BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF THE MEXICAN SCIENTIFIC PRODUCTION IN AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES DURING THE YEARS 1983-2002

Abstract

In this research the Mexican scientific production in agricultural sciences is characterized, by means of bibliometric indicators, from the production included in several databases: Agricola, Agris, Cab Abstracts, Tropag & Rural, Science Citation Index (SCI) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI). In the first four databases, only the address of the corresponding author was available, who usually is the first author. The indicators used here allow to characterize the evolution of articles published in journals, the national contribution by states and by institutions and sectors, the languages in which the articles are published, the collaboration between authors and the coauthorship index. The scientific production during the evaluated period ascended to 15 736 journal articles. Two states, the Federal District and the State of México, published more than half of articles thus showing a high concentration of the national scientific research. The institutions that published more articles were public universities and institutes or research centers. The languages in which more journal articles were published were English and Spanish. The average rate of articles signed in coauthorship was of 87.62 %. The coauthorship index increased from 2.47 authors per article in 1983 to 4.08 in 2002.