The Rich Get Richer: Studying Scholarly Impact in the Emerging Field of Information Visualization

Ke, Weimao

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/15274 Copy

Description

Title

The Rich Get Richer: Studying Scholarly Impact in the Emerging Field of Information Visualization

Author(s)

Ke, Weimao

Issue Date

2009-02-08

Keyword(s)

• scholarly impact
• citation analysis
• the rich get richer
• regression
• citation network
• preferrential attachment

Abstract

"The paper reports on an investigation of the-rich-get-richer e ect of scholarly communication in the emerging eld of Information Visualization. A dataset containing 31 years' representative publications is used to analyze scholarly im- pact in terms of citation scores. Rich factors, i.e., variables that carry previous citation scores, are closely examined and their contributions to future citations measured. Based on previous research on citation patterns, a general log-linear regression model is proposed and applied to the prediction of scholarly impact using the rich factors. The analysis sup- ports the\preferential attachment""property, or the-rich-get- richer phenomenon, in citation networks and reveals that the number of citations one has received largely explains the magnitude of future rewards. The implication is that citation-based evaluation of scholarly impact is biased. The large coe cient of determination (R2) found in the current analysis, to be veri ed in other domains, is too signi cant to ignore. This invites thoughts on how Information Science domains like InfoVis can maintain research momentum by rewarding recognized scholars while encouraging new players and novelty."

Type of Resource

text

Language

en

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/15274

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