Zitt, M; Lelu, A; Bassecoulard, E. 2011. Hybrid Citation-Word Representations in Science Mapping: Portolan Charts of Research Fields?. JASIST. 62 (1): 19-39.

[Eugene Garfield]

Zitt, M; Lelu, A; Bassecoulard, E. 2011. Hybrid Citation-Word Representations 
in Science Mapping: Portolan Charts of Research Fields?. JOURNAL OF THE 
AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 62 (1): 19-
39.

Author Full Name(s): Zitt, Michel; Lelu, Alain; Bassecoulard, Elise
Language: English
Document Type: Article

KeyWords Plus: COCITATION ANALYSIS; AUTHOR COCITATION; KNOWLEDGE 
DOMAINS; RESEARCH FRONTS; VISUALIZATION; NANOSCIENCES; NETWORKS; 
CLUSTERS; TIME; MAP

Abstract: The mapping of scientific fields, based on principles established in the 
seventies, has recently shown a remarkable development and applications are 
now booming with progress in computing efficiency. We examine here the 
convergence of two thematic mapping approaches, citation-based and word-
based, which rely on quite different sociological backgrounds. A corpus in the 
nanoscience field was broken down into research themes, using the same 
clustering technique on the 2 networks separately. The tool for comparison is 
the table of intersections of the M clusters (here M = 50) built on either side. A 
classical visual exploitation of such contingency tables is based on 
correspondence analysis. We investigate a rearrangement of the intersection 
table (block modeling), resulting in pseudo-map. The interest of this 
representation for confronting the two breakdowns is discussed. The amount of 
convergence found is, in our view, a strong argument in favor of the reliability 
of bibliometric mapping. However, the outcomes are not convergent at the 
degree where they can be substituted for each other. Differences highlight the 
complementarity between approaches based on different networks. In contrast 
with the strong informetric posture found in recent literature, where lexical and 
citation markers are considered as miscible tokens, the framework proposed 
here does not mix the two elements at an early stage, in compliance with their 
contrasted logic.

Addresses: [Zitt, Michel; Bassecoulard, Elise] INRA, Lereco, F-44316 Nantes 3, 
France; [Lelu, Alain] Univ Franche Comte, LASELDI, F-25000 Besancon, France; 
[Lelu, Alain] LORIA, F-54506 Vandoeuvre Les Nancy, France

Reprint Address: Zitt, M, INRA, Lereco, BP 71627, F-44316 Nantes 3, France.
E-mail Address: zitt at nantes.inra.fr; alelu at 9online.fr; bassecou at nantes.inra.fr
ISSN: 1532-2882
DOI: 10.1002/asi.21440
fulltext: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asi.21440/full