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Best Papers vs. Top Cited Papers in Computer Science

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Re: Best Papers vs. Top Cited Papers in Computer Science

#2

Post by j2kun »

I think it's far more interesting to just see what the top cited papers are every year (after the fact) than to compare with the best paper. Best paper awards are given for a lot of reasons that aren't consistent across conferences or even across years of the same conference.

Re: Best Papers vs. Top Cited Papers in Computer Science

#4

Post by not_that_noob »

psuter wrote: post #3

Conference organizers are well aware that best paper awards are not perfect predictors of importance or popularity. Many top conferences specifically introduced separate awards ("most influential", "test of time", etc.) granted e.g. 10 years after publication.

Often times, the truly revolutionary ideas (and most likely to be cited in future papers) are those that are not understood fully or perhaps even reviled, and thus likely to not be awarded any significant honor on introduction.

Einstien won his Nobel for work on the photoelectric effect, not relativity, though obviously the latter mattered more.

Re: Best Papers vs. Top Cited Papers in Computer Science

#5

Post by jldugger »

Reviewing SIGMOD, it appears that a lot of the citations earned are less about innovative research, and more about the everyone using the software tools they published.

And a survey paper in the field of big data analysis (survey papers are citation bate, but won't be pulling in many grants or awards).

Re: Best Papers vs. Top Cited Papers in Computer Science

#7

Post by fbeeper »

psuter wrote: post #3

Conference organizers are well aware that best paper awards are not perfect predictors of importance or popularity. Many top conferences specifically introduced separate awards ("most influential", "test of time", etc.) granted e.g. 10 years after publication.

I don't think that they even expect them to be predictors of importance or popularity. The "best paper" award can give a hint of temporary fashions or about what seemed to be interesting concepts/works at a certain point in time. That's why it seems especially interesting to see them compared with the "top cited" in these charts.

Re: Best Papers vs. Top Cited Papers in Computer Science

#8

Post by fbeeper »

jldugger wrote: post #5

Reviewing SIGMOD, it appears that a lot of the citations earned are less about innovative research, and more about the everyone using the software tools they published. And a survey paper in the field of big data analysis (survey papers are citation bate, but won't be pulling in many grants or awards).

That somehow reinforces that publishing source code with CS research papers is more than necessary :)

Re: Best Papers vs. Top Cited Papers in Computer Science

#9

Post by privong »

not_that_noob wrote: post #4
psuter wrote: post #3

Conference organizers are well aware that best paper awards are not perfect predictors of importance or popularity. Many top conferences specifically introduced separate awards ("most influential", "test of time", etc.) granted e.g. 10 years after publication.

Often times, the truly revolutionary ideas (and most likely to be cited in future papers) are those that are not understood fully or perhaps even reviled, and thus likely to not be awarded any significant honor on introduction. Einstien won his Nobel for work on the photoelectric effect, not relativity, though obviously the latter mattered more.

> Einstien won his Nobel for work on the photoelectric effect, not relativity, though obviously the latter mattered more.

The photoelectric effect led to quantum mechanics and the associated science and technology. I don't think it's obvious that relativity mattered more. If you judge by day-to-day use, one could plausibly argue that our understanding of quantum mechanics has a bigger impact.

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