Since Dimensions launched one year ago, we’ve worked in close partnership with the scientometrics community to support their research.
Researchers worldwide are already using Dimensions’ rich, interlinked data on publications, citations, patents, grants, policy documents, clinical trials, authors, institutions and subject areas to make new discoveries about the structures of science.
In this post, I’ll share a selection of research and tools from 2018 that use Dimensions’ data for scientometric analyses.
I’ll also share exciting news about the newly-launched Dimensions Scientometrics User Group, a free-to-join program that connects researchers with expertise and free data for noncommercial scientometrics research.
Dimensions-powered research published in 2018
- Altmetria e a análise das condições de interação em torno de artigos sobre políticas públicas: uma incursão metodológica (Altmetrics and the analysis of the interaction conditions around articles on public policies: a methodological incursion), Atas da 9ª Conferência Luso Brasileira sobre Acesso Aberto (Minutes of the 9th Luso-Brazilian Conference on Open Access), Thaiane Moreira de Oliveira, Ronaldo Araújo, Janderson Pereira Toth, Michael Taylor. 2018. Uses Dimensions and Altmetric data to analyze discourse around open access articles, identifying a new demographic that uses research to make political arguments on social networks.
- Dimensions: re-discovering the ecosystem of scientific information, El Profesional de la Información, Enrique Orduña-Malea, Emilio Delgado-López-Cózar. March 21, 2018 doi: 10.3145/epi.2018.mar.21
Compares Dimensions’ LIS subject area coverage to Scopus and Google Scholar. - Dimensions: A competitor to Scopus and the Web of Science?, Journal of Informetrics, Mike Thelwall. 12(2), 430-435. doi: 10.1016/j.joi.2018.03.006 (preprint) (dataset)
Compares Dimensions’ food science subject area coverage to Scopus - Cascading Citation Expansion, Chaomei Chen. Journal of Information Science Theory and Practice, 6 (2). doi: https://doi.org/10.1633/
JISTaP.2018.6.2.1
“Building on the open API of Dimensions, we integrate cascading citation expansion functions in CiteSpace and demonstrate how one may benefit from these new capabilities. In conclusion, cascading citation expansion has the potential to improve our understanding of the structure and dynamics of scientific knowledge.” - International Cooperation Networks of the BRICS Bloc. SocArXiv, Thaiane M.de Oliveira, Sofia de Albuquerque, Janderson P. Toth, and Debora Z. Bello. August 4 2018. doi: 10.31235/osf.io/b6x43. 2018. (blog post)
A study on international cooperation among Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa in the last five years through the Dimensions platform, based on the incidence of international co-authoring and co-financing of research agencies. - Food, trade, and the environment. Environmental Research Letters, David Seekell, Paolo D’Odorico, and Graham K MacDonald. September 27 2018. doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/aae065
Uses Dimensions data to perform a subject area analysis of articles published in a themed Focus Issue of Environmental Research Letters. - Field classification of publications in Dimensions: a first case study testing its reliability and validity, Scientometrics, Lutz Bornmann. October 2018. doi: 10.1007/s11192-018-2855-y
Uses the author’s body of work in the science of science discipline to explore Dimensions subject area coverage. - Response to the letter ‘Field classification of publications in Dimensions: a first case study testing its reliability and validity’ Scientometrics, Christian Herzog, Brian Kierkegaard Lunn. October 2018. doi: 10.1007/s11192-018-2854-z
Explanation of how Dimensions subject area coverage works, offers a response to findings of Bornmann paper. - Sexual differentiation of microglia. Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology, Alessandro Villa, Sara Della Torre, Adriana Maggi. November 24 2018. doi: 10.1016/j.yfrne.2018.11.003
As part of a larger study on microglia, uses Dimensions data to illustrate the growth of related research since 2000.
Scientometric Analysis and Visualization Tools
Dimensions has partnered with (and even created!) bibliometrics analysis tools in the past year, which enable easier data visualization and analysis.
- VOSviewer for creating co-authorship networks and citation-based network visualizations using Dimensions data
- CiteSpace for visualizing patterns and trends in scientific literature using Dimensions data
- Webometric Analyst for analyzing bibliometric data from Dimensions, as well as webometric and altmetric data from Altmetric
- Python package NetworkX and the Dimensions API to create institutional collaboration networks – check out our Jupyter notebook for the source code and a step-by-step guide on our blog
Join the Dimensions Scientometrics User Group
Late last year, we invited a select group of researchers to join our Scientometrics User Group: an exclusive worldwide community for those who use Dimensions data to power their own analyses. I’m pleased to report that the “Dimensions SUG”, as I like to call it, is over 100 members strong and now open to join!
The Dimensions SUG is free and open to scholars from all disciplines, at all stages of their careers. SUG members can apply to receive no-cost access to Dimensions data (including use of our powerful API) for approved noncommercial research projects.
Sign up here to join the Dimensions Scientometrics User Group. You can also register for the upcoming February 28th “Intro to using Dimensions data for research” webinar (15:00 GMT/10 AM EST) to learn more before committing.
Questions? Email me at s.konkiel@digital-science.com for more information.
Citation network image from “Cascading Citation Expansion” by Chaomei Chen