Dataset Information

Collaboration and topic switches in science.

ABSTRACT: Collaboration is a key driver of science and innovation. Mainly motivated by the need to leverage different capacities and expertise to solve a scientific problem, collaboration is also an excellent source of information about the future behavior of scholars. In particular, it allows us to infer the likelihood that scientists choose future research directions via the intertwined mechanisms of selection and social influence. Here we thoroughly investigate the interplay between collaboration and topic switches. We find that the probability for a scholar to start working on a new topic increases with the number of previous collaborators, with a pattern showing that the effects of individual collaborators are not independent. The higher the productivity and the impact of authors, the more likely their coworkers will start working on new topics. The average number of coauthors per paper is also inversely related to the topic switch probability, suggesting a dilution of this effect as the number of collaborators increases.

SUBMITTER: Venturini S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10787828 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Collaboration and topic switches in science.

Venturini Sara S Sikdar Satyaki S Rinaldi Francesco F Tudisco Francesco F Fortunato Santo S

Scientific reports 20240113 1

Collaboration is a key driver of science and innovation. Mainly motivated by the need to leverage different capacities and expertise to solve a scientific problem, collaboration is also an excellent source of information about the future behavior of scholars. In particular, it allows us to infer the likelihood that scientists choose future research directions via the intertwined mechanisms of selection and social influence. Here we thoroughly investigate the interplay between collaboration and t ...[more]

PMID: 38218965

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundIn the last few decades, mobile technologies have been widely adopted in the field of health care services to improve the accessibility to and the quality of health services received. Mobile health (mHealth) has emerged as a field of research with increasing attention being paid to it by scientific researchers and a rapid increase in related literature being reported.ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to analyze the current state of research, including publication outputs, in the field of mHealth to uncover in-depth collaboration characteristics and topic burst of international mHealth research.MethodsThe authors collected literature that has been published in the last 20 years and indexed by Thomson Reuters Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC). Various statistical techniques and bibliometric measures were employed, including publication growth analysis; journal distribution; and collaboration network analysis at the author, institution, and country collaboration level. The temporal visualization map of burst terms was drawn, and the co-occurrence matrix of these burst terms was analyzed by hierarchical cluster analysis and social network analysis.ResultsA total of 2704 bibliographic records on mHealth were collected. The earliest paper centered on mHealth was published in 1997, with the number of papers rising continuously since then. A total of 21.28% (2318/10,895) of authors publishing mHealth research were first author, whereas only 1.29% (141/10,895) of authors had published one paper. The total degree of author collaboration was 4.42 (11,958/2704) and there are 266 core authors who have collectively published 53.07% (1435/2704) of the total number of publications, which means that the core group of authors has fundamentally been formed based on the Law of Price. The University of Michigan published the highest number of mHealth-related publications, but less collaboration among institutions exits. The United States is the most productive country in the field and plays a leading role in collaborative research on mHealth. There are 5543 different identified keywords in the cleaned records. The temporal bar graph clearly presents overall topic evolutionary process over time. There are 12 important research directions identified, which are in the imbalanced development. Moreover, the density of the network was 0.007, a relatively low level. These 12 topics can be categorized into 4 areas: (1) patient engagement and patient intervention, (2) health monitoring and self-care, (3) mobile device and mobile computing, and (4) security and privacy.ConclusionsThe collaboration of core authors on mHealth research is not tight and stable. Furthermore, collaboration between institutions mainly occurs in the United States, although country collaboration is seen as relatively scarce. The focus of research topics on mHealth is decentralized. Our study might provide a potential guide for future research in mHealth.

Dataset Information

Collaboration and topic switches in science.

Publications

Collaboration and topic switches in science.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets