ASU research cited often according to new study

Arizona State University ranked among the top-25 universities in the world for how often its research is cited and used around the globe, according to a study based on Google scholar data.
 
The study placed ASU at 24th, ahead of much longer-established research universities such as Ohio State, Cornell and USC. The report highlights how ASU’s research is useful to others throughout academia, corporations and partners associated with the university and affirms the high quality of the research.
 
The study, by Webometrics, comes after a string of recent research and entrepreneurship successes that included:
 
• NASA selected ASU to lead a lunar mission to send a small satellite to map water on the moon.
• ASU launching its 75th startup company.
• The National Science Foundation awarded ASU a second, prestigious Engineering Research Center.
• ASU Produced the first white laser, the expected successor to LED lights.
• An ASU grad student found a jawbone that fundamentally changed our understanding of the earliest origins of man.
• Research at ASU played a fundamental role in the development of an Ebola vaccine.
 
Webometrics is a program from the Cybermetrics Lab at the non-profit Spanish National Research Council, and they used Google Scholar data to determine that ASU is the 24th University in the world by Google Scholar citations.
 
The rankings were done by collecting data and a link analysis of citations from the top 2-10 most-cited researchers at the University. Webometrics said they remove the most-cited researcher at each institution, because that makes the data more representative – looking at the strength of the rest of the team without the top star.
 
Looking at nine researchers at each university also provides a more balanced comparison among large and small institutions, eliminating a large university’s advantage in sheer number of researchers.
 
This new survey was done as a pilot program to see if it would be plausible to use such data in a future ranking from the organization, which provides overall rankings of global universities in addition to scholar citations.
 
Webometrics noted that a broad presence of a university’s research cited on the internet by other authors and researchers across the globe means the university is committed to openness and information sharing. Such widespread publication means larger potential audiences, the report said, and offers access to scientific knowledge to researchers in developing countries and at home in the local community.
 
ASU’s charter mission includes advancing research and discovery of public value and assuming responsibility for the overall health of the community around it serves.