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Development of computer science disciplines: a social network analysis approach

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Abstract

In contrast to many other scientific disciplines, computer science considers conference publications. Conferences have the advantage of providing fast publication of papers and of bringing researchers together to present and discuss the paper with peers. Previous work on knowledge mapping focused on the map of all sciences or a particular domain based on ISI published Journal Citation Report (JCR). Although this data cover most of the important journals, it lacks computer science conference and workshop proceedings, which results in an imprecise and incomplete analysis of the computer science knowledge. This paper presents an analysis on the computer science knowledge network constructed from all types of publications, aiming at providing a complete view of computer science research. Based on the combination of two important digital libraries (DBLP and CiteSeerX), we study the knowledge network created at journal/conference level using citation linkage, to identify the development of sub-disciplines. We investigate the collaborative and citation behavior of journals/conferences by analyzing the properties of their co-authorship and citation subgraphs. The paper draws several important conclusions. First, conferences constitute social structures that shape the computer science knowledge. Second, computer science is becoming more interdisciplinary. Third, experts are the key success factor for sustainability of journals/conferences.

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Notes

  1. http://portal.acm.org/portal.cfm.

  2. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/dynhome.jsp.

  3. http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/∼ley/db/.

  4. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/.

  5. http://secondstring.sourceforge.net/.

  6. http://www.yworks.com/.

  7. http://academic.research.microsoft.com/.

  8. http://thomsonreuters.com/products_services/science/academic/impact_factor/.

  9. http://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/Publications/CEUR-WS/.

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Acknowledgments

This work has been supported by the Graduiertenkolleg (GK) “Software for mobile communication system”, RWTH Aachen University, the BIT Research School by RWTH Aachen University and the University of Bonn, and the EU FP7 IP ROLE. We would like to thank our colleagues for the fruitful discussions.

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  1. Information Systems and Database Technology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Ahornstr. 55, 52056, Aachen, Germany

    Manh Cuong Pham, Ralf Klamma & Matthias Jarke

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  1. Manh Cuong Pham
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  2. Ralf Klamma
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Correspondence to Manh Cuong Pham.

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Pham, M.C., Klamma, R. & Jarke, M. Development of computer science disciplines: a social network analysis approach. Soc. Netw. Anal. Min. 1, 321–340 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13278-011-0024-x

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