The state of the art in publication counting

The proceedings of the ISSI conferences in Stockholm, 2005, and Madrid, 2007, contain 85 contributions based on publication counting. The methods used in these contributions have been analyzed. The counting methods used are stated explicitly in 26 contributions and can be derived implicitly from the discussion of methods in 10 contributions. In only five contributions, there is a justification for the choice of method. Only one contribution gives information about different results obtained by using different methods. The non-additive results from whole counting give problems in the calculation of shares in seven contributions, but these problems are not mentioned. Only 11 contributions give a term (terms) for the counting method(s) used. To illustrate the problems, 11 of the contributions are discussed in detail. The conclusion is that 40 years of publication counting have not resulted in general agreement on definitions of methods and terminology nor in any kind of standardization.