Quantifying the higher-order influence of scientific publications

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel method to measure the indirect, higher-order influence of scientific publications through citations, revealing that 42% of influence stems from these indirect effects and aiding in understanding interdisciplinary citation flows.

Contribution

The paper presents a new approach to quantify higher-order citation influence at the discipline level, extending beyond traditional first-order citation analysis.

Findings

42% of influence is from higher-order citations

Higher-order influence helps visualize citation flows among disciplines

Method improves understanding of interdisciplinarity in science

Abstract

Citation impact is commonly assessed using direct, first-order citation relations. We consider here instead the indirect influence of publications on new publications via citations. We present a novel method to quantify the higher-order citation influence of publications, considering both direct, or first-order, and indirect, or higher-order citations. In particular, we are interested in higher-order citation influence at the level of disciplines. We apply this method to the whole Web of Science data at the level of disciplines. We find that a significant amount of influence -- 42% -- stems from higher-order citations. Furthermore, we show that higher-order citation influence is helpful to quantify and visualize citation flows among disciplines, and to assess their degree of interdisciplinarity.