Wikinformetrics: Construction and description of an open Wikipedia knowledge graph dataset for informetric purposes

TL;DR

This paper introduces an open knowledge graph and a methodological framework for large-scale informetric analysis of Wikipedia, comparing its features with scientific publications and demonstrating its analytical potential through a case study.

Contribution

It presents a novel open Wikipedia knowledge graph and a comprehensive framework for informetric analysis, enabling new large-scale research opportunities.

Findings

Comparison of Wikipedia pages with scientific publications highlights similarities and differences.

A new set of metrics for analyzing Wikipedia from various dimensions.

A case study demonstrating the analytical potential of the dataset and metrics.

Abstract

Wikipedia is one of the most visited websites in the world and is also a frequent subject of scientific research. However, the analytical possibilities of Wikipedia information have not yet been analyzed considering at the same time both a large volume of pages and attributes. The main objective of this work is to offer a methodological framework and an open knowledge graph for the informetric large-scale study of Wikipedia. Features of Wikipedia pages are compared with those of scientific publications to highlight the (di)similarities between the two types of documents. Based on this comparison, different analytical possibilities that Wikipedia and its various data sources offer are explored, ultimately offering a set of metrics meant to study Wikipedia from different analytical dimensions. In parallel, a complete dedicated dataset of the English Wikipedia was built (and shared) following a relational model. Finally, a descriptive case study is carried out on the English Wikipedia dataset to illustrate the analytical potential of the knowledge graph and its metrics.