Have academics’ citation patterns changed with the rise of world university rankings?
Academics may actively respond to the expectations of the academic status market, which have largely been shaped by the World University Rankings (WURs). The study by Soo, Schneijderberg, Kim, and Steinhardt empirically examines how academics’ citation patterns have changed in response to the rise of an “evaluation environment” in academia. The authors regard word university rankings to be a macro-level trigger for cementing a bibliometric-based evaluation environment in academia. As an outcome they identified journal impact factors and third-party funding as factors influencing first-citation probability, while other author- and paper-related factors showed limited effects. They also found that the general effects of different factors on first-citation speeds have changed with the emergence of the WURs.
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