinking research are summarized. The primary finding of this research is that the field of higher-order thinking is on the rise. Secondary findings are the focus of higher-order thinking research, which can be divided into four aspects: higher-order thinking ability, instruction of higher-order thinking, the curriculum and sections of higher-order thinking, and higher-order thinking learning. In short, this research helps researchers understand the development of higher-order thinking, provides a theoretical foundation and an entry point for research directions, and not only provides meaningful and valuable references for follow-up related research but also promotes the development of higher-order thinking practice.

Qualitative education is one of the key contributors in achieving the goal of sustainability. Several studies mention that the sustainability curriculum and educators can play an immense role in developing awareness in practicing the concept of sustainability. Relatively there is no comprehensive study to typify the recent contributions of teacher education for sustainability. In this light, the aim of the study is to understand the progress of the research on teacher education for sustainability (TES) in terms of growth, evolution, influence and significant research themes. To achieve the aim of the study, 1782 documents indexed in the Scopus database over three decades starting from 1991 to 2020 were analyzed by using bibliometric analysis. The data are visualized in the paper by using VOSviewer and Tableau. Results show that there has been a significant increase in yearly publications and citations over the years, trending research papers, productive authors, institutions and countries and thematic areas of research. Most frequently published journal has a considerable cite score and quartile. Universities from Australia published the most. The most commonly published themes are education for sustainability, Agenda 21, sustainable development education, environmental education, and later the focus is shifted to teacher training, teachers, education, values, teaching and education policy, sustainability competencies. Future research should focus on blended learning, digital learning, other modern tools and techniques to achieve the goal of sustainable development as well as to address the issue of teaching sustainability during uncertainty conditions.