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. 2022 Jan 18;15(1):178–179. doi: 10.18240/ijo.2022.01.28

Comment on: Trends in research related to high myopia from 2010 to 2019: a bibliometric and knowledge mapping analysis

Yuh-Shan Ho 1
PMCID: PMC8720346  PMID: 35047376

Dear Editor,

Zhang et al[1] recently published a bibliometric paper entitled “Trends in research related to high myopia from 2010 to 2019: A bibliometric and knowledge mapping analysis”. The authors mentioned in section Data Source and Research Strategy that “we retrieved WoSCC (https://webofknowledge.com/) in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) database online as data source”.

Web of Science Core Collection includes

Web of Science Core Collection: Citation Indexes

1) Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED)--1900-present;

2) Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI)--1900-present;

3) Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI)--1975-present;

4) Conference Proceedings Citation Index-Science (CPCI-S)--1990-present;

5) Conference Proceedings Citation Index-Social Sciences & Humanities (CPCI-SSH)--1990-present;

6) Book Citation Index–Science (BKCI-S)--2005-present;

7) Book Citation Index–Social Sciences & Humanities (BKCI-SSH)--2005-present;

8) Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI)--2015-present;

Web of Science Core Collection: Chemical Indexes

1) Current Chemical Reactions (CCR-EXPANDED);

2) Index Chemicus (IC).

Web of Science Core Collection is designed mainly for researchers to find published literature, but not for bibliometric studies[2]. It is unsuitable to use all these different types and levels of databases. For example, ESCI complements the highly selective indexes by providing earlier visibility for sources under evaluation as part of the rigorous journal selection process of SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI, and A&HCI[3]–[4]. In addition, no high myopia English articles can be found in A&HCI, CPCI-SSH, BKCI-SSH, CCR-EXPANDED, and IC.

In the same section, the authors noticed that “Data were collected on January 1, 2020. “High myopia” and “Pathological myopia” were retrieved as the topic terms, the time span was “from 2010 to 2019”, the document type was restricted to “article”, and the language was limited to “English only.” In the section Annual Distribution of Publications, the authors presented that “By WoSCC based analysis, 3544 documents on HM from 2010 to 2019 has been collected”.

It is not appropriate to use the database directly without bibliometric treatment. It is impossible to know number of publications in 2019 in the Web of Science Core Collection on 01 January 2020. The authors mentioned search keywords: “high myopia” and “pathological myopia”. In fact, the authors used high myopia or pathological myopia that means high and myopia or pathological and myopia. These search keywords are inappropriate for “Trends in research related to high myopia”.

Using “high myopia” and “pathological myopia” as search keywords in terms of topic (including title, abstract, author keywords, and KeyWords Plus) within the publication year with a limit of 2010 to 2019. A total of 1826 and 1952 English articles were published in the SCI-EXPANDED and the Web of Science Core Collection, respectively. A big difference was found from the 3544 documents in the original paper[1].

It was pointed out that the documents, which can only be searched out by KeyWords Plus, were more likely to be irrelevant to the research topic[5]. Ho's group was the first to propose “front page” as a filter to improve the bibliometric method[6]–[7] which covers only documents with searching keywords in their “front page”, including only the article title, the abstract, and the author keywords. By using the “front page” filter, it will avoid introducing unrelated articles for analysis[6]. After using the filter of “front page”, 1405 and 1508 English articles were found in the SCI-EXPANDED and the Web of Science Core Collection, respectively. In total, 412 articles (29% of 1405 articles) and 444 articles (29% of 1508 articles) had no any searching words: “high myopia” and “pathological myopia” in the articles' title, abstract, and author keywords, for example, highly cited articles entitled “Macular choroidal thickness and volume in normal subjects measured by swept-source optical coherence tomography”[8]; “Prevalence and progression of myopic retinopathy in Chinese adults: The Beijing eye study”[9]; and “The development of an instrument to measure quality of vision: The Quality of Vision (QoV) questionnaire”[10].

Zhang et al[1] published “Trends in research related to high myopia from 2010 to 2019: A bibliometric and knowledge mapping analysis” using inappropriate search strategy and search keywords. This may lead to misleading readers of the journal[11].

Acknowledgments

Conflicts of Interest: Ho YS, None.

REFERENCES

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