Exploration of reproducibility issues in scientometric research

The (lack of) reproducibility of published research results has recently come under close scrutiny in some fields of science (see e.g. Flier 2017 for a discussion of bio-sciences, and e.g. Open Science Collaboration 2015 and Pashler & Harris 2012 for an assessment of the situation in psychology). Aside from genuine error or fraud as sources for the irreproducibility of published research, theoretical investigations (e.g. Ioannidis 2005) and empirical investigations (e.g. John et al. 2012) identify the use of questionable research methods, the overselling of results by overstating claims, and publication bias - the tendency to select positive results over negative results for publication - as further sources for the irreproducibility of results.