Data Description
Overview
This section provides detailed metadata documentation for the variables used in the SciK-Health project datasets. Each block corresponds to a thematic group of indicators derived from OpenAlex and other integrated sources.
The indicators are designed to support reproducible, comparative research on Italian Academic Health Science Centres (AHSCs).
📊 Bibliometric Dimension
These indicators describe the scientific production volume, authorship patterns, and collaboration dynamics of AHSCs.
They are primarily computed using publication metadata from OpenAlex and enriched with journal quality metrics from SCOPUS.
🔹 Productivity
| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
| AHC | Name (short label) of the hospital/university institution |
| PY | Publication Year |
| nTotDoc | Total number of documents/articles published in the year |
| meanAUPerArt | Average number of authors per article |
| meanAU_IN_PerArt | Average number of internal authors (AU_IN) per article |
| meanArtAU_IN | Average number of articles per internal author |
| meanArtPer_AU_IN_FIRST | Average number of articles per internal author as first author |
| meanArtPer_AU_IN_LAST | Average number of articles per internal author as last author |
| meanArtPer_AU_IN_CORR | Average number of articles per internal author as corresponding author |
| ArtOA | Percentage of Open Access articles |
| singleAuArt | Number of single-author articles |
🔹 Impact
| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
| Q1_nSJR | Number of articles published in Q1 journals (quartile 1) according to SJR* |
| Q2_nSJR | Number of articles published in Q2 journals according to SJR |
| Q3_nSJR | Number of articles published in Q3 journals according to SJR |
| Q4_nSJR | Number of articles published in Q4 journals according to SJR |
| Q1_percSJR | Percentage of articles published in Q1 journals |
| Q2_percSJR | Percentage of articles published in Q2 journals |
| Q3_percSJR | Percentage of articles published in Q3 journals |
| Q4_percSJR | Percentage of articles published in Q4 journals |
| meanTCperArt | Average number of citations per article |
| mean_NTC | Average Normalized Total Citations (NTC) per institution and year** |
| meanCitationTrend | Average citation trend over time*** |
* Indicator based on data from SCOPUS. Journals assigned to multiple subject categories were selected based on the best percentile.
** Measures the average citation performance of an institution’s publications in a given year, normalized to the global average citation rate for that year. Enables cross-institution comparison.
*** Citation trend is a metric assigned to articles by OpenAlex starting from 2012.
🔹 Collaboration
| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
| InternCoauthorship | Percentage of articles with international co-authors |
| AffCoauthorship | Percentage of articles with co-authors affiliated with different institutions |
🔹 Talent
These indicators focus on the concentration and distribution of scientific contributions across internal and external authors.
They provide insights into the presence of high-performing individuals, institutional equity, and authorship leadership roles.
| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
| GC_AUIN_wFractional | Gini concentration index (fractional) on internal authors* |
| GC_AUIN_FIRSTname | Gini concentration index on internal authors in first position (first name)** |
| GC_AUIN_LASTname | Gini concentration index on internal authors in last position** |
| GC_AUIN_CORRESP | Gini concentration index on internal corresponding authors** |
| top_AU | List of top authors (internal and external) by frequency |
| top_AU_freq | Absolute frequencies of top authors (internal and external) in top_AU |
| top_AU_wFract | List of top authors (internal and external) by fractional frequency |
| top_AU_freq_wFract | Fractional frequencies associated with each author in top_AU_wFract |
| top_AUIN | List of top internal authors by simple frequency |
| top_AUIN_freq | Absolute frequencies of internal authors in top_AUIN |
| top_AUIN_wFract | List of top internal authors by fractional frequency |
| top_AUIN_freq_wFract | Fractional frequencies associated with each internal author in top_AUIN_wFract |
| topAUbyCit | List of top authors by total citations |
| topAUbyCit_TC | Total citations associated with each author in topAUbyCit |
| topAUINbyCit | List of top internal authors by total citations |
| topAUINbyCit_TC | Total citations associated with internal authors in topAUINbyCit |
| topAUINbyCit_norm_byYear | List of top internal authors by normalized citations per year*** |
| topAUINbyCit_TC_norm_byYear | Normalized citations associated with internal authors in topAUINbyCit_norm_byYear |
* The weight assigned to each author is fractional (considering both publication count and co-authorship).
** Gini concentration computed using the number of published articles per author as weight.
*** Top cited authors, where citation counts are normalized by dividing each article’s citation count by the average citations of all articles published in the same year.
🔹 Topics
This group of indicators summarizes the conceptual and thematic content of the scientific output produced by AHSCs.
It includes hierarchical concept levels (from general disciplines to specific biomedical entities), MeSH terms, authors’ keywords, and text-mined bigrams from titles and abstracts.
| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
| topConcept_L0 | Top level 0 concepts (general disciplines, e.g., MEDICINE, BIOLOGY) |
| topFreq_L0 | Frequencies associated with top level 0 concepts |
| topConcept_L1 | Top level 1 concepts (subdisciplines or specializations, e.g., CARDIOLOGY, SURGERY) |
| topFreq_L1 | Frequencies associated with top level 1 concepts |
| topConcept_L2 | Top level 2 concepts (more specific topics) |
| topFreq_L2 | Frequencies associated with top level 2 concepts |
| topConcept_L3 | Top level 3 concepts (more detailed, e.g., related to diseases or methods) |
| topFreq_L3 | Frequencies associated with top level 3 concepts |
| topConcept_L4 | Top level 4 concepts (highest specificity, e.g., biological entities, anatomical structures) |
| topFreq_L4 | Frequencies associated with top level 4 concepts |
| topMESH | List of main MeSH terms associated with the articles |
| topMESH_n | Frequencies of the top MeSH terms |
| topprimary_topic.display_name | Top primary topics |