Variability of citation behavior between scientific fields and the normalization problem: The “citing-side” normalization in context

We focus on the question of “normalization” in the broad acceptation of making measures comparable across scientific areas with different publication and citation practices. We especially comment on a novel approach, the citing side normalization, complementing the traditional ex post normalization and iterative influence measures, which may also carry a citing side process. Characteristics of citing-side normalization (also known as fractional citation or source level normalization) are sketched in this article. They introduce a new vantage point on citation networks.