TY - JOUR
T1 - Mapping science through bibliometric triangulation
T2 - An experimental approach applied to water research
AU - Wen, Bei
AU - Horlings, Edwin
AU - van der Zouwen, Mariëlle
AU - van den Besselaar, Peter
PY - 2016
Y1 - 2016
N2 - The idea of constructing science maps based on bibliographic data has intrigued researchers for decades, and various techniques have been developed to map the structure of research disciplines. Most science mapping studies use a single method. However, as research fields have various properties, a valid map of a field should actually be composed of a set of maps derived from a series of investigations using different methods. That leads to the question of what can be learned from a combination-triangulation-of these different science maps. In this paper we propose a method for triangulation, using the example of water science. We combine three different mapping approaches: journal-journal citation relations (JJCR), shared author keywords (SAK), and title word-cited reference co-occurrence (TWRC). Our results demonstrate that triangulation of JJCR, SAK, and TWRC produces a more comprehensive picture than each method applied individually. The outcomes from the three different approaches can be associated with each other and systematically interpreted to provide insights into the complex multidisciplinary structure of the field of water research.
AB - The idea of constructing science maps based on bibliographic data has intrigued researchers for decades, and various techniques have been developed to map the structure of research disciplines. Most science mapping studies use a single method. However, as research fields have various properties, a valid map of a field should actually be composed of a set of maps derived from a series of investigations using different methods. That leads to the question of what can be learned from a combination-triangulation-of these different science maps. In this paper we propose a method for triangulation, using the example of water science. We combine three different mapping approaches: journal-journal citation relations (JJCR), shared author keywords (SAK), and title word-cited reference co-occurrence (TWRC). Our results demonstrate that triangulation of JJCR, SAK, and TWRC produces a more comprehensive picture than each method applied individually. The outcomes from the three different approaches can be associated with each other and systematically interpreted to provide insights into the complex multidisciplinary structure of the field of water research.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84980332084&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1002/asi.23696
DO - 10.1002/asi.23696
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84980332084
SN - 2330-1635
VL - 68
SP - 724
EP - 738
JO - Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology
JF - Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology
IS - 3
ER -