International visibility of Argentinian scientific output in SSCI and A & HCI databases in 1990-2000: a bibliometric study

Abstract

Results of research on Social Sciences and Humanities are published in a wide variety of document types and have a more restricted scope than those derived from research in Natural and Experimental Sciences. Therefore, building up bibliometric indicators, useful for the analysis and evaluation of that type of research as well as for establishing comparative studies at the international level, becomes a hard task. Our study constitutes one of the first attempts to explore the research carried out on Social Sciences and Humanities in Argentina during a ten-year period (1990-2000). The indicators employed, based on counting publications covered by the Social Sciences Citation Index and the Arts & Humanities Citation Index databases, reveal publication habits, the most commonly used journals and the most productive disciplines of Argentinian researchers. An increasing number of publications along the studied period is noteworthy. Results indicate the absence of a collaboration pattern in the field of Humanities, as compared to the higher cooperation rate in the area of Social Sciences, particularly due to international collaborations.