Research Topics Map: rtopmap

TL;DR

The paper introduces rtopmap, an interactive visualization system that maps worldwide research topics using data from Google Scholar, enabling analysis of research areas, institutional strengths, and document associations.

Contribution

It presents a novel system for visualizing and analyzing global research topics through a large, interactive map based on Google Scholar data, supporting various analytical overlays.

Findings

Mapped over 35,000 research topics with 646,000 co-occurrence edges.

Enabled visualization of institutional strengths and scholarly output.

Provided interactive features for detailed exploration of research landscapes.

Abstract

In this paper we describe a system for visualizing and analyzing worldwide research topics, {\tt rtopmap}. We gather data from google scholar academic research profiles, putting together a weighted topics graph, consisting of over 35,000 nodes and 646,000 edges. The nodes correspond to self-reported research topics, and edges correspond to co-occurring topics in google scholar profiles. The {\tt rtopmap} system supports zooming/panning/searching and other google-maps-based interactive features. With the help of map overlays, we also visualize the strengths and weaknesses of different academic institutions in terms of human resources (e.g., number of researchers in different areas), as well as scholarly output (e.g., citation counts in different areas). Finally, we also visualize what parts of the map are associated with different academic departments, or with specific documents (such as research papers, or calls for proposals). The system itself is available at \url{http://rtopmap.arl.arizona.edu/}.