145
1 INTRODUCTION
Itisalwayssignificantandoneofthemajortasksfor
allscientists,educators,academiciansandresearchers
topublishtheirstudiesasanarticleinajournaltobe
recognizedintheacademicandscientificcommunity
onthelargescale.Ontheotherhand,itishelpfulto
themtoadv
ancetheir owncareersforpromotionand
scholar awards. In parallel with, it is also important
for allinstitutions and countriesto get reputation in
scientific area. Science researchers often view the
publication of research findings in academic or
referred journals as an important task for their
profession.Fornewresearchers,beingawareofsome
import
ant academic journals helps them to
understand the field of science more broadly.
Therefore, having a systematic analysis of articles
publishedinacademicjournalsmayassistresearchers
to explore the current status and future trends of
research(TsaiandWen,2005).Publishinganarticlein
a journal is so crucial for researchers and
academ
icians, yet there are some difficulties and a
kindofchallengeforthem.Itisnoteasytodesignand
plan research questions and hypotheses to make a
remarkableandimpressivestudywhichisworthyto
publish. In this respect, this study aim
s to reveal
authors, institutions and countries contribution to
TransNavJournal.Itaimstoconductcontentanalysis
ofthearticlespublishedinTransNavJournal,aswell.
Thereasonofchoosingthisjournaltoconductcontent
and contribution analysis is that the “TransNav
publishes innovative, interdisciplinary and
multidisciplinary research on marine navigation
subjectsandissettobecometheleadingint
ernational
scholarly journal specializing in debate and
discussiononmaritimesubject.Transnavjournalalso
concerned to set maritime studies in a broad
international and comparative context”
(http://www.transnav.eu,Accessed29
th
Dec2012).
A Content Analysis of the “International Journal on
Marine Navigation and Safety of Sea Transportation”
from 2007 to 2012
R.Fiskin&S.Nas
DokuzEylulUniversity,MaritimeFaculty,Izmir,Turkey
ABSTRACT: This study examined the content analysis of the articles published in International Journal on
MarineNavigationandSafetyofSea Transportation(TransNav).Acontentanalysiswasconductedfora6‐year
periodfrom2007to2012.Thejournalpublished6volumes,24issuesand401art
iclessince2007.Thearticles
weresubmittedby637authorsfrom49differentcountries.Atotalof401researchpaperswereanalyzedinthe
senseoftheauthor’sscore,countryandinstitutionranksofarticlespublishedintheTransNavJournal.Inthis
study, no attempt was made to distinguish between departments, research centers, and agencies within an
inst
itution.TheanalyseswerefoundthattheauthorsfromPolandmadethemostcontributiontothejournal.
Thisshowsthatthejournalshouldbemoreattractiveforauthorsfromothercountriestoenhancesendingtheir
scientificstudies.Thisstudyalsofoundthatthejournalmostlya
ttendssafetyandsecurityinseatransportation.
Algorithmsandmethodsarealsowidelyincludedinthejournalasatopicchapter.
http://www.transnav.eu
the International Journal
on Marine Navigation
and Safety of Sea Transportation
Volume 7
Number 1
March 2013
DOI:10.12716/1001.07.01.19
146
Thepurposeofthestudyistodefinechangesand
trends in time and to analyze author’s, country and
institution contribution to articles published in the
TransNavjournal.Acontent analysiswasconducted
fora 6yearperiod from2007to 2012.Atotalof 401
researchpaperswereanalyzed.
2 LITERATUREREVIEW
Scanning of lit
erature revealed that there have been
lots of research papers which were used content
analysismethod.Inthis study, relevantstudieswere
utilizedtocompileofdata,tocreate ofcategories,to
code and analysis of data. Some researchers have
conducted several content analyses so as va
rious
journals. Many of these analyses were designed for
authors and institutional contribution and
productivity by giving score to them (Tsai & Wen,
2005; Cavas et al., 2012; Howard, Cole & Maxwell,
1987) and many others designed to characterize the
scientificoutputof aresearchers such ash‐index(Al
2008, Hirsch 2005, Chua et al. 2002, Feeser 2008). In
somecases,studiesweredesignedtocomparisonand
cat
egorization of data for researchers who wants to
glimpselotsofarticles(Mulengaetal.2006,Haddock
2002,Dönmez etal.2010, Blisset al.,2008, Parkeret
al.2010,Brown2007
).
The majorreviews recently publishedin termsof
authors and institutional contribution and
productivitywerementionedbelow;
Howard, Cole & Maxwell (1987), in their study,
analyzed thirteen American Psychological Association
(APA) journals for the years 1976‐1985 to make a
comparison with previous reputational ratings of
institutions in psychology which were analyzed
former researchers. Williams et al. (1999) and
Blancheretal.(2010)examinedthecontentofart
icles
publishedinJournalofCounseling&Development(vol.
67‐74&74‐84respectively).Rankingsofcontributing
authorsandinstitutionalproductivity wereanalyzed
and results were compared with an earlier content
analysis. Davis et al. (2001) conducted a content
analysisofart
iclesthatwerepublishedintheJournal
ofMulticulturalCounselingandDevelopment(JMCD)for
15 year‐period. The analysis identified the leading
contributors (i.e., authors, institutions) to JMCD,
evaluated the content of the articles, examined the
type of articles, and highlighted the pa
rticular
cultural groups that were studied most frequently.
English et al. (2005) conducted a content analysis of
the Journal of Religious Education for a 10‐year period
from 1993‐2002 in terms of author institutional
affiliation, religion identity, geographic location, and
number of contributions. Sam (2008) aimed to
conduct content analysis of art
icles published in the
Ghana Library Journal over a seven year period from
2000‐2006 in terms of authors contribution, the most
studied topics, the distribution of the articles are
published by institutions. Dönmez et al. (2010)
subjectedtoacomparativecontentanalysisofarticles
publishedin accountingeducationjournals asp
ectof
topics, number of authors, countries contribution.
Cavasetal.(2012)investigatedthecontentanalysisof
the Journal of Baltic Science Education in terms of
authors’ nationality, research topics and includes
somestatisticalanalysisofthearticlespublishedfrom
2002 to 2011. The analysis method developed by
Howard et al. (1987) was selected by the aut
hors to
figure out contribution ranks. Tsai & Wen (2005)
conducted a series ofcontent analyses ofthe articles
publishedin selectedjournals(International Journal of
Science Education, Science Education, and Journal of
ResearchinScienceTeaching)from1998to2002.Atotal
of802researchpa
perswereanalyzedinrespectofthe
authors’ nationality, research types and topics. The
analysis method developed by Howard et al. (1987)
was selected to assess the score of a specific author.
Mulenga et al. (2006) conducted a comparative
content analysis of some major adult education
journalsfrom1990to2004interms of countryranks
andaut
hors’productivity.
3 RESEARCHMETHOD
Thisstudy usedallof the research papers published
inTransNavJournalfor5year‐periodastheresearch
sample to investigate the research and trends in
marineeducation.Atotalof401researchpaperswere
analyzed.Contributionfor eachcountryand aut
hors
wasanalyzedquantitativelyandrankedforTransNav
Journal within five years. The formula had been
createdbyHowardetal.(1987)wasusedtocalculate
thescoreofaspecificauthorinamulti‐authorpaper.
A single‐authored article netted that author’s
institution a single unit of credit. In multi‐aut
hored
articles, credit was assigned to institutions
proportionately:
1
1
1
(1.5 )
S
core =
1.5
n
n
n
i
where n is the tota
l number of authors and i is the
particular author’s ordinal position. Hence, second
authorship in a co‐authored article was given 0.40
creditunit;thirdauthorshipina three‐authorarticle,
0.21, and so forth. By this method, the accumulated
scorefor eachcountrywas calculatedand compared
byyearandbyjournal(Howardetal.,1987).
Table1.Author’sscore allocationformulti‐authorresearch
papers.
_______________________________________________
OrderofSpecificAuthor
NumberofAuthors 1 2 3 4 5
_______________________________________________
1 1
2 0.60 0.40
3 0.47 0.32 0.21
4 0.42 0.28 0.18 0.12
5 0.38 0.26 0.17 0.11
0.08
_______________________________________________
Note:Thevalueineachcellindicatesaspecificauthor’s
scoreinamulti‐authorpaperwhenapaperiscountedas
onepoint(Tsai&Wen,2005).
Inthi
sstudy,noattemptwasmadetodistinguish
between departments,research centers, andagencies
withinaninstitution.Thus,the estimationrepresents
theproductivityofentireinstitutions.But,separation
of credit was not assigned to different faculty or
departmentofauniversityandinstitution.
147
4 FINDINGS
Table 2 presents information about the number of
articles,authorsandcountriesaccordingtoyear.
Table2.Thenumberofarticles,authorsandcountries.
_______________________________________________
YearNumberof Numberof Numberof
Articles Authors Countries
_______________________________________________
200764 12219
200864 12218
200965 13023
201066 12621
201168 16024
20127415531
_______________________________________________
Total40163749
_______________________________________________
Totally 401 art
icles were published; 637 authors
from 49 different countries were contributed to the
journalinpastsixyearfrom2007to2012.
So as to analyze the research contribution by
country, each paper published in TransNav Journal
during 2007‐2012 was given one point. The paper
with multiple authors from different countries was
scoredbytheformulawhichisshownab
ove.Table3
andTable4showcountryscores between2007‐2012.
As shown in Table 3, in the first three years of the
journal, authors from Poland were primarily most
contributed to TransNav Journal. China, Turkey,
Norway,PhilippinesandUKalsohavehigherscores
from2007to2009.
Table3. Country rank of articles published in TransNav
Journalfrom2007to2009.
_______________________________________________
200720082009
_______________________________________________
Country Score Country Score Country Score
Poland 28.21 Poland 32.60 Poland 28.00
China 5.79 China 6.00 Norway 4.64
Turkey 5.30 Turkey 4.00 Philippine 4.00
UK 4.37 Romania 3.00 Germany 2.66
Norway 3.00 Vietnam 2.40 UK 2.40
Sweden 2.00 UK 2.00 China 2.00
Others 15.33 Others 14.00 Others 21.30
_______________________________________________
Table 4 shows tha
t in the last three years of the
journal, authors from Poland were still most
contributed to the journal. The authors from Russia,
Germany and Japan also published many papers
between 2010‐2012. Especially, Germany and Japan
increased numbers of contribution in 2011 and 2012
respectively.
Table4. Country ranks of articles published in TransNav
Journalfrom2010to2012.
_______________________________________________
2010 2011 2012
Country Score Country Score Country Score
_______________________________________________
Poland 30.21 Poland 26.90 Poland 26.99
Russia 4.00 Germany 6.05 Japan5.00
Philippine 4.00 Ukraine 3.00 Finland 4.86
China 4.00 Spain 3.00 Russia 4.00
Turkey 3.00 China 3.00 China 3.00
Norway 3.00 Japan2.72 UK 3.00
Others 17.79 Others 23.33 Others 27.15
_______________________________________________
So as to make a comparison related papers
published in the journal concerning authors’
nationality, papers were categorized in two groups:
from2007to2009andfrom2010to2012.Withrespect
tothis,Table5showscountryranksofpublicationsas
regardsrelatedyears.
As illustrated in Table 5, Poland, China and
Turkeyweretopthreecountriesduring2007‐2009.In
the last three years, aut
hors from Poland and China
madethemostcontributiontothejournalastheydid
in the first three years of the journal. Additionally,
authorsfromJapanmadeathreerankofcontribution
tojournalinsteadofaut
horsfromTurkey.Especially,
Germany, Japan and Finland enhanced their
contribution to journal in the last three years of the
journal.
Table5. Country rank of publications between 2007‐2009
and2010‐2012.
_______________________________________________
2007‐20092010‐2012
(N=193)(N=208)
_______________________________________________
Country Score Rank Country Score Rank
_______________________________________________
Poland 88.81 1 Poland 84.10 1
China 13.79 2 China 10.00 2
Turkey 11.00 3 Japan9.72 3
UK8.77 4 Russia 8.00 4
Norway 8.12 5 Germany 7.05 5
Philippines 8.00 6 Norway 7.03 6
Germany 5.30 7 Finland 6.75 7
Japan5.06 8 Philippines 5.00 8
Romania 5.00 9 UK
4.68 9
Sweden 4.54 10 Turkey 4.00 10
_______________________________________________
The result of the total scores from 2007 to 2012
shows that Poland is at first rank with the score of
172.91. China is the second with the score of 23.79.
Norwayisthethirdwiththescoreof15.15.
Top fifteen authors are included in the Table 6
which shows the aut
hor ranks of publication
published in the journal. As shown in related table,
the most contribution came from M. Magramo from
John B. Lacson Foundation Maritime University,
Philippines with the score of 3.63. J. Kornacki from
Maritime University of Szczecin, Poland and R.
SzlapczynskifromGdanskUniversityofTechnology,
Poland, published four articles, follow M. Magramo
with the score of 3.60. It is also seen in Table 6, the
aut
hors from Poland made most contribution to the
journallastsixyear.
Table6. Author ranks of publication published in the
journal
_______________________________________________
AuthorsCountryScore #Articles
_______________________________________________
M.Magramo Philippines3.637
J.KornackiPoland3.604
R.Szlapczynski Poland3.604
L.GucmaPoland3.587
E.Doyle Ireland3.003
E.M.Lushnikov Poland3.003
H.YousefiIran 3.003
J.JanuszewskiPoland3.003
J.LisowskiPoland3.003
K.KorczPoland3.003
M.Lack
iPoland3.005
A.WeintritPoland2.937
D.Duda Poland2.525
E.BarsanRomania 2.073
J.Montewka Finland1.917
_______________________________________________
148
The study also asked which institutions were
supporting to journal, and which scholarsare trying
tokeepthejournaldeveloping.TheTable7showstop
contributing institutions based on primary author’s
affiliation.GdyniaMaritimeUniversity,Polandmade
most contribution to the journal with the number of
69(%17.2).SzczecinMaritimeUniversity,Poland and
Istanbul Technical University, Turkey follow it with
thenumberof41(%10.2)and14(3.5),respectively.
Table7. Top contributing institutions based on primary
author’saffiliation
_______________________________________________
InstitutionCountry #Article %
_______________________________________________
GdyniaMaritimeUni.Poland 6917.2
SzczecinMaritimeUni. Poland 4110.2
IstanbulTechnicalUni. Turkey 143.5
ShanghaiMaritimeUni. China 123.0
ConstantaMaritimeUni. Romania 102.5
DalianMaritimeUni.China 102.5
PolishNavalAcademyPoland 92.2
J.B.L.FoundationM.Uni Philippines 92.2
GdanskUni.OfTech.
Poland 71.7
AaltoUni.Finland 61.5
_______________________________________________
Table8revealsthatratingofthearticlespublished
in journal were written by collaborative work. It is
foundthat36.9%oftheworkpublishedinthisjournal
issingle authoredwith the numberof 148.Articles
were studied by collaborative work is higher than
singleauthored.
Table8.Numberofauthorsbyeacharticle
_______________________________________________
Num.ofAuthorNumber%
_______________________________________________
Single 148 36.9
2 114 28.4
3 68 17.0
4 48 12.0
5 14 3.5
6 7 1.7
9 1 0.2
12
10.2
_______________________________________________
Total401100.0
_______________________________________________
The distribution of the articles according the
journalchaptersisshowninTable9soastofindout
the top six mention chapter which was subject to
articles published in journal. As shown in Table 9,
Safety and Security in Sea Transportation was
primarily mentioned chapter with the number of 29
(%7.2). Maritime Education and Training and also
Methods and Algorithms were the most mentioned
chapterwiththesamenumberof24(%6.0).
Table 9. Distribution of the articles according the journal
chapter.
_______________________________________________
TopicNumber %
_______________________________________________
SafetyandSecurityinSeaTransportation 297.2
MethodsandAlgorithms 246.0
MaritimeEducationandTraining 246.0
GlobalNavigationSatelliteSystem246.0
HumanFactorandCRM 215.2
ManeuveringandPilotNavigation184.5
_______________________________________________
5 SUMMARYANDCONCLUSION
A series of content analyses of articles published in
TransNavJournalfrom2007to2012wasexaminedto
reveal author’s score, country and institution ranks.
As a result of this research, many findings are
revealed and major findings are submitted in the
study. Totally 401 articles were published; 637
aut
horsfrom 49differentcountries werecontributed
tothejournalinpastsixyearfrom2007to2012.The
TransNav Journal primarily has submissions from
Poland which made the highest contribution to the
journal.Russia,Germany,Japan,TurkeyandChinais
following Poland in terms of total published pa
pers
during related years. The total number of articles
prepared by these countries is not equal to total
numberofarticleswrittenbyauthorsfromPoland.In
thisrespect,itisthoughtthatTransNavJournalought
toenhancethecontributionofforeigncountriestobe
recognizedonthelargescale.
When we examine the findings in terms of the
aut
hors’ contribution, the most contribution came
fromPolishauthorsbut,surprisingly,thefirstrankis
got by M.Magramo fromPhilippines with the score
of3.63.Therearenumberoftenpolishauthorswithin
the top fifteen authors. We think that, it should be
moreforeignaut
horstakepartinthetable.
Findings about institutions contribution revealed
that Gdynia Maritime University and Szczecin
Maritime University with the number of 69 and 41,
respectively. Although there are no authors from
Turkey in top fifteen authors, Istanbul Technical
University, Turkey take part in top ten contributing
countries. The university is on thi
rd rank with the
total of 14 articles based on primary author’s
affiliation.TheotherfindingaboutTransNavJournal
is number of authorsfor each article. In this regard,
therateofthecollaborativeworkismorethansingle‐
authored work with the number of 253. The last
finding ab
out journal is distribution of the articles
accordingchapters.Thejournalmostlyattendssafety
and security in sea transportation. Algorithms and
methods is widely included in the journal as a
chapter. The journal is also interested in Human
resources and factors as a fantastic construction and
design contributing to greater qualit
y of life that
makesourlivesonearthbothsaferandmorepositive
(Fahlgren G. K., 2007). The journal deals with
educationandtraining, crucialforseatransportation
safely,aswell.
Finally,itisobviousthat,writingforpublicationis
substantial task for researchers and academ
icians to
make contribution to science, to get reputation and
promotion, to be recognized in the academic
communityandtodevelopthemselves.Inthisregard,
it is wondered about articles published in TransNav
journal and related study has been done to reveal
author’sscore,countryandinstitutionranks.
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