Interactive Overlays: A New Method for Generating Global Journal Maps from Web-of-Science Data

TL;DR

This paper introduces an interactive overlay method for visualizing global journal relationships based on citation data, enabling detailed analysis of scientific fields and interdisciplinarity.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel interactive overlay technique using VOSViewer for mapping journals based on citation relations, with customizable options and practical examples.

Findings

Effective visualization of journal citation networks

Assessment of interdisciplinarity potential

Comparison of mapping algorithms and tools

Abstract

Recent advances in methods and techniques enable us to develop an interactive overlay to the global map of science based on aggregated citation relations among the 9,162 journals contained in the Science Citation Index and Social Science Citation Index 2009 combined. The resulting mapping is provided by VOSViewer. We first discuss the pros and cons of the various options: cited versus citing, multidimensional scaling versus spring-embedded algorithms, VOSViewer versus Gephi, and the various clustering algorithms and similarity criteria. Our approach focuses on the positions of journals in the multidimensional space spanned by the aggregated journal-journal citations. A number of choices can be left to the user, but we provide default options reflecting our preferences. Some examples are also provided; for example, the potential of using this technique to assess the interdisciplinarity of organizations and/or document sets.