Enhancing the role of academic librarians in conducting scoping reviews

Information exposing, in conjunction with technological innovations and the emergence of social media, altered the traditional roles of academic libraries and enabled librarians to become necessary partners in research. The role of academic librarians in conducting systematic reviews is well recognised, however, their role in conducting scoping reviews is not yet well established. Nevertheless, we propose that, in more and more frequent situations when it is not feasible to read and analyse all relevant literature to be scoped manually, librarians employ bibliometric analysis and mapping to visualise and chart literature content. Our study demonstrated that science landscapes induced automatically by bibliometric mapping software could serve as a tool to visualise and chart the content of relevant literature when conducting the fourth step of scoping reviews. Additionaly science landscapes can help also serve to help improve the decision strategies when conducting scoping reviews

Research Weaving: Visualizing the Future of Research Synthesis

We propose a new framework for research synthesis of both evidence and influence, named research weaving. It summarizes and visualizes information content, history, and networks among a collection of documents on any given topic. Research weaving achieves this feat by combining the power of two methods: systematic mapping and bibliometrics. Systematic mapping provides a snapshot of the current state of knowledge, identifying areas needing more research attention and those ready for full synthesis. Bibliometrics enables researchers to see how pieces of evidence are connected, revealing the structure and development of a field. We explain how researchers can use some or all of these tools to gain a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the scientific literature

Minimun Wage: A Bibliometric Analysis of this Research Topic

Purpose: In this study, a bibliometric analysis of the scientific literature on the minimum wage is carried out to detect its evolution and point out future research trends. Approach/Methodology/Design: The bibliometric analysis of the minimum wage based on an extensive examination of publications indexed in Web of Science (WoS) de Clarivate Analytics. was conducted. This database is one of the most complete. It supports the reliability of the bibliometric analysis. The period of the analysis covered the years 1962- 2021. The analysis was carried out with the support of the VOSviewer software, version 1.6.18. The units of analysis used for the thematic areas were the keywords, KeyWords Plus (KW+); with them, bibliometric maps were created by applying a methodology based on coword analysis, clustering techniques and visualisation techniques. Findings: Two thousand eight hundred twenty-two articles in scientific journals have been detected. Groups of countries have been identified, analysing the subject matter, authors, their belonging organisations and the subject areas of the studies, and their evolution over time. In addition, it was recognised how minimum wage publications are clustered. Practical Implications: The identification of the most productive publications with the highest number of citations can be used by future authors to define the most appropriate publication strategy. Likewise, the identification of the most relevant authors in the field can be helpful for decision-makers to meet potential collaborators. Originality/Value: To the authors' knowledge, this is the first bibliometric analysis of the literature on minimum wages. This article provides an exhaustive and up-to-date bibliometric analysis of this subject, allowing us to establish existing patterns and trends

Diversity and network coherence as indicators of interdisciplinarity: Case studies in bionanoscience

Interdisciplinary research, nanotechnology, nanoscience, diversity, indicators, network analysis

Evolution of the Field of Social Media Research through Science Maps (2008-2017)

The objectives of this work were to discover the main points of interest in the field of research on Social Media, within the scientific area of Communication, and to analyse how it has evolved. A methodology based on the analysis of co-words and visualisation techniques was applied. The data was obtained from scientific publications indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) database, during the periods 2008-2012 and 2013-2017. The resulting maps showed that, during the period 2008-2012, the main areas of interest were web 2.0 and the internet in terms of social networking sites. However, during the period 2013-2017, there was a strong upward trend in the impact of social networks and platforms, especially Twitter and Facebook, in many areas (such as social movements, public relations and publicity, distribution of content, crisis communication, participatory journalism, political communication, or the configuration of public identities through social platforms, with special emphasis on youth). Finally, new scientific challenges were found in automatic analysis of content and management of big data. In conclusion, it was possible to transform a complex, underlying, dynamic and multidimensional reality into visible representations that could help experts in the field to better understand the evolution of research on Social Media.Los objetivos de este trabajo fueron descubrir los principales focos de interés del campo de investigación de los Social Media, dentro del área científica de la Comunicación, y analizar la dinámica de su evolución. Se aplicó una metodología basada en el análisis de co-palabras y en técnicas de visualización. Los datos se obtuvieron de las publicaciones científicas indexadas en la base de datos Web of Science (WoS), durante los períodos temporales 2008-2012 y 2013-2017. Los mapas resultantes mostraron que durante el período 2008-2012 las principales áreas de interés fueron la web 2.0 y el uso de Internet en el ámbito de los medios de comunicación. Sin embargo, durante el período 2013-2017 se apreció una fuerte tendencia ascendente del impacto de las redes y las plataformas sociales, especialmente Twitter y Facebook, en numerosas áreas, tales como los movimientos sociales, las relaciones públicas y la publicidad, la difusión de contenidos, la comunicación de crisis, el periodismo participativo, la comunicación política o la configuración de las identidades públicas a través de las plataforma sociales, con especial incidencia en los adolescentes. Por último, los nuevos retos científicos se situaron en el análisis automático de contenidos y en la gestión de datos masivos, o big data. En conclusión, se consiguió transformar una realidad compleja, subyacente, dinámica y multidimensional en representaciones visibles que podrían ayudar a una mejor comprensión de la evolución del campo de investigación de los Social Media por parte de los expertos en la materia

Evolution of the Field of Social Media Research through Science Maps (2008-2017)

The objectives of this work were to discover the main points of interest in the field of research on Social Media, within the scientific area of Communication, and to analyse how it has evolved. A methodology based on the analysis of co-words and visualisation techniques was applied. The data was obtained from scientific publications indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) database, during the periods 2008-2012 and 2013-2017. The resulting maps showed that, during the period 2008-2012, the main areas of interest were web 2.0 and the internet in terms of social networking sites. However, during the period 2013-2017, there was a strong upward trend in the impact of social networks and platforms, especially Twitter and Facebook, in many areas (such as social movements, public relations and publicity, distribution of content, crisis communication, participatory journalism, political communication, or the configuration of public identities through social platforms, with special emphasis on youth). Finally, new scientific challenges were found in automatic analysis of content and management of big data. In conclusion, it was possible to transform a complex, underlying, dynamic and multidimensional reality into visible representations that could help experts in the field to better understand the evolution of research on Social Media

Revealing the research landscape of Master's degrees via bibliometric analyses

The evolution of a Master's programme, like many other human institutions, can be viewed as a self-organising system whose underlying structures and dynamics arise primarily from the interaction of its faculty and students. Identifying these hidden properties may not be a trivial task, due to the complex behaviour implicit in such evolution. Nonetheless, we argue that the programme's body of research production (represented mainly by dissertations) can serve this purpose. Bibliometric analyses of such data can reveal insights about production growth, collaborative networks, and visual mapping of established, niche, and emerging research topics, among other facets. Thus, we propose a bibliometric workflow aimed at discovering the production dynamics, as well as the conceptual, social and intellectual structures developed by the Master's degree, in the interest of guiding decision-makers to better assess the strengths of the programme and to prioritise strategic goals. In addition, we report two case studies to illustrate the realisation of the proposed workflow. We conclude with considerations on the possible application of the approach to other academic research units

Scoping Review on Research at the Boundary Between Learning and Working: A Bibliometric Mapping Analysis of the Last Decade

Context: The research field at the boundary between learning and working is multidimensional, fuzzy, dynamic, and characterized by high growth. A study that comprehensively maps and aggregates this research field is missing. Approach: Using tools of bibliometric analysis (bibliographic coupling, co-citation analysis and co-occurrence analysis), we map the research at the boundary between learning and working in a scoping review study. Our study considers peer-reviewed articles published between 2011 and 2020 and recorded in Scopus. In total, 5,474 articles are included in our analysis. Findings: Focusing on the intellectual structure of the research field, we identified the most publishing and most cited countries, journals, and authors, as well as latent collaborative networks among countries, journals, and authors. Furthermore, we used references and keywords to identify the conceptual structure of the research field and distinguished four types of conceptual clusters: motor clusters, highly developed and isolated clusters, emerging or declining clusters, and basic and transversal clusters.Conclusions: Research at the boundary between learning and working is highly parcelled out internationally. This scientific parcelling represents a disadvantage for exchanging ideas and accumulating knowledge. In addition to forming a parcelled field, a dividing line runs between centre, periphery and excluded countries and scientists. Especially scientists from developing countries and nations, economies in transition and those from post-conflict situations are excluded from the international discourse. This situation is more than just a disadvantage for the exchange of ideas and the accumulation of knowledge. Instead, there is a systematic bias in the research landscape here.

Ten years of ranavirus research (2010–2019): an analysis of global research trends

Ranaviruses are large nucleocytoplasmic DNA viruses that infect ectothermic vertebrates. Here we report the results of a scientometric analysis of the field of ranavirology for the last 10 years. Using bibliometric tools we analyse trends, identify top publications and journals, and visualise the ranavirus collaboration landscape. The Web of Science core collection contains 545 ranavirus-related publications from 2010 to 2019, with more publications produced every year and a total of 6830 citations. Research output is primarily driven by the United States and People’s Republic of China, who together account for more than 60% of ranavirus publications. We also observed a positive correlation between the average number of co-authors on ranavirus publications and the year of publication, indicating that overall collaboration is increasing. A keyword analysis of ranavirus publications from 2010 to 2019 reveals several areas of research interest including; ecology, immunology, virology/molecular biology, genetics, ichthyology, and herpetology. While ranavirus research is conducted globally, relatively few publications have co-authors from both European and Asian countries, possibly because closer countries (geographical distance) are more likely to share co-authors. To this end, efforts should be made to foster collaborations across geopolitical and cultural boundaries, especially between countries with shared research interests as ultimately, understanding global pathogens, like ranaviruses, will require global collaboration