Russian Publications in «Informatics»: Trends of Development

Abstract

This article considers the current state and evolution of the Russian publication flow in the field of Computer Science in the Web of Science (WOS) database. In this article, we use the term "Informatics" for "Computer Science". The study analyzes the Russian flow to determine its position in the world Computer Science publication flow and its compliance to the National project "Science" requirements.We analyzed the Russian publication flow in 2010–2019 and compared it with other countries. The structure of the flow by the document type and its temporal dynamics was studied as well as the impact on citation metrics. Compliance of the flow characteristics to the requirements of the Ministry of Higher Education and Science of the Russian Federation (Ministry) requirements was analyzed.The analysis indicates an increase in the number of Russian computer science publications within 2010-2019,which outstrips the increase in the total number of world publications in Computer Science. This allowed Russia to move from 34 to 15 positions in the world rating in the studied research area. However, this position is not sufficient to achieve the goal of the "Science" National Project, namely, at least, the fifth position in the world rating.According to the methodic requirements of the Ministry, four types of documents were studied: Journals Articles, Conferences Proceeding Papers, Book Chapters, and Reviews. All journals have been classified into the WOS journal quartiles. Our analysis shows that the percentage of publications in the journals of higher quartiles (first and second) increases constantly and made 42 % in 2019.An increase in the number of the Conference Proceeding Papers was the highest among the studied document types.The number of citations of the published documents was studied for each document type. It was shown thatthe citing of the Journal Articles is by the order of magnitude higher than that of the Conference Proceeding Papers. This result indicates the very low interest of the Scientific Society to the Conference Proceeding  Papers as compared with the Journal Articles. We conclude that an increase in the number and relative share of the Conference Proceeding Papers together with their low citation results in the low numbers of the overall citation of the Russian publication flow in comparison with other countries neighboring Russia in the world rating.The "Quality Coefficient" was calculated according to the Ministry’s methodic requirements. It was shown that the contribution of Conference Proceedings Papers to this coefficient is much lower than Journals Articles despite the number of the Conference Proceeding Papers is significantly higher.As a result, the flow of Russian publications in the field of Informatics demonstrates significant, though insufficient, growth within the analyzed period. Special attention should be paid to the document type structure of the flow.