Development of Computer Science Disciplines - A Social Network Analysis Approach

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the computer science knowledge network using social network analysis of conference and journal publications from DBLP and CiteSeerX, revealing interdisciplinary trends and the importance of experts.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of computer science research by combining conference and journal data, highlighting the role of conferences and experts in the field's development.

Findings

Conferences form social structures shaping knowledge.

Computer science is increasingly interdisciplinary.

Experts are crucial for the sustainability of venues.

Abstract

In contrast to many other scientific disciplines, computer science considers conference publications. Conferences have the advantage of providing fast publication of papers and of bringing researchers together to present and discuss the paper with peers. Previous work on knowledge mapping focused on the map of all sciences or a particular domain based on ISI published JCR (Journal Citation Report). Although this data covers most of important journals, it lacks computer science conference and workshop proceedings. That results in an imprecise and incomplete analysis of the computer science knowledge. This paper presents an analysis on the computer science knowledge network constructed from all types of publications, aiming at providing a complete view of computer science research. Based on the combination of two important digital libraries (DBLP and CiteSeerX), we study the knowledge network created at journal/conference level using citation linkage, to identify the development of sub-disciplines. We investigate the collaborative and citation behavior of journals/conferences by analyzing the properties of their co-authorship and citation subgraphs. The paper draws several important conclusions. First, conferences constitute social structures that shape the computer science knowledge. Second, computer science is becoming more interdisciplinary. Third, experts are the key success factor for sustainability of journals/conferences.