A Scientometric Analysis of Global Forensic Science Research Publications

Abstract

INTRODUCTIONForensic science refers to the application of principles and methods of specialized scientific and technical knowledge to criminal and civil legal questions and presenting the finding in an unbiased and objective way in courts of law. According to Saferstein (2001) "Forensic science is the application of science to those criminal and civil laws that are enforced by police agencies in a criminal justice system." Thus forensic science is related to the police agencies and to the judiciary.Forensic sciences include, but are not limited to pathology, psychiatry, psychology, odontology, toxicology, molecular biology, entomology. A forensic scientist must be skilled in applying the principles and techniques of the physical and natural science to the analysis of the many types of evidence that may be recovered during crime investigation. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of the field, forensic literature are not limited to core forensic science journal but also can be found in interrelated disciplines of anthropology, chemistry, engineering, entomology, dentistry and physics, among others.SCIENTOMETRICSThe field of Library and Information Science (LIS) has developed several quantitative methods to study the various aspects of subjects. The metrics of LIS are increasing day by day starting from Librametrics, Bibliometrics, Scientometrics, Informetrics, Webometrics, Netometrics to Cybermetrics.The origin of the term scientometrics goes back to the year 1969, when two Russian scientists Nalimov and Mulechenko coined the Russian term naukometriya the Russian equivalent of scientometrics (Nalimov and Mulechenko, 1969). However, the advent of scientometrics as a discipline was in 1978, when the journal Scientometrics was founded by Tibor Braun in 1978. Scientometrics defines its content as "Scientometrics includes all quantitative aspects of the science of science, communication in science, and science policy." (Wilson, 1999)The focus of scientometrics is the measurement of science and is therefore concerned with the growth, structure, interrelationship and productivity of scientific disciplines. Tague-Sutcliffe defines "Scientometrics is the study of the quantitative aspects of science as a discipline or economic activity. It is part of the sociology of science and has application to science policy-making. It involves quantitative studies of scientific activities, including, among others, publication, and so overlaps bibliometrics to some extent." (Tague-Sutcliffe, 1992)NEED AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDYScientometric studies have increasingly been used over the last few years. These studies are useful to understand the evolution of literature or trends in particular fields or within a geographical area. However, in forensic science, scientometrics have barely been used. Alan Wayne Jones is the only author to have worked on bibliometric analysis of forensic science literature. His interesting work is mainly focused on most highly cited articles, most prolific authors and impact factors. (Sauvageau, Desnoyers and Godin, 2009)REVIEW OF LITERATUREJones (2003) reviewed the impact factors of forensic science and toxicology journals and opined that the impact factors of these journals are low because the visibility and size of the circulation of these journals are low. During 2005, Jones identified with the help of Web of Science (WoS) the most highly cited papers published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences between 1956 and 2005. The most highly cited paper was by Kasai, Nakamura and White concerning DNA Profiling. Again Jones (2007) analysed the forensic science journals, their development and distribution and their current status as reflected in the journal impact factor. He concluded that the relatively low impact factors of forensic science journals are due to the small size of the field, fewer active researchers and less pressure to publish.Sauvageau, Desnoyers and Godin (2009) studied the evolution of forensic science literature in two North American journals from 1980 to 2005 and found that forensic science literature in anthropology and DNA have increased significantly, while the contribution of questioned documents and ballistics have decreased. …