Early Career Researchers Open-Up on Citations in Respect to Reputation, Trust, Ethics, AI and Much More

This paper, part of the Harbingers project studying early career researchers (ECRs), focuses on the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on scholarly communications (https://ciber-research.com/harbingers-3/index.html). It investigates citations and citing, its purpose, function and use, especially in respect to reputation, trust, publishing and AI. We also cover journal impact factors, H-index, Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar. All of this, regarding a research community, to whom citations have special reputational and career-advancing value. This interview-based study covers a convenience sample of 91 ECRs from all disciplines and half a dozen countries. Furthermore, this study has been conducted with minimal prompting about citations, so providing a fresh feel by using the voices of ECRs wherever possible. Findings include: (1) citations are all-pervasive, although cropping up mostly in the reputational and trust arenas; (2) citations remain a major force in determining what is read, where to publish and what to trust; (3) there are no signs their value is diminishing; if anything, the opposite is true; (4) AI has given a boost to their use—primarily as a validity check; (5) there are strong signs that altmetrics are being taken up. Note, this was a preliminary study working with a convenience sample attempting to inform a future study. Our findings should therefore be treated more as early observations.