Visualizing and Analyzing Scientific Literature – Dual Map Overlays
Overview
Citation analysis is a popular bibliometric approach for analyzing large bodies of scientifc knowledge. Existing visulation tools often generate citation-driven science maps to allow a user to quickly understand and analyze trends and patterns in scientific literature. Traditionally, a single science map is used as a basemap on which a thematic overlay can be superimposed. However, a drawback of single-map overlays is that they do not offer intuitive ways to simultaneously depict sources and targets of citations. To overcome this deficiency a Drexel researcher, Dr. Chaomei Chen, has developed a novel dual-map display that introduces two basemaps to support the simulataneous visualization of both source and target citations. Citation links between base maps are depicted as arcs or sin-wave-like curves connecting the source and target of a link. Dual map analysis enables several types of visual analytic tasks. For example, a user may identify disciplinary regions in which an institution has its competencies by finding the regions with the most citation launching pads on the citing portion of the map. In addition, a user may determine whether a group of publications is integrating prior work from multiple disciplines by tracing the citation arcs to the number of concentrated landing areas branching off from the origin.
Applications
- Knowledge Domain Visualization
- Competitor Intelligence
- Patent Research
- Gap Analytics
- R&D Decision Making
Advantages
- Supports rapid visual identification of disciplinary regions in which an institution or multiple institutions have their competencies
- Allows visual determination of whether a cluster of publications is integrating prior work from multiple disciplines
References
Chaomei Chen, Loet Leydesdorff (2014) Patterns of connections and movements in dual-map overlays: A new method of publication portfolio analysis. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 65(2), 334-351.
Commercialization Opportunities