A study of interdisciplinarity in information science: using direct citation and co-authorship analysis
- 16 May 2011
- journal article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Journal of Information Science
- Vol. 37 (4), 369-378
- https://doi.org/10.1177/0165551511407141
Abstract
This study uses two bibliometric methods, direct citation and co-authorship, to investigate the interdisciplinary changes in information sciences during 1978—2007. The disciplines of references and co-authors from five information science journals were analysed. Furthermore, Brillouin’s Index was adopted to measure the degree of interdisciplinarity. The study revealed that information science researchers have cited the publications of library and information science (LIS) most frequently. The co-authors of information science articles are also primarily from the discipline of LIS, but the percentage of references to LIS is much higher. This indicates that information science researchers mainly rely on publications in LIS, and they often produce scientific papers with researchers from LIS. The discipline rankings generated by direct citation and co-authorship show a significant consistency via Spearman’s correlation coefficient test. The interdisciplinary degree of information science has displayed growth. In particular, the degree of interdisciplinarity for co-authors has grown.Keywords
This publication has 15 references indexed in Scilit:
- International collaboration in science and the formation of a core groupJournal of Informetrics, 2008
- The shift towards multi‐disciplinarity in information scienceJournal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 2008
- A hybrid mapping of information scienceScientometrics, 2008
- Network structure, self-organization, and the growth of international collaboration in scienceResearch Policy, 2005
- The Structure of a Social Science Collaboration Network: Disciplinary Cohesion from 1963 to 1999American Sociological Review, 2004
- Information sources in library and information science doctoral researchLibrary & Information Science Research, 1999
- A study of interdisciplinary research collaborationResearch Evaluation, 1992
- The relationship of information science to the social sciences: A co-citation analysisInformation Processing & Management, 1981
- Author cocitation: A literature measure of intellectual structureJournal of the American Society for Information Science, 1981
- Information science: What is it?American Documentation, 1968