Trends in scientific research in Online Information Review. Part 2. Mapping the scientific knowledge through bibliometric and social network analyses

Abstract: Objective. The purpose of this work is to analyse the knowledge structure and trends in scientific research in the Online Information Reviews journal by bibliometric analysis of key words and social network analysis of co-words. Methods. Key words included in a set of 758 papers included in the Web of Science database from 2000 to 2014 were analysed. We conducted a subject analysis considering the key words assigned to papers. A social network analysis was also conducted to identify the number of co-occurrences between key words (co-words). The Pajek software was used to create and graphically visualize the networks. Results. Internet is the most frequent key word (n=219) and the most central in the network of co-words, strongly associated with Information retrieval, search engines, the World Wide Web, libraries and users Conclusions. Information science, as represented by Online Information Review in the present study, is an evolving discipline that draws on literature from a relatively wide range of subjects. Although Online Information Review appears to have well-defined and established research topics, the journal also changes rapidly to embrace new lines of research.