Scientometrics
Volume/Issue:
Volume 64: Issue 3
Mapping the backbone of science
Authors:
Kevin W. Boyack Sandia National Laboratories P.O. Box 5800, Albuquerque, NM 87185, USA

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,
Richard Klavans SciTech Strategies, Inc. Berwyn, PA (USA)

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, and
Katy Börner School of Library and Information Science, Indiana University Bloomington, IN (USA)

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Pages:
351–374
Online Publication Date:
10 Aug 2005
Publication Date:
01 Aug 2005
Article Category:
Research Article
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-005-0255-6
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Summary This paper presents a new map representing the structure of all of science, based on journal articles, including both the natural and social sciences. Similar to cartographic maps of our world, the map of science provides a bird’s eye view of today’s scientific landscape. It can be used to visually identify major areas of science, their size, similarity, and interconnectedness. In order to be useful, the map needs to be accurate on a local and on a global scale. While our recent work has focused on the former aspect,1 this paper summarizes results on how to achieve structural accuracy. Eight alternative measures of journal similarity were applied to a data set of 7,121 journals covering over 1 million documents in the combined Science Citation and Social Science Citation Indexes.  For each journal similarity measure we generated two-dimensional spatial layouts using the force-directed graph layout tool, VxOrd. Next, mutual information values were calculated for each graph at different clustering levels to give a measure of structural accuracy for each map. The best co-citation and inter-citation maps according to local  and structural accuracy were selected and are presented and characterized. These two maps are compared to establish robustness. The inter-citation map is then used to examine linkages between disciplines. Biochemistry appears as the most interdisciplinary discipline in science.

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Cover Scientometrics
Scientometrics
Print ISSN:
0138-9130
Online ISSN:
1588-2861

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Scientometrics
Language English
Size B5
Year of
Foundation		 1978
Volumes
per Year		 1
Issues
per Year		 12
Founder Akadémiai Kiadó
Founder's
Address		 H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245.
Publisher Akadémiai Kiadó
Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Publisher's
Address		 H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245.
CH-6330 Cham, Switzerland Gewerbestrasse 11.
Responsible
Publisher		 Chief Executive Officer, Akadémiai Kiadó
ISSN 0138-9130 (Print)
ISSN 1588-2861 (Online)

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