Journal
JOURNAL OF INFORMETRICS
Volume 10, Issue 4, Pages 1178-1195Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2016.10.006
Keywords
Bibliographic coupling network; Bibliometric network; Co-authorship network; Co-citation network; Fractional counting; Full counting
Funding
- Centre for Science and Technology Studies of Leiden University as awardee of a Jose Castillejo grant - Spanish Ministry of Education [CAS15/00178]
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The analysis of bibliometric networks, such as co-authorship, bibliographic coupling, and co-citation networks, has received a considerable amount of attention. Much less attention has been paid to the construction of these networks. We point out that different approaches can be taken to construct a bibliometric network. Normally the full counting approach is used, but we propose an alternative fractional counting approach. The basic idea of the fractional counting approach is that each action, such as co-authoring or citing a publication, should have equal weight, regardless of for instance the number of authors, citations, or references of a publication. We present two empirical analyses in which the full and fractional counting approaches yield very different results. These analyses deal with co-authorship networks of universities and bibliographic coupling networks of journals. Based on theoretical considerations and on the empirical analyses, we conclude that for many purposes the fractional counting approach is preferable over the full counting one. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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