Analysis of the distribution of cited journals according to their positions in the h-core of citing journal listed in Journal Citation Reports

The aim of this study is to analyze some properties of the distribution of journals that are cited in the h-core of citing journals listed in the Journal Citation Reports. Data were obtained from the 2011 edition of JCR available for universities in Spain. The citing journal matrix available in JCR was used to identify the cited journals that appear most frequently in the h-core. The results show that about 70% of citing journals occupy positions other than the first one in the set of journals cited by them. Some properties of the distribution of cited journals that appear in the h-core are also studied, such as the cost, in terms of citations, of occupying a given position, and the spectrum of positions (distribution of frequencies with which a given cited journal appears in different positions). The measures calculated here could be used to define new scientometric indicators.