Pricing De Solla Price’s Circumvent
A. Victor Adedayo *
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria and Department of Metallurgical Engineering, Kwara State Polytechnic, Ilorin, Nigeria
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Aims: This study examines the foundations of modern scientometrics as laid down by Derek De Solla Price who is reputed to be the founding father of scientometrics.
Methodology: A brief overview of the study of network structures was made. This was used to identify the onset of erroneous assumptions in the premise laid by De Solla Price. Established similarities between citations and voting was exploited and used to quantify the extent of the errors made in De Solla assumptions.
Conclusion: It was found out that the assumptions of De Solla Price are about 78% in error.
Keywords: Bibliometrics, scientometrics, derek de solla price, citation