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Analysis of citation networks as a new tool for scientific research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 December 2016

R.K. Vasudevan
Affiliation:
Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences and Institute for Functional Imaging of Materials, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA; [email protected]
M. Ziatdinov
Affiliation:
Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences and Institute for Functional Imaging of Materials, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA; [email protected]
C. Chen
Affiliation:
Department of Information Science, College of Computing Informatics, Drexel University, USA; [email protected]
S.V. Kalinin
Affiliation:
Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences and Institute for Functional Imaging of Materials, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA; [email protected]
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Abstract

The rapid growth of scientific publications necessitates new methods to understand the direction of scientific research within fields of study, ascertain the importance of particular groups, authors, or institutions, compute metrics that can determine the importance (centrality) of particular seminal papers, and provide insight into the social (collaboration) networks that are present. We present one such method based on analysis of citation networks, using the freely available CiteSpace Program. We use citation network analysis on three examples, including a single material that has been widely explored in the last decade (BiFeO3), two small subfields with a minimal number of authors (flexoelectricity and Kitaev physics), and a much wider field with thousands of publications pertaining to a single technique (scanning tunneling microscopy). Interpretation of the analysis and key insights into the fields, such as whether the fields are experiencing resurgence or stagnation, are discussed, and author or collaboration networks that are prominent are determined. Such methods represent a paradigm shift in our way of dealing with the large volume of scientific publications and could change the way literature searches and reviews are conducted, as well as how the impact of specific work is assessed.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2016 

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