Mapping Diversity of Publication Patterns in the Social Sciences and Humanities: An Approach Making Use of Fuzzy Cluster Analysis
Article Category: Research Paper
Published Online: Sep 01, 2017
Page range: 33 - 59
Received: Aug 02, 2016
Accepted: Aug 24, 2016
DOI: https://doi.org/10.20309/jdis.201624
Keywords
© 2016 Frederik T. Verleysen, Arie Weeren
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.
Purpose
To present a method for systematically mapping diversity of publication patterns at the author level in the social sciences and humanities in terms of publication type, publication language and co-authorship.
Design/methodology/approach
In a follow-up to the hard partitioning clustering by Verleysen and Weeren in 2016, we now propose the complementary use of fuzzy cluster analysis, making use of a membership coefficient to study gradual differences between publication styles among authors within a scholarly discipline. The analysis of the probability density function of the membership coefficient allows to assess the distribution of publication styles within and between disciplines.
Findings
As an illustration we analyze 1,828 productive authors affiliated in Flanders, Belgium. Whereas a hard partitioning previously identified two broad publication styles, an international one
Research limitations
The dataset used is limited to one country for the years 2000–2011; a cognitive classification of authors may yield a different result from the affiliation-based classification used here.
Practical implications
Our method is applicable to other bibliometric and research evaluation contexts, especially for the social sciences and humanities in non-Anglophone countries.
Originality/value
The method proposed is a novel application of cluster analysis to the field of bibliometrics. Applied to publication patterns at the author level in the social sciences and humanities, for the first time it systematically documents intra-disciplinary diversity.