Visualization of intellectual structure in information retrieval : Author cocitation analysis

Cocitation analysis of authors offers a good technique that contributes to the understanding of intellectual structures in the sciences and possibly in other areas to the extent that those areas rely on formal scholarly communication (serial publications).

Abstract

This study presents author cocitation analysis from the information retrieval research field from 1987 to 1997. The data were retrieved from Social Scisearch via Dialog. The top 40 authors were submitted to author cocitation analysis to yield the intellectual structure of information retrieval. The resulting multidimensional scaling map shows I. identifiable author groups of information retrieval; 2. locations of these groups with respect to each other; 3. the extent of centrality and peripherality of authors within groups; 4. proximities of authors within group and across group boundaries; and 5. the meaning of the axes of the map, which adds interpretation. Factor analysis was used to reveal the extent of the author's research areas. Statistical routines included ALSCAL, clustering analysis and factor analysis. Cocitation analysis of authors offers a good technique that contributes to the understanding of intellectual structures in the sciences and possibly in other areas to the extent that those areas rely on formal scholarly communication (serial publications).