Journal Maps, Interactive Overlays, and the Measurement of Interdisciplinarity on the Basis of Scopus Data (1996-2012)

Using Scopus data, we construct a global map of science based on aggregated journal-journal citations from 1996-2012 (N of journals = 20,554). This base map enables users to overlay downloads from Scopus interactively. Using a single year (e.g., 2012), results can be compared with mappings based on the Journal Citation Reports at the Web-of-Science (N = 10,936). The Scopus maps are more detailed at both the local and global levels because of their greater coverage, including, for example, the arts and humanities. The base maps can be interactively overlaid with journal distributions in sets downloaded from Scopus, for example, for the purpose of portfolio analysis. Rao-Stirling diversity can be used as a measure of interdisciplinarity in the sets under study. Maps at the global and the local level, however, can be very different because of the different levels of aggregation involved. Two journals, for example, can both belong to the humanities in the global map, but participate in different specialty structures locally. The base map and interactive tools are available online (with instructions) at http://www.leydesdorff.net/scopus_ovl.Comment: accepted for publication in the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST

Visualization and analysis of SCImago Journal & Country Rank structure via journal clustering

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to visualize the structure of SCImago Journal & Country Rank (SJR) coverage of the extensive citation network of Scopus journals, examining this bibliometric portal through an alternative approach, applying clustering and visualization techniques to a combination of citation-based links. Design/methodology/approach:Three SJR journal-journal networks containing direct citation, co-citation and bibliographic coupling links are built. The three networks were then combined into a new one by summing up their values, which were later normalized through geo-normalization measure. Finally, the VOS clustering algorithm was executed and the journal clusters obtained were labeled using original SJR category tags and significant words from journal titles. Findings: The resultant scientogram displays the SJR structure through a set of communities equivalent to SJR categories that represent the subject contents of the journals they cover. A higher level of aggregation by areas provides a broad view of the SJR structure, facilitating its analysis and visualization at the same time. Originality/value: This is the first study using Persson’s combination of most popular citation-based links (direct citation, co-citation and bibliographic coupling) in order to develop a scientogram based on Scopus journals from SJR. The integration of the three measures along with performance of the VOS community detection algorithm gave a balanced set of clusters. The resulting scientogram is useful for assessing and validating previous classifications as well as for information retrieval and domain analysis.Peer reviewe

Global dimension in engineering education : promoting global learning in Spanish universities

La iniciativa ‘Dimensión Global en los Estudios Tecnológicos’ (GDEE) es una red que pretende mejorar el conocimiento, la comprensión crítica y los valores actitudinales de los estudiantes y de los postgraduados de las universidades científicotecnológicas en relación al Desarrollo Humano Sostenible (DHS). El objetivo es promover la integración del DHS como tema transversal en el currículo, mediante la mejora de las competencias de los profesores y a través de su participación y la de los estudiantes en iniciativas relacionadas con el DHS. La iniciativa empezó como un proyecto de colaboración entre un consorcio de universidades europeas y ONGs financiado por EuropeAid. Esta contribución presenta y discute la experiencia europea GDEE, profundizando las barreras y oportunidades encontradas, centrándose especialmente en la replicabilidad potencial de esta iniciativa. Estos resultados se complementan con la caracterización y el análisis comparativo del perfil académico de una comunidad de profesores implicados en actividades promovidas por GDEE.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Profiling research of the engineering academics who successfully promote education in Sustainable Human Development

Over the last decades, engineering faculties and universities have become increasingly engaged in integrating sustainable development into their different functions. Notwithstanding, more effort is required to effectively integrate sustainability principles as a whole-university approach, and specifically, in technical universities. Scientific literature highlights the main barriers to the success of initiatives that address this shortcoming. A better understanding of the scientific profile of the academics who engage in sustainable development activities can help to develop and promote initiatives for increasing faculty engagement in all academic functions. For this purpose, this study presents a bibliometric analysis of the scientific production of an academic community involved in a European initiative aimed at capacitating engineering academics for sustainable development. Specifically, two groups of academics with different degrees of expertise and involvement in sustainable development were characterized and compared, revealing common trends and similarities of their research production. The results have different implications for future strategies aimed at engaging specific academic profiles in the field of engineering, highlighting especially health science–related fields linked with engineering as a potential opportunity of promoting the integration of sustainable development in engineering education. Further analysis is required to determine the university rankings and their potential implications for the integration of sustainable development, as well as appropriate policies and mechanisms of faculty rewarding and promotion.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Innovation as a Nonlinear Process, the Scientometric Perspective, and the Specification of an "Innovation Opportunities Explorer"

The process of innovation follows non-linear patterns across the domains of science, technology, and the economy. Novel bibliometric mapping techniques can be used to investigate and represent distinctive, but complementary perspectives on the innovation process (e.g., "demand" and "supply") as well as the interactions among these perspectives. The perspectives can be represented as "continents" of data related to varying extents over time. For example, the different branches of Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) in the Medline database provide sources of such perspectives (e.g., "Diseases" versus "Drugs and Chemicals"). The multiple-perspective approach enables us to reconstruct facets of the dynamics of innovation, in terms of selection mechanisms shaping localizable trajectories and/or resulting in more globalized regimes. By expanding the data with patents and scholarly publications, we demonstrate the use of this multi-perspective approach in the case of RNA Interference (RNAi). The possibility to develop an "Innovation Opportunities Explorer" is specified.Comment: Technology Analysis and Strategic Management (forthcoming in 2013

Cognitive distances between evaluators and evaluees in research evaluation : a comparison between three informetric methods at the journal and subject category aggregation level

This article compares six informetric approaches to determine cognitive distances between the publications of panel members (PMs) and those of research groups in discipline-specific research evaluation. We used data collected in the framework of six completed research evaluations from the period 2009–2014 at the University of Antwerp as a test case. We distinguish between two levels of aggregation—Web of Science Subject Categories and journals—and three methods: while the barycenter method (2-dimensional) is based on global maps of science, the similarity-adapted publication vector (SAPV) method and weighted cosine similarity (WCS) method (both in higher dimensions) use a full similarity matrix. In total, this leads to six different approaches, all of which are based on the publication profile of research groups and PMs. We use Euclidean distances between barycenters and SAPVs, as well as values of WCS between PMs and research groups as indicators of cognitive distance. We systematically compare how these six approaches are related. The results show that the level of aggregation has minor influence on determining cognitive distances, but dimensionality (two versus a high number of dimensions) has a greater influence. The SAPV and WCS methods agree in most cases at both levels of aggregation on which PM has the closest cognitive distance to the group to be evaluated, whereas the barycenter approaches often differ. Comparing the results of the methods to the main assessor that was assigned to each research group, we find that the barycenter method usually scores better. However,the barycenter method is less discriminatory and suggests more potential evaluators, whereas SAPV and WCS are more precise

A Review of Theory and Practice in Scientometrics

Scientometrics is the study of the quantitative aspects of the process of science as a communication system. It is centrally, but not only, concerned with the analysis of citations in the academic literature. In recent years it has come to play a major role in the measurement and evaluation of research performance. In this review we consider: the historical development of scientometrics, sources of citation data, citation metrics and the “laws" of scientometrics, normalisation, journal impact factors and other journal metrics, visualising and mapping science, evaluation and policy, and future developments

Mapping the de facto governance in the case of emerging science and technologies

Trabajo presentado a la 35th DRUID Celebration Conference on Innovation, Strategy and Entrepreneurship celebrada en Barcelona (España) del 17 al 19 de Junio de 2013.In this study, we discuss the use of novel scientometric mapping techniques as informative and interpretative tools about the rapid dynamics and uncertainties featuring in Emerging Science and Technologies (ESTs). We show how these techniques can provide perspectives on and crosscuts of the geographical, social, and cognitive spaces of the complex emergence process. Shedding light on these spaces the set of, both intentional and un-intentional, institutional arrangements that are established in the emergence of novel science and technologies - that is, as de facto governance - can be revealed. The informative and interpretative power of these tools resides in their transversal flexibility within and across databases, which themselves are characterized by longitudinal and institutional rigidities. Changing informed perspectives can play a crucial role in supporting the design of governance that is ‘tentative’, i.e. forms of governance aiming to address the complexity, interdependencies, and contingencies featuring in ESTs. We discuss the contribution of these mapping techniques to the understanding of the phenomenon of tentative governance of ESTs across three case studies, namely RNA interference (RNAi), Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) and Thiopurine Methyltransferase (TPMT) testing technologies.Peer Reviewe

Key characteristics of academics promoting sustainable human development within engineering studies

In the last decade, a growing number of technical universities and engineering faculties have been promoting various initiatives aimed at integrating sustainable development in their activities. Despite the fact that the commitment of the academic staff has been widely recognised to have a key role in university change processes towards sustainable development, few studies have specifically analysed the characteristics of academics engaged in such processes. The present study provides an analysis and a profile of a group of academics, participating in a training programme on sustainable human development, granted by a European fund. The methods employed include a semi-structured survey, focussing on the academic activities and social outreach of the participants, complemented by a bibliometric analysis of their scientific production. The findings show: 1) an interdisciplinary profile of the academics, 2) an integration of sustainable development principles in all academic activities and 3) a promotion of those principles outside the university. It is emphasised that the commitment of this type of academics can facilitate a cultural change in engineering education, as well as more holistic transformations of universities towards sustainable development. The paper concludes by providing recommendations for leaders and policy makers of higher education institutions on the implementation of appropriate policies and mechanisms to facilitate faculty engagement in sustainable development.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft