Using author tri-citation analysis to map knowledge domains in knowledge representations
| Date | 06 November 2017 |
| Pages | 1215-1224 |
| Published date | 06 November 2017 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/EL-11-2016-0240 |
| Author | Weidong Yu |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
Using author tri-citation analysis
to map knowledge domains in
knowledge representations
Weidong Yu
Department of Foreign Languages and Tourism, Chengde Petroleum College,
Chengde, China
Abstract
Purpose –Previous commonly used authorco-citation analysis (ACA) methods have limited theability to
deal with accidentalco-citation in constructing a raw co-citation matrix.Therefore, the purpose of this paper
is to propose a new method, called author tri-citationanalysis (ATA), to better map knowledge domains and
depict scientificintellectual structures.
Design/methodology/approach –Different from the previous method of using ACA that captures
author co-citation relationships,the ATA method seeks tri-citation relationships among authors. Compared
with ACA, ATA can ignore some accidental co-citation relationshipsbetween authors and can improve the
accuracyof mapping knowledge domains.
Findings –Although ATA does not mine more sub-fields than ACA does, the results of the empirical
studies show that ATA, the newly proposed method, performsbetter in knowledge domain maps based on
publicationsin the field of computer science.
Research limitations/implications –The definition of ATA in this article is simple and still
insufficiently informative. Many other pieces of information can be involved; for example, all authors’
information,authors’sequence in the author list, referencepublished time and similar. These can be enhanced
in future studies.
Practical implications –This research will enrich themethods of mapping knowledge domains due to
its new perspective.
Social implications –Knowledge domain mapping is important to understand a discipline, and this
researchprovides more potential methods for this, which benefitsthe performance of the maps.
Originality/value –ATA can provide a methodologicalawareness for mapping knowledge domains.This
value lies in not onlya tri-citation perspective, but also author bibliographictripling and author tri-operation
perspectives(“tri-”perspectives).
Keywords Co-citation analysis, Citation analysis, Computer science, Author co-citation analysis,
Author tri-citation analysis, Tri-citation analysis
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Four paradigms are included in mapping knowledge domains (Zhao, 2012): the traditional
research paradigm (basedon literature review and qualitative analysis), sociologyof science
paradigm, bibliographical (bibliometrical) paradigm (citation analysis, co-citation analysis,
bibliographic coupling analysis and similar) and complex-network-based paradigm. In the
bibliographical paradigm, co-citation analysis, especiallyauthor co-citation analysis (ACA),
are often employed to map knowledge domains and to depict intellectual scientific
structures (Jeong et al.,2014). Specifically, to map knowledge domains, ACA first extracts
author co-citationcounts (frequencies) and constructs a raw co-citation matrix,which is then
transformed into a correlation matrix (McCain, 1990). Multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) or
Author tri-
citation
analysis
1215
Received1 November 2016
Revised2 January 2017
Accepted12 April 2017
TheElectronic Library
Vol.35 No. 6, 2017
pp. 1215-1224
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0264-0473
DOI 10.1108/EL-11-2016-0240
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