A Study of Indian Theses on Applied Bibliometrics, Informetrics, Scientometrics and Citation analysis

Abstract

Metric studies of scientific literature like bibliometrics and scientometrics are popular among the researchers in library and information science. The authors of this paper identified the theses in these subject fields which had used the principles of metric studies in India. Majority of theses was found from the Indian database of theses known as Shodhganga and rest from various credible sources. The authors also describe the challenges they faced while accessing data from Shodhganga and suggest possible solutions. 604 theses on the metric studies were identified and analysed for their metadata. Metric studies are showing generally an upward trend among the recent years, especially in the last decade. Tamil Nadu, southern most Indian state was found to be the most productive among the theses on metric studies. Universities from the same state seem to compete among themselves producing theses. Most productive research supervisors who guided the research theses were also identified. Different types of metric studies are also evaluated and their relationships are also explained.