Ten years of Arabian Journal of Chemistry: A bibliometric analysis

3.3.1 Constructing the co-authorship networks

Co-authors, also called co-corresponding authors/senior authors/lead authors, are responsible to format and organize the information in written form. Co-authorship is an important aspect of scientific collaborations. It promotes team work among different scientific researchers to enhance productivity and achieve new scientific knowledge. Collaboration between co-authors may be intramural (i.e. between one department, institutes or any research group) or extramural (international collaboration) (Wolfgang and András, 2012). Infact, co-author analysis is considered as a powerful method used for the identification of leading authors, organizations and countries in particular research field. The scholarly publications of co-authors can be examined through different softwares to exhibit researcher’s collaboration through graphical visualization (Nianxin et al., 2016). Its important to note that co-authorship defines the “link” between researchers. Infact, the co-authorship networks can be constructed for researchers/authors, research institutions, and countries.

1. Co-Authorships by Authors

Co-authorship is a form of collaboration in which two or more authors contribute to a particular publication. In all publications (2134), the total numbers of authors were 6832. To draw the co-authorship network in VosViewer, we defined the minimum number of published articles to be five (5) with zero citations. Ninety Nine (99) authors were found to meet the threshold. Inorder to construct the map, Vosviewer, has calculated the total link strength between the authors. In map, each node represents an author and the node size indicates the number of published articles. The link connecting two nodes stands for the cooperative relationship between two authors, and the thickness of the link stands for the intensity of cooperation. In Vosviewer map (Fig. 2A-D), several clusters were generated representing 99 items or authors.

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Fig. 2

List of authors in Co-authorship analysis (A-D).

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1st of all, we will shortly introduce a few clusters. For example,

1. In yellow cluster, there are seven (7) items or authors, which are further connected with six authors in orange cluster.

2. In red cluster, there are 12 items and

3. In grey cluster there are 6 items

Before elaborating the above clusters, its important to note that each author in all clusters has (individually) atleast five (5) publications.

In the yellow cluster, if we consider “Narasimhan B.” as the main author, he/she is connected with total 6 authors in yellow cluster named Kumar P., Majeed A.B.A., Ramasamy K., Mani V., Mishra R.K and Kumar, M. While, in the orange cluster Prof. Narasimhan B is connected with Kumar S., Deep A., Sharma PC., and Malhotra A M.

To understand it further, we explored the publication profile of “Narasimhan B.” Based on the Scopus data, he/she has published 14 documents in AJC with twenty six (26) co-authors. From yellow cluster, Kumar P has co-authored 8 publications, Ramasamy K., Majeed A.B.A., Mani V and Mishra R.K. have co-authored 7, while, Kumar M has co-authored 4 publications with “Narasimhan B”. From orange cluster, he/she has co-authored two publications with Deep A., and Malhotra, M. while, with Kumar, S. and Sharma, P.C., one publication has been co-authored. The total link strengths as derived by Vosviewer can also help in proper explanation. The highest link strength was recorded for Narasimhan B (n = 47), followed by Ramasamy K., (n = 37) Kumar P., (n = 37) Majeed A.B.A., (n = 37) Mani V (n = 37) and Mishra R.K. (n = 37). Since, low number of publications are jointly co-authored in orange cluster, therefore we found weak link strength as noted for Deep A (n = 12), Malhotra, M (n = 11), Sharma P., (n = 8) and Kumar S., (n = 5). The cluster is shown in Fig. 2A.

Its worthy to note that in research publication Prof. Narasimhan B, focused on the synthesis, antimicrobial, anticancer, antiviral evaluation and QSAR studies of various complexes or compounds like N-substituted benzene sulfonamides, p-coumaric acid, diazenyl schiff bases, gallic acid benzohydrazides, propionic acid and monochloroacetic acid derivatives.

The next cluster is red, where total 12 items are merged together. If we consider Siddiqui M.R.H. as the focal point, it can be seen that he is connected with five authors named Ali, R., Al-Warthan, Adil S.F, Khan M and Kamal A. To understand it further, from Scopus we retrieved the publication details of Siddiqui M.R.H. Total publications was found to be nine (9), co-authored by thirty eight (38) authors. Al-Warthan, A. has co-authored six (6), Adil, S.F has co-authored five (5), Khan M has three (3), Ali, R and Kamal A has co-authored one (1) publication with Siddiqui M.R.H. The cluster is shown in Fig. 2B.

While, in most of the publications Prof. Siddiqui Focused on studies synthesis, characterization, density functional theory (DFT) calculations, thermal studies and catalytic oxidations of Pd graphene nanocomposite, gold & silver nanoparticles, copper-manganese mixed oxide nanoparticles, substituted pyrroles and rhenium oxocomplex.

In grey cluster, Maurya R C., has been considered as the principal author. From Scopus we retrieved the publication details. In total he/she has seven (7) publications with sixteen co-authors. With Chourasia, J., Martin, M.H., and Sharma, A.K. five (5), with Roy, S., (4) and with Sahu S three (3) documents are mutually published. The highest link strength was recorded for Maurya R,C (22). For others the strength was found to be fifteen (n = 15). The cluster is shown in Fig. 2C. While, all clusters are described in Fig. 2D.

In his research Prof Maurya R C., principally focused on the synthesis, characterization, and 3D-molecular modeling and analysis of oxovanadium(IV) complexes, octa-coordinate mono- and binuclear-dioxouranium(VI) complexes, schiff bases derived from 4-butyryl-3-methyl-1-phenyl-2-pyrazolin-5-one, penta-coordinated manganese(II) chelates, cis-dioxomolybdenum(VI) complexes and oxoperoxomolybdenum(VI) chelates.

• The Institutional Co-Authorship Analysis

In all published documents, 4265 different institutions or departments were found. One hundred and seven (107), of them were directly involved in atleast three (3) publications. with zero (0) citations. The institutional co-authorship network is shown in Fig. 3.

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Fig. 3

The institutional co-authorship network (A-F).

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Fig. 3

The institutional co-authorship network (A-F).

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There are total sixty eight (68) clusters in Fig. 3A-F. We will briefly describe only three (3) clusters.

In red cluster there are total seven (7) items or institutes (Fig. 3). If we consider, Department Of Chemistry, Quaid-I-Azam University, Islamabad, 45320, Pakistan as the principal institute in the cluster, it is apparent that it is further connected with

• Department Of Environmental Science & Engineering, China University Of Geosciences, Wuhan, China

• Institute Of Biochemistry, University Of Sindh, Jamshoro 76080, Pakistan

• Institute Of Chemistry, University Of The Punjab, Lahore, 54590, Pakistan

Some other individual clusters with names of the departments of universities are described in Fig. 3B-F.

• The Country Co-Authorship Analysis

Country co-authorship analysis is an important form of co-authorship analysis (13–15). It can reflect the degree of communication and the most influential countries in a particular field. In total, 93 countries were directly involved in all publications in AJC. 54 countries were found from the data, with atleast five (5) publications and zero (0) citations. The size of circles represents the number of publications of the country and the thickness of lines depicts the size of collaboration. The data is presented in Fig. 4.

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Fig. 4

The Country Co-Authorship Analysis.

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Since India the top leading country with maximum publications (n = 678), therefore we analyzed it on Vosviewer. The total authors in all publications were found to be 1948. However, forty three authors have atleast five publications. The top five authors are Narasimhan B (n = 14), followed by Isloor A.M. (n = 12), Kumar P (n = 12), Sharma S (n = 12) and Kumar A (n = 10).

We also noted more than 160 departmental or universities affiliations in India’s publications. The highest was recorded for Aligarh Muslim University (n = 35), followed by King Saud University (n = 25) and Jamia Hamdard Faculty of Pharmacy (n = 21). By a closer inspection of the image, it can be observed that India has a diverse co-authorship network with 44 countries. The top five in this series are Saudi Arbia (n = 47), followed by Malaysia (n = 17), South Korea (n = 17), South Africa (n = 12) and China (n = 6).

We also selected Saudi Arabia, another dense region found in the map. In total publications (n = 302), the highest collaboration was found with Egypt (n = 112), followed by India (47), Pakistan (n = 9), Tunisia (n = 6), South Korea (n = 13), Malaysia (10), China (n = 6), Japan (n = 6), Jordan (n = 6) and USA (n = 7).

Based on the number of publications, Egypt was the third highest country (n = 282). Which collaborated with Saudi Arabia (n = 112), Japan (n = 9), USA (n = 5) and South Korea (5). Yemen, Libya, Sudan, Germany, India and Kuwait were affiliated in 5 or less than 5 publications.

The scientific collaboration between authors may also help in developing social network between institutes and countries. Infact a single author’s contribution may help in institutional and international networking. For the purpose we focused on a single author and university to know their networking details.

Prof. Narasimhan, B. has the highest number of publications (n = 14), with 13 research articles and one review. Total twenty six (n = 26) co-authors have been found. Institutionally, Maharshi Dayanand University’s affiliation was found in all 14 publications, along with Universiti Teknologi Mara, I.S.F. College of Pharmacy, Akal College of Pharmacy, Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology, KU Leuven, Kurukshetra University, Quaid-i-Azam University, Rega Institute for Medical Research. Briefly, these institutes were from India, Malaysia, Belgium and Pakistan.

Similarly, the King Saud University was found to be the top university with maximum i.e. one hundred and twenty five (125) publications. These mainly comprised of research articles (108), reviews (14) and three (3) errata. Precisely, 394 authors have been found in all publications (n = 125). Some of the top authors from this University is Khan, M (10), Siddiqui, M.R.H., (n = 9) and Isloor A.M (8) publications. Based on Vosviewer analysis more than 250 organizations were affiliated in all publications. Twelve (n = 12) of them were involved in atleast three (3) publications. More than one hundred and twenty (n = 120) different universities were affiliated in all publications. Some of the examples are, National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Jeonbuk National University, Alexandria University, Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, Aligarh Muslim University, , Al-Azhar University, University of Tanta, Umm Al Qura University and Minia University etc.. All authors and/or institutes from 26 different countries like Egypt, India, South Korea, Pakistan, USA, China, Japan, Malaysia, Yemen, Australia, Germany, Jordan, Qatar, Sudan, Turkey, Belgium, Brazil, Ethiopia, France, Netherlands, Oman, Palestine, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Tunisia.

3.3.2 Citations analysis of authors, institutes and countries

When any scientific document like book, report, conference paper, and essay are referred or cited to another paper known as source paper is termed as citation. Citation determines the importance of any paper by its influence in citation network. Thus giving acknowledgment to the work of author which is cited in the reference list. It is worthy to note that the document which an author select for citation must be relevant to the work in which it is cited. The nature of citation is an attractive aspect to study for researchers because of its easy availability and unobtrusive nature. The scientific impact of an individual publication is of pivotal importance which can be measure by “citation impact indicators”, thus providing information not only about individual’s paper but also indicate information of Journal impact factor and the h index (Ludo, 2016). Citation analysis can be carried out using four different units in bibliometric analysis such as, authors, countries, and institution of affiliation and the most influential documents.

In AJC, total 6832 authors were involved in all publications. 74 authors were found with atleast five (5) publications and 50 citations. Al-warthan A. was found with highest citations (825) followed by Aboul-Enein H.Y. (619), and Kamoun E.A. (520). However, irrespective of the number of publications, the highest citations were recorded for Barakat M.A. (1439) followed by Al-Warthan A (825), Ammar R.A.A. (768), Aboul-Enein H.Y. (619) and Abou El-Nour K.M.M. (584). Its worthy to note that four (4), six (6), two (2) six (6) and two (2) published documents were observed for above stated authors with exact writing format of their names.

Institutionally, the highest citations were recorded for Chemistry Department, Faculty Of Science, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt (268) followed by Department Of Chemistry, College Of Science, Al-Nahrain University, Baghdad, Iraq (237), Department Of Chemistry, College Of Science, King Saud University, Saudi Arabia (212), Chemistry Department, Faculty Of Science, Benha University, Benha, Egypt (177) and Chemistry Department, Faculty Of Science, Zagazig University, Zagazig, Egypt (166).

While, irrespective of the number of publications, the highest citations were recorded for Department of Environmental sciences, Faculty Of Meteorology And Environment, King Abdulaziz University (Kau), Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (1273), followed by Chemistry Department, College Of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (588), Chemistry Department, College Of Science, King Faisal University, Al-Ahsa, Saudi arabia (584), Ataturk University, Faculty Of Arts And Sciences, Department Of Chemistry, Erzurum, Turkey (549), and Gaziosmanpaşa University, Faculty Of Science And Arts, Department Of Chemistry, Tokat, Turkey (549),

3.3.3 Co-citation analysis

In 1973 Henry Small introduced the concept of co-citation analysis. The major application is to understand a subject similarity between two documents. The two documents are said to be co-cited when they (both) appear in the reference list of a third document (Small, 1973). When two items (such as documents, journals and authors) are cited in a citing item’s reference list, they have a co-citation relationship. In other words, the co-citation analyses can generate various paradigms or clusters to exhibit the research trends and links within institutions, sources and authors. (McCain, 1986).

Co-Citations By Number of Cited References

Reference co-citation analysis is an important mean to detect the structure and evolutionary path of a specific domain. The reference co-citation analysis was conducted to see the trend within the cited references. Total, 77,867 cited references were noted in all publications. Out of that, 9 references were cited at least 10 times as shown in Table 11.

The Journal Co-Citation Analysis

Journal co-citation is of strong interest to the collection manager concerned with developing core journal lists, selecting journals and evaluating collections that serve particular research-oriented constituencies. The journal co-citation analysis is not only an efficacious way to study the structure and characteristics of a subject, but also reveals the overall structure of the subject and the characteristics of a journal (Hu et al., 2011). VOSviewer was used to plot the journal co-citation network.

Total cited sources were found to be 13278. Precisely, 38 sources were selected with 300 citations. The list of top ten co-cited sources is described in Table 12. Some of the top sources are J. Hazard. Mater, J. Am. Chem. Soc, Eur. J. Med. Chem, Corros. Sci. and Tetrahedron lett.

3.3.4 Co-Occurrence in titles, abstracts and keywords

Co-words can effectively reflect the latest tend and hotspots in a particular discipline or field. Infact, it provides auxiliary support for scientific research. Infact, the keywords analysis is a vital method that can effectively describe the strength of association between keywords in textual data. In this part, we focused on co-occurrence of words in titles, abstracts and keywords of the publications.

The co-word cluster mapping by VOS viewer revealed that in all titles (n = 2134) (Fig. 5), there are total 6481 terms. 102 terms were repeated at least 10 times. While, in abstract total 33,269 words were found. 136 of them repeated at least 50 times as shown in Fig. 6.

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Fig. 5

Co-words analysis of titles.

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Fig. 6

Co-words analysis of abstracts.

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In all the 2134 publications, total 6617 authors key words were compiled. Among them, 84 keywords appeared atleast 10 times as shown in Fig. 7.

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Fig. 7

Co-words analysis of keywords.

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Furthermore, we categorized the co-words of titles (Table 13), abstract (Table 14) and author keywords (Table 15) to depict the overall trend of publications. While the summary for the co-words of titles, abstracts and keywords are provided in Figs. 8–10.

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Fig. 8

Co-words categories in titles.

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Fig. 9

Co-words categories in abstract.

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Fig. 10

Co-words categories in keywords.

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It can be concluded that although the number and percentage of different common words varies in each category (titles, abstract and keywords). But majorly the publications focused on the following major areas or themes.

1. Compounds/Chemicals

To investigate broader review of AJC publications in terms of chemicals/compounds, we compiled the words such as benzimidazole, biodiesel, graphene oxide, indole, heavy metals, metal complexes, pyrazole, schiff base, schiff bases, methylene blue, tio2, metal complexes. Moreover, to explore the progress in elemental analysis we added the words like graphene, iron, lead, cadmium, copper, coumarin etc. We also added the words like green synthesis, green chemistry, and synthesis to this class.

• Nanoparticles

Nanoparticles are the nano size particles of matter that are the subject of study in different domains such as chemistry. There exist multiple applications of nanoparticles in different industrial sectors such as agriculture, medical, environment to name a few. Nanoparticle like silver are extensively implemented for antimicrobial coating, wound dressing, and in bio medicinal devices. Under this title, we collected different words like nanocomposite, nanocomposites, nanoparticle, and nanoparticles.

• Instrumental Analysis or Characterizations

For analysis of the surface morphology, density, size of particles, splitting of mixture into various components, crystal structure, identification and quantification of various components, different instrumental tools are used. In this category we added cyclic voltammetry, conductivity, density functional theory, eis, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, fluorescence, FTIR, GC–MS, Hplc, HPTLC. XRD, X-ray diffraction, voltammetry, potentiometry, photoluminescence, RP-HPLC, SEM, NMR, spectrophotometry, QSAR, spectroscopy, TEM, thermal analysis, PCA, solid phase extraction, ultrasound, microwave, microwave irradiation, and optimization, etc.

• Kinetics and Thermodynamic

Different parameters such as time, temperature, pressure etc are used to elaborate the rate of reaction. It also helps in understanding the mechanism of reaction. To further explore and understand the research trend in this field, we collected relevant words like kinetic, isotherm, kinetics, sorption, thermodynamics, thermal properties, activated carbon, adsorption, optical properties, polarization, and oxidation in this category.

• Biological Screening

Biological screening tool is used as promising strategy for the identification of innovative antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory agents. This tool is used for over half a century and is modified constantly in order to develop novel natural and synthetic therapeutic agents. Under this title, we compiled those words that indicate the focus of researchers in this domain. The words like anti-inflammatory, anti-inflammatory activity, antibacterial, antibacterial activity, anticancer, anticancer activity, antifungal, antifungal activity, antimicrobial, antimicrobial activity, antioxidant, antioxidant activity, biological activity, apoptosis, dna cleavage are compiled in this class.

• General Words

Under this class, we collected those keywords that are frequently used in all group of research. Oxidative stress, removal, response surface methodology, and validation

We can conclude that the overall publications focused on synthesis or using standard compounds, drugs or nanoparticles, their characterizations, kinetics & thermodynamics and their biological efficacies.

3.5.1 Journal Citation Report (JCR)

1. Total Cites

Its worthy to note that the total sum of citation received by a journal from all those journals indexed in JCR (Journal Citation Report), in that year is termed as total cites. Table 17 gives detailed information about total cites of AJC. From our data we analyzed that total cites consistently increased from 2011 to 2019.

• b)

  Three (3) years Impact Factor

Impact factor or journal impact factor is a parameter used to measure the average citation received to an article in the preceding two years duration. The Impact factor is calculated for any journal after a minimum period of three years of publication. IF and IF with self cites, is calculated for AJC. From 2011 to 2016, it shows a regular increasing trend but in 2017 and 2018 it decreases as shown in Table 17.

• c)

  Five (5) Year Journal Impact Factor

Another parameter used to indicate the annual productivity of a journal is 5- Years Impact Factor. This indicator was introduced in 2009 by JCR. It reflects the total number of times the published article, cited by other JCR listed journals in the last five years. It gives a broader vision of total citation data. It is considered as long term citation trend in journal. We cannot implement 5-year impact factor to an individual author’s document, organizations, research group, and countries. Infact, it could be considered as five-year window. Since the AJC was launched from 2009, therefore the 5 years impact cannot be applied on 2011–13. The highest 5-years impact was recorded for the year 2016 i.e. 5.388. In other words it remained higher than 4 in 5 years. The data is presented in Table 17.

• d)

  Immediacy Index

The immediacy index indicates that how rapidly an article from a journal is cited by other in the same current year it is published and become a part of literature. High immediacy index of a journal increase the citation chances of a research document in the same year of publication. Similarly, it is also helpful for the publishers to assess a journal. To evaluate the immediacy Index of AJC, we divided it into three phases as shown in Table 17. For the years 2011–13 it was increased. While in 2014–16 it followed a zig-zag pattern. In 2017–18 it increase from 0.308 to 2.314.

• e)

  Citable Items

Citable items included all those research documents or items such as review, articles, and editor letters, proceedings papers that are identified by Web of Science (WOS) and are most cited by other articles are term as citable items. Table 17 shows detail information about citable Items. It followed an increasing trend except in the year 2015 (116) and 2018 (121) respectively.

• f)

  % Articles in Citable Items

The percentage of total number of articles that are counted in total countable items is termed as % article in citable items. It indicates the original research of any journal. We analyzed the % articles in citable items of AJC. Above 90% per year results were obtained for % articles in citable items (as shown in Table 17).

3.5.2 SCImago quartile data and Scopus journal ranking of AJC

1. CiteScore

This measure the annual average citation received by research article issued in a journal series. This parameter was introduced in 2016 by Elsevier. It gives comprehensive review about journal impacts. It can be calculated as;

• CiteScore = citation count in N documents / documents (N-3) – (N −1)

• Where, N = Number of published documents,

• (N-3) – (N −1) = Number of published documents in three consecutive years.

• b)

  Scimago Journal Rank (SJR)

This parameter is based on the Scopus data. It works on the centrality concept that was first introduced in social network analysis. It has multiple applications that included the recognition of the most influential person’s in social network, identification of major infrastructure of nodes in internet, etc. SJR also gives detail information about quartiles. Base on quartiles the journal is classified into four categories.

1. Q1, covered top 25 of journal list,

2. Q2 occupied 25–50% of groups on journal’s list,

3. Q3 represented 50 to 75% of groups in list.

4. Q4 covered 75 to 100% groups in the journal list.

From 2010 to 2019, the Quartile of AJC is shown in Table 15. In 2019 it entered Q1 state. However, the exact ranking, number of total journals and percentile of AJC is obtained from Scopus database, which is displayed in Table 18. It’s apparent from the data that AJC consistently improved the ranking in two broad categories i.e. general chemical engineering and chemistry (miscellaneous). This confirms the growth, quality and ranking of AJC.

Limitations

There are some limitations in our study. We used Scopus database, which has a wide range of data and is convenient for bibliometric analysis. However, other databases such as Web of Science were not included in the study. Furthermore, we did not verify the Scopus data, for example, comparing the number of citations identified in Scopus with Web of Science. Another limitation of the work is that it was very “difficult” to deal with duplicates or several forms of writing for each type of unit. (i.e., USA and United States of America, etc.). Similarly the co-words analysis was based on the title, abstract or keywords, only. The full text publications were not thoroughly analyzed for co-occurrence of words, etc. More over in the future, it will be interesting to compare the AJC with other relevant journals in different relevant categories.