19its extensive coverage of journals in the social sciences (Norris and Oppenheim
2007 ). The data collection was conducted in March 2016 and covered articles with
a focus on higher-education research published by Asia-affiliated authors between
1980 and 2015. The content of the specialised higher-education literature (journals
only) was based on the recommendations by Hutchinson and Lovell ( 2004 ) and
Tight ( 2004 ), who identified and listed core higher-education journals. A few
recently indexed higher-education journals were added to this list to cover a field
with expanding publication venues (Brennan and Teichler 2008 ). The latter journals
were identified by considering only journals with the words ‘higher education’ and
‘tertiary education’ in their titles (as in similar research; see Horta and Jung 2014 ).
The final list of journals is similar to that used in recent research on higher education
in Asia (see Jung and Horta 2015 ). Analysing specialised higher-education litera-
ture is meaningful because these journals offer forums for the presentation of new
knowledge and professional communication and debate (Tight 2008 ).
Using the criteria explained above, the search yielded 19,305 articles on higher
education published between 1980 and 2015. However, 3323 articles were removed
from the analysis due to insufficient information on the country or institution of
affiliation, as author affiliation provides a critical measure of the development of
knowledge in the field by region and country. More than 50% of the articles with
undefined affiliations were published by the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Although this publication is indexed in the higher-education journal database, it has
a multitude of functions (such as advertising academic jobs and hosting blogs); it
predominantly concerns issues in the higher-education system of the United States;
and its articles are generally only one or two pages long, in which higher-education
researchers identify and debate topics of immediate interest to stakeholders (Meyer
2010 ). In a sense, the Chronicle of Higher Education is a publishing venue that
communicates the approaches and findings of higher-education research to both the
general public and the higher-education community (Wilson 2011 ); therefore, the
comparability of its aims and purposes with those of other well-established special-
ised higher-education journals is questionable.
The remaining 15,982 articles – constituting the final database – were catego-
rised by country and region according to author affiliation to gain insights into the
nature and evolution of higher-education knowledge production in each world
region and country. As the focus of analysis was knowledge production in interna-
tional higher education in Asia, the United Nations’ classification^2 of countries was
generally followed to identify those countries considered to be part of Asia. Only
two countries in this classification, Turkey and Israel, were not considered part of
Asia. As associated member states to the European Union, these countries have long
benefited from European research funding, positioning them between the European
Research Area and the Asian research community. Therefore, their situation differs
considerably from that of other Asian countries (Svarc et al. 2013 ; Zimmerman
et al. 2009 ). The publication-counting method used in the study was whole counting,
(^2) The United Nations’ list of countries classified by region can be found at http://unstats.un.org/
unsd/methods/m49/m49regin.htm [last accessed 26 September 2016].
2 Higher-Education Researchers in Asia: The Risks of Insufficient Contribution...