An Interactive System forAn Interactive System forCO-Citation VisualizationCO-Citation Visualization

Xia Lin

Jan Buzydlowski

Howard D. White

Drexel University

Philadelphia, PA, USA

Co-CitationCo-Citation a method for measuring the common

intellectual interest between a pair of documents

Small & Griffith (in 70’s)

Later documentsA, B, C, …

Document 1 cites

Document 2

?

cites

Author Co-Citation Author Co-Citation Insights into the intellectual structure of

science and scholarship through citations over time.

White & Griffith (in 80’s)

AuthorsA, B, C, …

Author 1 cites

Author 2

?

cites

Author as an IconAuthor as an IconAn author– represents a person;– represents a body of writings.

A group of related authors – comes to stand for a body of ideas– represents subject relationships of

documents.

A Map of Information Scientists A Map of Information Scientists

Map StructuresMap Structures

Retrieval

Document

User

Citation(Bibliometrics)

(Communication)(IR theories)

(Online retrieval)

(General)

Data for Information Scientists MapData for Information Scientists Map

120 highly cited authors in Information Science

Co-citation count of every pair of the 120 authors

A matrix of 120 by 120 of their co-citation counts, converted to Pearson r’s

Data CollectionData CollectionLabor-intensive process– Decided who are highest-cited authors

in the field– Conducted thousands of DIALOG

searches on paired authors• C(120, 2) =7140 searches

– Processed data in a spreadsheet White and McCain (JASIS, April 1998)

New Interactive SystemNew Interactive SystemThe challenges– To process data and generate the map

instantly. – To provide interactive functions for the

viewer to explore the map and the underlying data (with search engines).

– To provide different maps (with different mapping algorithms).

The DatabaseThe Database– Institute for Scientific Information– Arts and Humanities Database (AHCI)• 1988 - 1997• 1.26 million records

– BRS search engines

The Old InterfaceThe Old Interface

System StructureSystem Structure

BRS Search Engines

Web Server Java ServletsWeb Interface

Java Applet

MappingProcedures

cgi

The New InterfaceThe New Interface

Authors co-cited most often with Authors co-cited most often with PLATOPLATO

Kruskal, Joseph B.Kruskal, Joseph B.

Kruskal, Clyde P.Kruskal, Clyde P.

Future DevelopmentFuture Development

Adding different maps– Pathfinders–Multidimensional scaling– Hierarchical clustering

Adding more interactions with search engines–Mining and exploration tools– Subject labels