Daniela De Filippo, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
August 20, 2014
Detection and analysis of "Bibliographic communities" in Iberoamerican publications on Science, Technology and Society
INTRODUCTION • Currently the consolidation of STS field allows to easily identify key regional and international actors. • One of the method most used to analyze scientific activity in a field, is the study of their publications, so that bibliometric indicators have become a useful tool for quantitative analysis. • Despite the importance of the study of scientific publications, when attempting to define the documentary corpus of STS field, boundaries become somewhat blurred. Therefore it is necessary to develop a methodology for a systematic approach to the publications of the region.
OBJECTIVES
Visibility of scientific production in Iberoamerica in the STS field in mainstream science journals is analyzed with the twin objectives of: • To approach the definition of a documentary corpus STS of the region and to know its main characteristics • To detect what topics have more importance at the international scope and to analyze the relationships between disciplines
METODOLOGY
Two steps were necessary to develop the study
STEP 1
• Methodological development for bibliographic definition of the STS field
STEP 2
• Detection of thematic relationships through the study of "Bibliographic Communities"
METODOLOGY
How to define the field to analyze STS through its output? Different assumptions were considered: -To detect all authors of STS publications in the region (not only the principal authors or institutions). -To identify only papers related to the specific field. To collect international production, documents that meet any of these criteria were considered: -To be included in STS journal -To have content related to the STS field
METODOLOGY Selection of journals in WoS and SCOPUS from the JCR and SJR in disciplines related to STS field
Selected titles British Journal of the History of Science British Journal of the Philosophy of Science History & Philosophy of the Life Science History of Science Minerva Philosophy of Science Social Studies of Science Public Understanding Science Studies in History & Philosophy of Science Journal of Science education and Technology British Journal of Educational technology Educational technology & society ETR&D Educational Technology research & development Ethics & information technology Information society Information technology for development Information technology & people Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology Scientometrics Research Evaluation Science, Technology and Society Research Policy
METODOLOGY Keyword selection Search terms or phrases related to the STS field in Web of Science and SCOPUS were performed. The terms were selected from STS bibliography (Vaccarezza: 2004; Davyt and Lazarus 2010; Quintero-Cano: 2010; OEI: 2012) and were reviewed by experts from the region. Keywords
Science, Technology and Society/ STS/ Social Studies of Science and Technology/ production and social use of knowledge/ knowledge society/social construction of knowledge/ scientific periphery/ popularization of science/ science communication/ scientific-technological literacy/ university, science and technology/ science, technology and development/ economy of technological change/ economy of innovation/ citizen participation in science and technology/ bioethics and research of science and technology/ management of science and technology/ scientific and technological policy/ research evaluation/ scientometrics/ science, technology and gender/ philosophy of science/ philosophy of technology/ history of science/ history of technology/ sociology of science/ sociology of technology/ scientific education/ economy of science/ sociology of knowledge/ public understanding of science/ perception of science/ social or public appropriation of scientific knowledge/ technoscience/ scientific controversies/ public participation in science and technology/ public engagement with science and technology/ Actor-Network Theory
METODOLOGY How to study the most relevant topics in STS Iberoamerican publications and its intertextual relationships? Through the BiblioTools2, bibliographic communities were detected and the relationships between texts were visualized. BiblioTools 2.2, is a set of python scripts developed for transforming raw bibliographic data as extracted from the Web Of Science into “maps of science” gathering relevant information about millions of articles in a single picture. This tool need “Gephi” to open and visualize the different maps produced by the scripts, and a latex compiler to visualize some tables produce by the scripts in pdf format.
http://www.sebastian-grauwin.com/?page_id=492
RESULTS: STEP 1
Characteristics of Iberoamerican publication in STS (Web of Science)
RESULTS Evolution of Iberoamerican publication STS in WoS
58,042 documents in the world since 1903 2,723 publications in Iberomerica since 1969
RESULTS Evolution of the percentage of publications from Iberoamerica in the world
RESULTS Language of STS publications in Iberoamerica and in the world
RESULTS Distribution of STS Iberoamerican publications by country
USA concentrate 31% of the SSS production in WoS, followed by England (15%), Germany (5.5%), Canada (4.7%) and the Netherlands (3.5%). In Iberoamerica, Spain ranks first (tenth in the world) with 55% of production in the region, followed by Brazil (world number 21) with 20% of the region.
RESULTS
Journals whit highest publication STS in Iberoamerica
RESULTS
Disciplinary categories with the highest number of publications STS in Iberoamerica
RESULT: STEP 2
Detection and visualization of Bibliographic Communities
RESULTS Identification of bibliographic Communities
RESULTS Identification of bibliographic Communities
RESULTS Identification of bibliographic Communities
RESULTS
Visualization of bibliographic communities
RESULTS Visualization of bibliographic communities by subject cathegories
RESULTADOS Visualization of the main bibliographic communities
Conclusions The methodology developed allows progress in the definition of a documentary corpus STS and detect some characteristics: • The STS Latin American documents were visible at the international level since 1969, but with a very small presence until the late 90s Since then the increase has been most marked. • The regional STS production has a higher percentage of documents in Spanish and Portuguese that the worldwide. • Spain has 55% of the STS Iberoamerican production. • Journals with STS content published in Iberoamerica have a low number of papers from other regions. • The main disciplines in Iberoamerica are Information Sciences and Library Science; Computer Science; History and Philosophy of Science. By specialization the main are Multidisiplinary Humanities; Ecology; Multidisciplinary Physics; Infectous diseases
Conclusions The detection and visualization of bibliographic communities allowed to know some aspects:
• We can see 5 different communities: Sociology of science / science communication Innovation / Technology Scientometrics Medical / Health Science education
Next steps • Trying to improve the methodology to detect an exhaustive documentary corpus (adding new journals in the selection and testing the inclusion of regional publications from Iberoamerican databases) • Develop tools to standardize and improve the institutional identification in the construction of BC • Analyze short periods publications for more consistent results • Adapting these tools for the studies of other sources
¡Thank you!
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