Bibliometrix

Bibliometric is a term used to describe the quantitative study of the publication, dissemination, and use of scientific literature. It is a branch of scientometrics, which is the study of the quantitative aspects of science and technology.

Bibliometrix package provides various routines for importing bibliographic data from SCOPUS, Clarivate Analytics' Web of Science, PubMed, Digital Science Dimensions and Cochrane databases, performing bibliometric analysis and building data matrices for co-citation, coupling, scientific collaboration analysis and co-word analysis.

bibliometrix is a unique tool, developed in the statistical computing and graphic R language, according to a logical bibliometric workflow. R is highly extensible because it is an object-oriented and functional programming language, and therefore is pretty easy to automate analyses and create new functions. As it has an open-software nature, it is also easy to get help from the users’ community, mainly composed by prominent statisticians. Therefore, bibliometrix is flexible and can be rapidly upgraded and can be integrated with other statistical R-packages. That why, it is useful in a constantly changing science such as bibliometrics.

Bibliometrics can be used to:

  • Measure the impact of research: Bibliometric can be used to measure the impact of research by looking at the number of citations a research paper has received.

  • Identify emerging trends: Bibliometric can be used to identify emerging trends by looking at the number of papers that have been published on a particular topic in recent years.

  • Map the landscape of a research field: Bibliometric can be used to map the landscape of a research field by looking at the relationships between different research papers, authors, and institutions.

  • Identify key players: Bibliometric can be used to identify key players in a research field by looking at the number of papers they have published, the number of citations they have received, and the number of collaborations they have formed.

There are a variety of tools that can be used for bibliometric analysis, such as VOSviewer, CiteSpace, and Gephi.

Here are some of the advantages of using bibliometric analysis:

  • Quantitative: Bibliometric analysis is a quantitative approach to studying research. This means that it is based on data and statistics, which can be used to make objective and informed decisions.

  • Widely used: Bibliometric analysis is a widely used tool in the research community. This means that there is a lot of support and documentation available, as well as a large community of users who can provide help and advice.

  • Flexible: Bibliometric analysis is a flexible tool that can be used to study a variety of research topics. This means that it can be used to answer a variety of research questions.

Here are some of the disadvantages of using bibliometric analysis:

  • Can be time-consuming: Bibliometric analysis can be time-consuming, especially if you are working with a large dataset.

  • Requires technical skills: Bibliometric analysis requires some technical skills to use.

  • Not always accurate: Bibliometric analysis is not always accurate, as it is based on data that is collected from the scientific literature. This data can be inaccurate or incomplete.

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