Abstract
How does our collective scholarly knowledge grow over time? What major areas of science exist and how are they interlinked? Which areas are major knowledge producers; which ones are consumers? Computational scientometrics — the application of bibliometric/scientometric methods to large-scale scholarly datasets — and the communication of results via maps of science might help us answer these questions. This paper represents the results of a prototype study that aims to map the structure and evolution of chemistry research over a 30 year time frame. Information from the combined Science (SCIE) and Social Science (SSCI) Citations Indexes from 2002 was used to generate a disciplinary map of 7,227 journals and 671 journal clusters. Clusters relevant to study the structure and evolution of chemistry were identified using JCR categories and were further clustered into 14 disciplines. The changing scientific composition of these 14 disciplines and their knowledge exchange via citation linkages was computed. Major changes on the dominance, influence, and role of Chemistry, Biology, Biochemistry, and Bioengineering over these 30 years are discussed. The paper concludes with suggestions for future work.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Boyack, K. W., Klavans, R., Börner, K. (2005), Mapping the backbone of science. Scientometrics, 64(3): 351–374.
Chen, C. (2006), CiteSpace II: Detecting and visualizing emerging trends and transient patterns in scientific literature. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 57(3): 359–377.
Davidson, G. S., Wylie, B. N., Boyack, K. W. (2001), Cluster stability and the use of noise in interpretation of clustering. Proceedings IEEE Information Visualization 2001, 23–30.
Ding, Y., Chowdhury, G., Foo, S. (2000), Journal as markers of intellectual space: Journal cocitation analysis of information retrieval area, 1987–1997. Scientometrics, 47(1): 55–73.
Klavans, R., Boyack, K. W. (2006a), Identifying a better measure of relatedness for mapping science. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 57(2): 251–263.
Klavans, R., Boyack, K. W. (2006b), Quantitative evaluation of large maps of science. Scientometrics, 68(3): 475–499.
Leydesdorff, L. (1987), Various methods for the mapping of science. Scientometrics, 11(5–6): 295–324.
Leydesdorff, L. (2004a), Clusters and maps of science journals based on bi-connected graphs in the Journal Citation Reports. Journal of Documentation, 60(4): 371–427.
Leydesdorff, L. (2004b), Top-down decomposition of the Journal Citation Report of the Social Science Citation Index: Graph- and factor-analytical approaches. Scientometrics, 60(2): 159–180.
Leydesdorff, L. (2006), Betweenness centrality as an indicator of the interdisciplinarity of scientific journals. Paper presented at the 9th International Conference on Science & Technology Indicators.
Mccain, K. W. (1998), Neural networks research in context: A longitudinal journal cocitation analysis of an emerging interdisciplinary field. Scientometrics, 41(3): 389–410.
Morris, T. A., Mccain, K. W. (1998), The structure of medical informatics journal literature. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 5(5): 448–466.
Moya-Anegón, F., Vargas-Quesada, B., Herrero-Solana, V., Chinchilla-Rodríguez, Z., Corera-Álvarez, E., Munoz-Fernández, F. J. (2004), A new technique for building maps of large scientific domains based on the cocitation of classes and categories. Scientometrics, 61(1): 129–145.
Narin, F., Carpenter, M., Berlt, N. C. (1972), Interrelationships of scientific journals. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 23(5): 323–331.
Samoylenko, I., Chao, T.-C., Liu, W.-C., Chen, C.-M. (2006), Visualizing the scientific world and its evolution. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 57(11): 1461–1469.
Small, H., Sweeney, E., Greenlee, E. (1985), Clustering the Science Citation Index using co-citations. II. Mapping science. Scientometrics, 8(5–6): 321–340.
Tsay, M.-Y., Xu, H., Wu, C.-W. (2003), Journal co-citation analysis of semiconductor literature. Scientometrics, 57(1): 7–25.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Boyack, K.W., Börner, K. & Klavans, R. Mapping the structure and evolution of chemistry research. Scientometrics 79, 45–60 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-009-0403-5
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-009-0403-5