Practitioner education in Bibliometrics: The LIS-Bibliometrics case study

At an Institutional level, bibliometrics have become more entrenched in the governance, assessment and understanding of the academic landscape. As a result, thorough knowledge of the tools that produce and measure those metrics, and the field of enquiry around them is more important than ever.
Education of bibliometric practitioners varies a lot across the world. In some countries such as Spain and Iran, bibliometrics have their own established academic programmes yet in others, such as the UK, training only occurs when employed in a bibliometrics role. Many practitioners lack formal training or access to professional networks, often relying on self-taught methods that can lead to the misuse of metrics and indicators.
The lack of formal education in bibliometrics has far-reaching implications—not only for the professionals working in the field but also for the integrity and development of bibliometrics itself. Without structured learning pathways, valuable expertise may be lost, and poor practices risk becoming entrenched. Moreover, maintaining research integrity relies on a well-grounded understanding of bibliometric methods—essential for addressing issues like questionable research practices in academic publishing. A decline in this expertise would represent a major setback for the field.
LIS-Bibliometrics is a bibliometric network formed in the UK but with now with a global membership. It has a focus on supporting LIS (Library and Information Science) professionals with the increasing volume of bibliometric queries and training they were called upon to deliver. It has been apparent within the group that there is a skills gap for bibliometric practitioners in the UK and a survey was conducted by its members to assess that and to give us a basis for addressing some of the issues.
The survey highlighted areas of concern for the community. The main concerns were the areas such as using APIs, Data Visualization and on the other end of the scale, some basic introduction to Bibliometrics. There was also a lot of interest in the areas of predatory journals and metrics gaming.
As we have now identified these gaps we aim to start addressing the need within the community. We have already begun to some extent at our recent LIS-Bibliometrics conference in November 2025. The theme of the conference was to look at “Bibliometrics in Practice” and to really drill down into practical applications and presentations, which is somewhat different from other years which had a more theoretical bent.
We are also now planning a series of events such as webinars, training events and possibly a workshop. These will aim to address the skills gaps that were identified in our survey but most importantly start to give those in our network who lack support or formal training in their institutions, some support and assistance to learn from other practitioners and have a network to help remove the isolation and provide the support they lack in their institutions.
The aim of this presentation is to raise the important topic of bibliometric education, to provoke some reflection and discussion on the current position of bibliometric education and to begin to encourage BRIC participants to consider how to identify and address skills gaps for bibliometric practitioners in their countries, and to show some of the measures that we have begun to take that they may find useful.


Presented at BRIC 2026 by Michelle O'Hara