Research Publication Trends among Physicists of the Indian Institute of Science and the University of Kerala: A Bibliometric Study

The bibliometric study analysed the research productivity of physicists at the Indian 
Institute of Science (IISc) and the University of Kerala (KU) during 2004-2008. The 
paper gives a summary and review of the various research evaluation studies of 
institutions and disciplines. There were 352 research articles listed in the Physics 
doctoral theses of both the institutions, including 267 from the IISc and 85 from the 
KU. The authorship trend is towards multi-authored papers in IISc and solo research 
is predominant in the KU The degree of collaboration of publication was calculated to 
be 0.94 in IISc researchers and 0.40 in the case of the KU. Journals are the most 
preferred channel of publication of IISc researchers while KU researchers prefer to 
publish their research findings mostly in national seminars. The study shows that the 
Phys. Rev. B tops the list of IISc physicists' choice of journals for publication with 16 
publications (9.58%). The KU researchers prefer to publish their research results 
mostly in Indian journal of Radio and Space Physics with 10 articles 25.64%. Elsevier 
Science publisher is the most common publisher preferred by the Physicists of both 
institutions.