Wallace, ML; Gingras, Y; Duhon, R A New Approach for Detecting Scientific Specialties From Raw Cocitation Networks JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 60 (2): 240-246 FEB 2009

[Eugene Garfield]

E-mail Address: mattyliam at gmail.com; gingras.yves at uqam.ca; 
rduhon at indiana.edu 

Author(s): Wallace, ML (Wallace, Matthew L.); Gingras, Y (Gingras, Yves); 
Duhon, R (Duhon, Russell) 

Title: A New Approach for Detecting Scientific Specialties From Raw 
Cocitation Networks 

Source: JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND 
TECHNOLOGY, 60 (2): 240-246 FEB 2009 

Language: English 

Document Type: Article 

KeyWords Plus: AUTHOR COCITATION; COMMUNITY STRUCTURE; PEARSONS-R; 
INTELLECTUAL STRUCTURE; INFORMATION-THEORY; COMPLEX NETWORKS; SCIENCE; 
DOCUMENTS; ALGORITHM; MATRICES 

Abstract: We use a technique recently developed by V. Blondel, J.L. 
Guillaume, R. Lambiotte, and E. Lefebvre (2008) to detect scientific 
specialties from author cocitation networks. This algorithm has distinct 
advantages over most previous methods used to obtain cocitation "clusters" 
since it avoids the use of similarity measures, relies entirely on the 
topology of the weighted network, and can be applied to relatively large 
networks. Most importantly, it requires no subjective interpretation of 
the cocitation data or of the communities found. Using two examples, we 
show that the resulting specialties are the smallest coherent "groups" of 
researchers (within a hierarchy of cluster sizes) and can thus be 
identified unambiguously. Furthermore, we confirm that these communities 
are indeed representative of what we know about the structure of a given 
scientific discipline and that as specialties, they can be accurately 
characterized by a few keywords (from the publication titles). We argue 
that this robust and efficient algorithm is particularly well-suited to 
cocitation networks and that the results generated can be of great use to 
researchers studying various facets of the structure and evolution of 
science. 

Addresses: [Wallace, Matthew L.; Gingras, Yves] Univ Quebec, CIRST, OST, 
Montreal, PQ H3C 3P8, Canada; [Duhon, Russell] Indiana Univ, Sch Lib & 
Informat Sci, Bloomington, IN 47405 USA 

Reprint Address: Wallace, ML, Univ Quebec, CIRST, OST, Case Postale 8888, 
Montreal, PQ H3C 3P8, Canada. 

E-mail Address: mattyliam at gmail.com; gingras.yves at uqam.ca; 
rduhon at indiana.edu 

Cited Reference Count: 40 

Times Cited: 0 

Publisher: JOHN WILEY & SONS INC 

Publisher Address: 111 RIVER ST, HOBOKEN, NJ 07030 USA 

ISSN: 1532-2882 

DOI: 10.1002/asi.20987 

29-char Source Abbrev.: J AM SOC INF SCI TECHNOL 

ISO Source Abbrev.: J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci. Technol. 

Source Item Page Count: 7 

Subject Category: Computer Science, Information Systems; Information 
Science & Library Science 

ISI Document Delivery No.: 404FK 

AHLGREN P
Author cocitation analysis and Pearson's r 
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 
55 : 843 DOI 10.1002/asi.20030 2004 

AHLGREN P
Requirements for a cocitation similarity measure, with special reference 
to Pearson's correlation coefficient 
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 
54 : 550 DOI 10.1002/asi.10242 2003 

BAYER AE
MAPPING INTELLECTUAL STRUCTURE OF A SCIENTIFIC SUBFIELD THROUGH AUTHOR 
COCITATIONS 
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE 41 : 444 1990 

BENSMAN SJ
Pearson's r and author cocitation analysis: A commentary on the 
controversy 
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 
55 : 935 DOI 10.1002/asi.20028 2004 

BLONDEL VD
Fast unfolding of communities in large networks 
JOURNAL OF STATISTICAL MECHANICS-THEORY AND EXPERIMENT : ARTN P10008 2008 

BOYACK K
Mapping the structure and evolution of chemistry research 
Proceedings of ISSI 2007: 11th International Conference of the 
International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics, Vols I and II : 
112 2007 

CHEN C
P NATL ACAD SCI USA 101 : 2303 2004 

CHUBIN D
CONCEPTUALIZATION OF SCIENTIFIC SPECIALTIES 
SOCIOLOGICAL QUARTERLY 17 : 448 1976 

CRANE D
INVISIBLE COLL : 1972 

FAN Y
ARXIVCONDMAT0607271 : 2006 

FAN Y
The effect of weight on community structure of networks 
PHYSICA A-STATISTICAL MECHANICS AND ITS APPLICATIONS 378 : 583 DOI 
10.1016/j.physa.2006.12.021 2007 

GINGRAS Y
Mapping the changing centrality of physicists (1900-1944) 
Proceedings of ISSI 2007: 11th International Conference of the 
International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics, Vols I and II : 
314 2007 

GIRVAN M
Community structure in social and biological networks 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF 
AMERICA 99 : 7821 DOI 10.1073/pnas.1226539799 2002 

GMUR M
Co-citation analysis and the search for invisible colleges: A 
methodological evaluation 
SCIENTOMETRICS 57 : 27 2003 

HSIEH MH
An algorithm and metric for network decomposition from similarity 
matrices: Application to positional analysis 
SOCIAL NETWORKS 30 : 146 DOI 10.1016/j.socnet.2007.11.002 2008 

KLAVANS R
Quantitative evaluation of large maps of science 
SCIENTOMETRICS 68 : 475 DOI 10.1007/s11192-006-0125-x 2006 

KREUZMAN H
A co-citation analysis of representative authors in philosophy: Examining 
the relationship between epistemologists and philosophers of science 
SCIENTOMETRICS 51 : 525 2001 

LEYDESDORFF L
On the normalization and visualization of author co-citation data: 
Salton's cosine versus the Jaccard index 
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 
59 : 77 DOI 10.1002/asi.20732 2008 

LEYDESDORFF L
Co-occurrence matrices and their applications in information science: 
Extending ACA to the Web environment 
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 
57 : 1616 DOI 10.1002/asi.20335 2006 

LEYDESDORFF L
Similarity measures, author cocitation analysis, and information theory 
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 
56 : 769 DOI 10.1002/asi.20130 2005 

LEYDESDORFF L
THE STATIC AND DYNAMIC ANALYSIS OF NETWORK DATA USING INFORMATION-THEORY 
SOCIAL NETWORKS 13 : 301 1991 

MARSHAKOVA IV
SCI TECHNICAL INFORM 6 : 3 1973 

MCCAIN KW
Assessing an author's influence using time series historiographic mapping: 
The oeuvre of Conrad Hal Waddington (1905-1975) 
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 
59 : 510 DOI 10.1002/asi.20705 2008
 
MULLINS NC
GROUP STRUCTURE OF CO-CITATION CLUSTERS - COMPARATIVE-STUDY 
AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW 42 : 552 1977 

MULLINS NC
MINERVA 10 : 52 1972 

NEWMAN MEJ
Analysis of weighted networks 
PHYSICAL REVIEW E 70 : ARTN 056131 2004 

NEWMAN MEJ
Finding and evaluating community structure in networks 
PHYSICAL REVIEW E 69 : ARTN 026113 2004 

PALLA G
Uncovering the overlapping community structure of complex networks in 
nature and society 
NATURE 435 : 814 DOI 10.1038/nature03607 2005 

ROSVALLT M
Maps of random walks on complex networks reveal community structure 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF 
AMERICA 105 : 1118 DOI 10.1073/pnas.0706851105 2008 

SCHAEFFER SE
COMPUTER SCI REV 1 : 27 2007 

SCHILDT HA
A dense network sub-grouping algorithm for co-citation analysis and its 
implementation in the software tool Sitkis 
SCIENTOMETRICS 67 : 143 2006 

SCHNEIDER JW
Matrix comparison, part 1: Motivation and important issues for measuring 
the resemblance between proximity measures or ordination results 
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 
58 : 1586 DOI 10.1002/asi.20643 2007 

SMALL H
CLUSTERING SCI CITAT : 1985 

SMALL H
COCITATION IN SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE - NEW MEASURE OF RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN 
2 DOCUMENTS 
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE 24 : 265 1973 

SMALL H
STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC LITERATURES .1. IDENTIFYING AND GRAPHING 
SPECIALTIES 
SCIENCE STUDIES 4 : 17 1974 

SMALL H
Tracking and predicting growth areas in science 
SCIENTOMETRICS 68 : 595 DOI 10.1007/s11192-006-0132-y 2006 

SMALL HG
CITED DOCUMENTS AS CONCEPT SYMBOLS 
SOCIAL STUDIES OF SCIENCE 8 : 327 1978 

WHITE HD
Author cocitation analysis and Pearson's r 
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 
54 : 1250 DOI 10.1002/asi.10325 2003 

WHITE HD
COCITED AUTHOR RETRIEVAL ONLINE - AN EXPERIMENT WITH THE SOCIAL-INDICATORS 
LITERATURE 
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE 32 : 16 1981 

WHITE HD
AUTHOR COCITATION - A LITERATURE MEASURE OF INTELLECTUAL STRUCTURE 
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE 32 : 163 1981