On September 9th, 2015, Ludo Waltman visited Northwestern University’s SONIC Lab to give a talk on Large-scale analysis of bilbliometric networks: Tools, techniques, and applications. Ludo’s full abstract, as well as the presentation, can be seen below.
Large-scale analysis of bibliometric networks: Tools, techniques, and applications
Abstract
The analysis of bibliometric networks has the potential to offer deep insights into the structure and dynamics of science. I will provide an overview of research into bibliometric network analysis at the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) of Leiden University. Two popular software tools for the analysis and visualization of bibliometric networks have been created at CWTS. These tools, VOSviewer (www.vosviewer.com) and CitNetExplorer (www.citnetexplorer.nl), will be demonstrated and the underlying network analysis techniques will be discussed. A number of large-scale applications of bibliometric network analysis will be presented. One application investigates the degree to which network science is evolving to become a single unified research field. Other applications are concerned with research planning and research evaluation. In these applications, bibliometric network analysis is used to identify the key research strengths of a university, to study the interdisciplinary nature of modern science, and to detect new emerging research areas.