bims-evares Biomed News
on Evaluation of research
Issue of 2026–03–01
eight papers selected by
Thomas Krichel, Open Library Society
  1. Comprehensive analysis of Saudi Arabia's research output: a bibliometric study (2013--2022).
  2. Medical student research productivity and scholarly impact: A 20-year bibliometric comparison with medical residents.
  3. An Information Extraction Approach to Detecting Novelty of Biomedical Publications.
  4. PreprintToPaper dataset: connecting bioRxiv preprints with journal publications.
  5. Relationship between social media and Healthgrades ratings for spine neurosurgeons.
  6. Traditional Chinese Medicine Research Activity in Switzerland.
  7. More than a decade with 'gender on the agenda': have we made progress?
  8. Number of Authors in Japanese Obstetrics and Gynecology Case Reports: A Preliminary Observation.
  1. F1000Res. 2025 ;14 61
    Comprehensive analysis of Saudi Arabia's research output: a bibliometric study (2013--2022).
    Bharti Chogtu, Ritheesh V, Ashwath Naik, Santhosh Venkata.
       Background: Bibliometric studies that employ quantitative methods are pivotal for evaluating and analysing the dissemination of scientific knowledge across various disciplines. These studies assess the impact and reach of scholarly works by examining citation patterns, authorship trends, and publication metrics.
    Methods: This study examines Saudi Arabia's research paper output indexed in the Scopus database, utilizing bibliographic data from the SciVal database. SciVal provides comprehensive cross-searching capabilities across various citation indices and databases, offering multidisciplinary information from high-impact journals. The data aggregation from SciVal includes filtering options such as years, subject areas, publication sources, citation counts, and productivity metrics for researchers, institutions, and countries.
    Results: This research focuses on Saudi Arabia's research productivity and the performance of its top universities from 2013-2022. Additionally, information on average per capita GDP and total GDP for the past nine years was sourced from World Bank data. The analysis encompasses all nations that published research productivity articles annually within the specified period. The present study revealed that the research output from Saudi Arabia increased 320%, with an average annual growth rate of 16%.
    Conclusion: The present study provides insights into the research productivity of Saudi Arabia and its leading universities, contributing to a broader understanding of global scientific output and its economic context. This study provides an idea to other nations to balance their research output vis-a-vis their economic growth.
    Keywords:  Bibliometrics; Citations; Geography; Publications; Saudi Arabia
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.160450.3
  2. PLoS One. 2026 ;21(2): e0343160
    Medical student research productivity and scholarly impact: A 20-year bibliometric comparison with medical residents.
    Christian J Hausner, Michelle Yi, Meet S Patel, Jack T Franchino, Charles S Day.
      Research experience during medical school is widely recognized as a valuable component of medical education and an increasingly emphasized aspect of residency applications. However, growing research productivity among medical students has led to concerns regarding the quality and translatability of the research. To assess the impact of medical student-authored research, we compared it with resident-authored research across a 20-year period using a cohort study and bibliometric analysis of 1,443 student-authored and 5,365 resident-authored PubMed-indexed articles published from 2003 to 2023. NIH iCite Relative Citation Ratio (RCR), a field-and-time normalized measure of article influence, was utilized to quantify research quality. We identified publications authored by medical students or residents using standardized affiliation-based queries. Primary outcomes included publication volume, citation count, and RCR. Secondary analyses compared article impact by study design, specialty, and geographic origin. We found that medical student publications increased 15-fold from 2003 to 2023 (from <10 to ~150 per year). Moreover, despite publishing less overall volume than residents, medical student publications demonstrated greater scholarly impact than medical resident publications over this period (RCR 0.47 vs 0.26; p = 0.02). By 2023, the median relative citation ratio of medical student-authored publications was 0.8, approaching the benchmark for a median NIH-funded article (RCR = 1.0). Medical students published nearly twice as many articles in surgical specialties as medical specialties but with comparable median RCRs (0.44 vs 0.47; p = 0.73). Additionally, the median RCR of both U.S. and international medical student publications significantly increased over the past two decades. In conclusion, medical student research output has grown substantially, and our analysis demonstrates that medical students contribute impactful research that is frequently cited and built upon. These findings underscore the importance of student-led scholarship and continued support for medical student research opportunities. To facilitate future benchmarking of trainee research, we also provide ImpactLens: https://impactlensgit.netlify.app/.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0343160
  3. AMIA Annu Symp Proc. 2024 ;2024 1013-1022
    An Information Extraction Approach to Detecting Novelty of Biomedical Publications.
    Xueqing Peng, Brian Ondov, Huan He, Yan Hu, Hua Xu.
      Scientific novelty plays a critical role in shaping research impact, yet it remains inconsistently defined and difficult to quantify. Existing approaches often reduce novelty to a single measure, failing to distinguish the specific types of contributions (such as new concepts or relationships) that drive influence. In this study, we introduce a semantic measure of novelty based on the emergence of new biomedical entities and relationships within the conclusion sections of research articles. Leveraging transformer-based named entity recognition (NER) and relation extraction (RE) tools, we identify novel findings and classify articles into four categories: No Novelty, Entity-only Novelty, Relation-only Novelty, and Entity-Relation Novelty. We evaluate this framework using citation counts and Journal Impact Factors (JIF) as proxies for research influence. Our results show that Entity-Relation Novelty articles receive the highest citation impact, with relation novelty more closely aligned with high-impact journals. These findings offer a scalable framework for assessing novelty and guiding future research evaluation.
  4. Sci Data. 2026 Feb 24. pii: 301. [Epub ahead of print]13(1):
    PreprintToPaper dataset: connecting bioRxiv preprints with journal publications.
    Fidan Badalova, Julian Sienkiewicz, Philipp Mayr.
      The PreprintToPaper dataset connects bioRxiv preprints with their corresponding journal publications, enabling large-scale analysis of the preprint-to-publication process. It comprises metadata for 145,517 preprints from two periods, 2016-2018 (pre-pandemic) and 2020-2022 (pandemic), retrieved via the bioRxiv and Crossref APIs. We selected the two periods to capture preprint-publication dynamics before and during the COVID-19 pandemic while avoiding transitional years. Each record includes bibliographic information such as titles, abstracts, authors, institutions, submission dates, licenses, and subject categories, alongside enriched publication metadata including journal names, publication dates, author lists, and further information. In addition to the main dataset, a version-history subset provides all available versions of preprints within the two selected periods, enabling analysis of how preprints evolve over time. Preprints are categorized into three groups: Published (formally linked to a journal article), Preprint Only (posted on a preprint server), and Gray Zone (potentially published in a journal but unlinked). To enhance reliability, title and author similarity scores were computed, and a human-annotated subset of 299 records was created to evaluate Gray Zone cases. The dataset supports diverse applications, including studies of scholarly communication, open science policies, bibliometric tool development, and natural language processing research on textual changes between preprints and their  corresponding journal articles.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-026-06867-3
  5. World Neurosurg. 2026 Feb 25. pii: S1878-8750(26)00090-2. [Epub ahead of print] 124875
    Relationship between social media and Healthgrades ratings for spine neurosurgeons.
    Katriel E Lee, Nima Alan, Nikhil Dholaria, Juan P Giraldo, Nicholas M Rabah, Mark A Pacult, Anna G U Sawa, Anthony M Asher, Michael D White, Gabriel R Arguelles, Joseph M Abbatematteo, Gabriella P Williams, S Harrison Farber, James J Zhou, Juan S Uribe.
       OBJECTIVE: This study assessed whether social media involvement correlated with higher physician rating website (PRW) ratings and academic productivity.
    METHODS: This retrospective study (November 2022-June 2023) reviewed all spine neurosurgeons in the American Association of Neurological Surgeons database. Neurosurgeon names were searched on Twitter/X, Instagram, and LinkedIn; number of followers was recorded. Healthgrades ratings and number of reviewers were collected. h-index was searched in Scopus. Statistical analysis included t-tests, Mann-Whitney U test, chi-square test, and analysis of variance.
    RESULTS: A total of 1031 neurosurgeons were included (mean age, 61 years; 96.6% male). Median (interquartile range [IQR]) Healthgrades rating was 4.20 (1.00), and median h-index was 5.0 (1.0). Surgeons with a presence on LinkedIn (528; 51.2%), Twitter/X (113; 11.0%), and Instagram (38; 3.7%) were younger than those without social media (p<0.001). Median Healthgrades rating was 4.2 for those without and 4.55 for those with an Instagram account (p=0.005). The median number of reviewers was 16.0 for surgeons without and 19.0 for surgeons with a LinkedIn account (p=0.004). Surgeons with LinkedIn and Twitter/X accounts had a higher median h-index than surgeons not on these platforms (p<0.001).
    CONCLUSIONS: Spine neurosurgeons involved in social media are typically younger than surgeons with no social media presence. Social media involvement was associated with higher ratings on PRWs (Instagram), more PRW reviews (LinkedIn), and higher h-index (LinkedIn and Twitter). These findings should be interpreted with care because the analyses are correlative rather than causal, and voluntary response bias is inherent to PRW data.
    Keywords:  citation analysis; online; patient satisfaction; publications; social media; spine
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wneu.2026.124875
  6. Complement Med Res. 2026 Feb 26. 1-20
    Traditional Chinese Medicine Research Activity in Switzerland.
    Bingjun Chen, Xiaoying Lv, Koryna Lottenbach, Chantal Zeier, Dominic Jaminet, Sarangoo Solongo, Timo Hummel, Talia Wicker, Ahmet Sevik, Xiaying Wang, Michael Hammes, Yiming Li, Saroj K Pradhan, Michael Furian.
      Introduction Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) becomes popular in Switzerland; however, Swiss TCM research activity and scientific output have not been investigated. Methods To describe the Swiss TCM research activities and main health conditions studied, a systematic literature search of PubMed (covering databases such as MEDLINE, life science journals and online books) and Embase was performed from database inception to December 31st, 2023. Articles describing a TCM-related therapy modality in humans with at least one author affiliated with a Swiss institution. Primary outcome was the main health condition studied. Secondary outcomes are the total number of articles published over time, the TCM therapies used, and the Swiss institutions involved. Results Of the 223 published articles included in the final analysis, 68.2% originated from the top 3 of 73Swiss institutions: the University of Zurich (32.3%), University of Bern (30.0%) and University of Basel (7.6%). Overall, 116 (52.0%) articles described original studies containing primary data. The top health categories studied were pain management (16.4%). The most used TCM therapies were acupuncture or moxibustion (61.2%). Conclusion Until 2023, the total number of scientific TCM output by Swiss authors is steadily increasing but remains small. More effort to conducted TCM research and elucidate the TCM therapy effects in Switzerland is warranted.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1159/000550868
  7. Br J Anaesth. 2026 Feb 20. pii: S0007-0912(26)00044-9. [Epub ahead of print]
    More than a decade with 'gender on the agenda': have we made progress?
    Lesley Colvin, Harriet Kemp.
      As female clinical academics and members of the British Journal of Anaesthesia (BJA), we recognise the importance of gender equity, which remains an issue in academic medicine, despite the increase in the proportion of women in medical schools throughout the world. This inequity is most apparent at senior leadership levels, with the number of female professors in anaesthesia remaining in single digits in the UK, and at about 25% of full professors in the USA. A strong publication record is an important promotion metric in academia. In a 2013 analysis, only 39% of first and senior authors published in the BJA were women, whereas in our recent analysis, this proportion improved to 54%. The benefits of having increased representation of women as leaders are unequivocal, requiring active strategies to accelerate any progress that has been made. Initiatives such as the current BJA Special Issue on Women in Anaesthesia Research are key elements in this process.
    Keywords:  academic anaesthesia; diversity; gender disparity; gender equality; women in medicine
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bja.2026.01.020
  8. J Obstet Gynaecol Res. 2026 Mar;52(3): e70227
    Number of Authors in Japanese Obstetrics and Gynecology Case Reports: A Preliminary Observation.
    Shigeki Matsubara.
      
    Keywords:  author; author number; case reports; contribution; journal
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1111/jog.70227
This page is being maintained by Thomas Krichel. It was last updated on 2026‒03‒05 at 2:27.