Applying diachronic citation analysis to research program evaluations

Diachronic versus synchronous citation analysis methods are discussed in re lation to research evaluation. Using selected results from an online midter m evaluation of nine research centers funded by the Danish Strategic Enviro nmental Research Program (1993-1998), this paper illustrates and discusses the application of five diachronic scientometric indicators. Publication ac tivity, center and program impact factors, impact factors for journals appl ied by the centers, international knowledge export, and the paper-journal i mpact factor correlation are all shown to be well understood by the scienti sts involved. In an informetric sense, the indicators afford robust tools f or providing fair and reliable information on publication behavior and perf ormance. In particular, the paper-journal impact factor correlation, applyi ng the Pearson coefficient, may contribute to further understanding of the probabilities involved in achieving high impact when scientists succeed in publishing in high impact journals. The ISI databases, Science Citation Ind ex and Social Sciences Citation Index, were used in their online versions ( SciSearch and Social SciSearch) provided by Dialog Knight Ridder Informatio n Service.