CITATION ANALYSIS OF PH.D THESES SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL SCIENCES, TEZPUR UNIVERSITY, ASSAM

1. INTRODUCTION:Citation analysis is the analysis of the citation or bibliographical reference that is appended with the research communication. It studied citations in scholarly works to establish links to other works or other researchers by counting the citations appended at the end of each scientific article. The citations normally provide the bibliographic data about the used documents. Citation analysis is useful for understanding subject relationships, authorship pattern, impact, publication trends, and bring out useful information like the relative use of different kinds of documents such as books, periodicals, e-resources, reports, Ph.d thesis, conferences, standards, patents etc. which can be better utilized for bibliometric studies in many respects. Citations analysis is one of the popular methods employed in recent years to identify the core references in a subject. With citation analysis one can evaluate and interpret citations received by articles, authors, institutions, and other indications of scientific activity. Thus it helps to identify the quality of the information sources.The Tezpur University was established in 1994. The Department of Chemical Sciences was started in the year 1997. In the beginning it offered M. Sc. course in Polymer Science. From July 2006 the Department has been offering M. Sc. program in Applied Chemistry with specialization in Catalysis, Medicinal Chemistry and Polymer Chemistry. Presently the Department is offering 5-year Integrated M. Sc. in Chemistry, M. Sc. in Chemical Sciences and M. Tech. in Polymer Science and Technology. The Department has also been offering Ph. D. programs in the broad areas of Chemistry such as Organic Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, Bio-inorganic Chemistry, Surfactants, Water Treatments, Polymer Chemistry, Theoretical and Computational Chemistry, Catalysis and Nan particles.2. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:* To identify the most cited sources of information consulted by the researchers in chemical sciences. * To identify the authorship pattern and degree of collaboration in chemical sciences research. * To identify average number of references cited per theses. * To determine the year wise distribution of theses submitted in the department. of chemical sciences* To determine the most frequently cited journals in chemical sciences. * To prepare a rank list of core journals of chemical sciences in order of their frequency of citation.3. LITERATURE REVIEW:Banateppanvar, K, Biradar, B. S and Kannappanavar, B.U (2013)1 studied doctoral theses of botany, submitted to the Kuvempu University during the years 2000-2006. Findings revealed that journals were the most preferred sources of information used by the researchers in the field of botany, accounting for 74.77 % citations. Authors found that major citations come from journal literature. Authorship pattern for journal citations shows that most of the citations were contributed by multi authors. Gupta, J. & Khare, V. P. (2013)2 studied research performance monitoring the researchers of Dr. Harisingh Gour University, Sagar using citation analysis. Findings revealed that the most of the cited sources were journals. Authors found that most of the contributions of journals were from USA, and the most cited journals are IASLIC Bulletin with11.89% citation, followed by ILA Bulletin with 9.35% citation occupies the second rank. Singh, K.P and Bebi (2013)3studied citation analysis of PhD theses submitted in the department of sociology of the University of Delhi during 1995-2010. The study was based on the 5766 citations taken out from 25 PhD theses of sociology. Authors found that highest number of citations was single authored 83.94 %, and 67.23 % citations were from books and only 22.20 % citations were from journals. The country-wise scattering of citations revealed that 2536 (45.52 %) citations were from India, followed by USA and UK. Goyal, V. , Gupta, G. …